Robots that can climb poles?

[discipleofshmoo]

i’ve found videos of other types of robots (not vex) elevating poles and was curious it would be possible (or even legal) for vex
video i watched for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgHD99JaXWo

[bantha]

I want to preface this with saying unless the game manual says it is illegal, then it is legal. VRC Over Under Game Manual - VEX Robotics
Second, it is probably possible mechanically, but from what I’ve noticed is that something like that would require a bit of work in order to line up with the elevation pole. Plus unless you PTO this to your drive you are going to have to build light in order for the motors to lift the robot’s weight.

Hope this helps!
- Henry 344E

[Skibub28]

I would sure hope it’s legal, otherwise the refs have been letting my team break the rules at all the competitions we’ve been to.

/s

[benjqu]

Adding on to bantha, it does require some complexity both with the design of how you will climb up the pole along with how you will align with the elevation bar. And yes, you probably will need to PTO to drive. Right now, a lot of people are hanging/parking which means that climbing might not be a big benefit, but that’s just my opinion. One important thing to note is that you cannot touch the yellow cap on the top of the bar if you want to count as elevated, along with the other criteria.
Hope this helps!
-sofi

[Gigahertz.t]

Hang mech design

I don’t have the diagram on me, but one of the plans we came up with was having flex wheels in the middle underside of the robot and pto them to our drivetrain. When the endgame starts, our robot would drive up to the pole, push and rotate itself 90 deg. against the pole, have a flex wheel flip out, and “drive up” the pole.

We do SkillsUSA, so at nationals when they change the rubric for points, elevation is going to be worth more than a normal skills run.
We plan to start building this around February-March