Is my team allowed to use pneumatic tanks as a counter balance, if there is no pistons on the robot. Meaning no pneumatic actuated parts on the robot.
It should be fine, it is an official vex part and it isn’t going to fall off. i think your Good!
I’ll second that. It is definitely legal to use a VEX air tank as counterweight, regardless of if you are using it to hold compressed air or not.
However the two tank limit might still apply.
I would also think so. Don’t use more than two for counterweight.
From what <R18> states, it appears that you can use more than two if you can prove theat they are not containing pressurized air for a pneumatics system. That is just my interpretation of it, but ask on the official Q&A if you want to use more than 2 as a counterweight and aren’t sure.
(Note: I interpreted this way as you must prove you are not violating the intent/spirit of the rule)
I’m not 100% sure but I would think 2-tanks means 2-tanks. It would be the same thing as someone using 10-20 extra 393 motors on their robot as counterweight as long as they aren’t hooked to the Cortex right…;)
I’m betting this doesn’t fly with Karthik.
If you’re wanting to use Pneumatics gear for a counterweight, why not zip tie the steel end nuts onto the robot, the’ll be less bulky and won’t cause any issues with the 2 tank rule.
Also, finding any kind of way to contain a large number of nuts and bolts could also work well.
Just my $0.02
For a comuterweights we use the U shaped brackets that you can use on linear slides or as batterie holders.
You could also potentially ziptie together a bunch of scrap metal cuttoff pieces.
This picture is terrible, it was the only one I could find and I had to zoom in and crop it.
But…on the left, we had a robot that used the batteries as counterweight. (we had a power expander). On the right, we used a small piece of plate metal, and put a ton of long screws through it from the bottom, then filled the screws up with nuts. Quite heavy.
Of course, this is not ideal, your robot SHOULD have a well placed center of gravity so that unnecessary weight is not needed. Extra weight only makes your drive work harder.
A pile of screws is definitely much easier than just stacking a couple steel plates.
Never said it was easier my friend! Just sharing what we have done.
Could you fill an empty Air Tank with a bunch of little screws???
Silly, but it would add lots and lots of weight.
Assuming you could get them in, it seems like it should be legal. That being said, I doubt you could fit them in and you couldn’t cut open the tank to get it in because
However you could theoretically blenderize screws and pour them in as a powder. Please somebody do that, it’d be hilarious.
If you took the fitting off the reservior screws like those that go in collars could easily fit as well as motor screws and other small legal screws. It could create an incredibly dense part.
I like that idea. Just use all the bits of metal that are bent, drilled, or cut too small to be useable, grind them to a powder, and densely pack it into the pneumatic tanks. Imagine how heavy that would be.