okay guys I was wondering what kinds of scoring ideas you may have. I think that for gateway, using a modified clean sweep or even certain elevation designs would work well. Let me know what you guys have.
My first idea was to use an Elevation-style tank tread system, that could expand to hold more game objects. I was planning on lifting it by some kind of 4-bar-like linkage, or by a combination of a single-arm and linear slides.
~Jordan
did you see this thread? https://vexforum.com/showthread.php?p=185671#post185671
or are we talking about something different?
specifically, i was asking about the scoring in general and not the scoring mechanism, but i assume that we will see a lot of tank tread/ intake roller designs. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas after that
a tension loaded roller claw!
able to easily “expand” on rotational axles to fit the sideways barrels 
But still held together for the standard barrel orientation. Course, I haven’t gotten to prototype it yet, so it could be the worse idea in the world!
Your language is fuzzy. You say you are not talking about mechs, then you talk about mechs. A trapezoidal Roundup Claw looks like a good mech to me.
Scoring in general: put Gobs (Game Objects) in goals; This is an essential task to avoid losing the game.
Floor goals, Note: Gobs must be touching the floor, no stacking.
- push Gobs in like a dozer or BLT.
- pick Gobs up elsewhere and set them down in the floor goal.
- roll Gobs in from a distance, and hope they don’t bounce out again
Circular goals:
- pick up Gob, raise above the goal, let go; gravity does the rest.
- pick up Gob, raise above the goal, lower gently from the top
- pick up Gob, raise above the goal, lower gently by arm sliding between the poles, helps to stack Gobs neatly
- balance a Gob on the tip of a pole
- pick up Gob, raise 3x higher than the top of goal, drop with a horizontal vector, so Gob bounce off the foam floor with elastic coefficient of > 33%, and lands in a goal
- as above, but using a catapult to throw the Gob to appropriate height
- as above, but aim directly at the goal, not bouncing off the floor first “nothing but net, ummm poles”
- pick up Gobs, stack them carefully in your mech so you are only touching the bottom one, and hold the stack partially over a goal at end of game. All Gobs other than the one you are touching will count as scored. This is interesting because if your robot has a 30" reach, it can make a 30" high stack on the floor, in front of a full 20" high goal, then pick up the entire stack by the bottom piece and hold it over the 20" goal, for a total of 50" of Gobs in one goal. Be sure to include a doubler barrel, but be sure not to be touching it.
Good luck to anyone who tries that…
As cool as this sounds, I’m not sure it’ll be practical, as scoring a vertical stack is fairly quick, and the risk you’re taking of them all touching your robot seems a bit too high.
I’m thinking about a vertical tank tread intake that can go above the goals and just drop the pieces out the bottom. This should be accurate and fast, and not to mention simple.
Now that’s **my **kind of robot! A fast, simple robot that works every time is a great goal for anyone.
Pneumatic claw intake except approaching from above the game pieces rather than the side. I’ve tried the tread roller intake and tread roller intake with rubber bands. It is a fast and simple mechanism.
The pneumatic claw is separate from the tread roller?
Keep in mind there will be a lot of objects on the field at the beginning of the match after the wall gets knocked over, so a vertical claw may have trouble picking up just one object if there are others close to it (if the claw is bulky, that is). I like the vertical claw because it’s more flexible than the horizontal one for this game (could pick up when objects are next to other things and descore if built right), but is its capacity only one object? The roller could probably hold more objects than a claw, but it would be harder to pick up objects, or would need two stages (I think…).
Did rubber bands work well for picking up/holding the barrels, because they’re pretty heavy and wouldn’t always be in the same orientation?
“The pneumatic claw is separate from the tread roller?”
Yes, it is a totally separate mechanism and runs on only pneumatic pistons.
Not too worried about all the chaos that occurs on the field, the pneumatic claw will basically serve the same function as a motorized roller intake except without the motors. So the claw will open, the lift lowers, the jaws of the claw go around the curvature of the game piece (or just clamps down on it). Next game piece it picks up will push the current game piece the claw is carrying further up the column. So in a way stacking it. Shooting for 3 game piece capacity to keep things simple atm.
The rubber bands worked well enough as long as your using the tank treads with the gray rubber grip on them it worked fine. Luckily the game pieces (the ball) have a rough texture that increases the friction between roller and game piece. Reason I’m going to try the pneumatic claw is to make programming much easier.
Are you guys going to attend Pan Pacific this year?
So it’s like a worm/snake thing. That sounds awesome, and as long as objects already inside it don’t interfere with intaking more items, it would be just as good as any intake I could imagine.
Can the claw pick up barrels in any orientation? That would make it even better than a tread intake.
Yes, we’re planning on going to Pan Pacific this year. See you there?
“So it’s like a worm/snake thing” Yea, i guess thats a pretty good way to describe it.
It should be able to pick up all the game pieces in any orientation since it envelopes the game piece when closing. I like it because it frees up motors so we can beef up our drive. Although our roller tread intake was able to take game pieces in any orientation as well.
Cool, I’ll see you guys there again! How many teams are you planning to bring (or allowed)?
The roller tread intake could pick up barrels from any orientation? Did it have the rubber flaps or just the flat high traction links and a flexible tread?
I think we’re only going to have 5 VEX teams this upcoming year, and all will probably be going, although I have no way of knowing for sure.
To be honest we didn’t have the game pieces yet so we improvised with plastic mayo jars without the label (the jar was slick). We ran two tests with the intake, the first with the jars as is, the second with the jars filled to about half a pound.
The intake was able to suck up the jars in any orientation, upright, on its side, rolling away (to some extent), and diagonal to the front plane of the intake. It was also able to consistently do this with jars already loaded above it.
For the intake I used a total of 6 15t tank tread sprockets in this order (there we two rollers in the whole intake and just copies of the other)
1st sprocket: sprocket wrapped in 15 green tank tread links
2nd sprocket: sprocket wrapped in 15 high friction rubber tread pad links
3rd sprocket: sprocket wrapped in 15 green tank tread links
I would totally use it in competition, except I’m obsessed with the 8 motor drive so I’m sticking to pneumatics. Our G team will most likely be using the intake.
The attached image below is 3008A first prototype. I think our G team will be using something like it. Just wondering, how many members does your team have?
Me and my Brother just came up with and CAD’d one of these earlier today. How do you think this would work without the high friction rubber treads (we don’t have any), but with cable ties attached to the tracks instead (like most elevation bots had)?
Also, I think I’m missing something really obvious here, but what is being gained by having multiple “intake rollers” (ie. more than one gear) on each side?
- but with cable ties attached to the tracks instead (like most elevation bots had)?*
You mean the zipties? Hmm, i didnt try it with zip ties, but i think if you use them, perhaps cutting them to half length they would play the ball toward the intake and as long as you could lower the intake it should be able to suck it in. Using just the green treads should work as well as long as you can keep some tension.
However, something that you could definitely do that I’m pretty confident will work is wrap the treads with rubber bands or the vex latex tubing.
Also, I think I’m missing something really obvious here, but what is being gained by having multiple “intake rollers” (ie. more than one gear) on each side?
Do you mean the actual gears (like the 60t and 12t connecting to the motor?) If you are talking about those I used those just so i could position the motor inside the intake so it didn’t get in the way of the 4bar linkage. If you position it on the outside its just asking to get hit and doesn’t look symmetrical.
Now if your asking why i have six rollers total, I’ve actually never tried it with just one roller, but the purpose of having so many rollers was to keep the barrels on its side while inside the intake. That way it doesn’t get jumbled up. Another reason would be because if I’m sucking game pieces I wouldn’t have to rely solely on the single roller but the other rollers to guide it in. It provides more surface area to make contact with the game pieces.
Probably the most important reason is because it keeps the long shaft rigid. By putting only a single roller in the center I would have around 2 inches at least on both ends to bend or pop out of the bearings.
Thanks for the fast and thorough response!
Yes, I meant zip ties, my team, and in fact New Zealand teams in general seem to call them cable ties more often… Odd, considering the uses beyond tying cables are limitless…
Aaaaaanyway, we were planning on using the large, thick zip ties, and cutting them off a few inches long, so they dont get tangled etc., and hopefully remain more rigid to provide more lifting force.
Another option would be to have just green tank tread on the gears and pull the 2 sides together with rubber band or the like.
When you said to wrap the treads with rubber band/latex, I assume you mean to add extra grip to the rollers, right? If so, thanks for the idea. If the zip ties don’t work, we will definitely try this!
And, yes I meant, why did you have 6 rollers in total. Does seem like a good idea to stop the barrel changing orientation when entering/leaving the manipulator.
Also, I can’t quite see, how many motors do you have driving the intake, and how are they geared. For my team I was personally thinking of only 1 motor driving if possible, probably geared slightly for power. Don’t know whether this will be strong enough, but we are running low on motors… 4 on our lift, 3-5 on our drive, and one for a corner descoring mechanism if we can spare it.
lol np, this was my first time hearing cable ties actually.
On the intake there are two 3 wire motors. I tried linking the whole intake onto one motor, but thats making things too complicated and messy. The motors are geared 1:1. Its set up like this
(Motor)12t-60t-12t(roller)
You will probably also see teams using the black rollers for their intakes. That was the very first material i tried out for the intake and it sucks. When geared at 1:1 the larger bore roller intake that i showed a picture of is much much better (a lot faster). I wouldn’t worry much about torque.
Are you going for tank drive? What is your corner mechanism for (i think descoring is illegal)?
I personally am a fan for building very strong/efficient mechanisms. How I try, and see many teams accomplish this is they build two different actuators at the most (arm, and claw for example). They then distribute the motors amongst their drive, arm, and claw.
For Roundup we only invested motors in our lift and drive, splitting our total numbers only by two allowed us to do things like lift the goals and push robots out of the way. So i would suggest building only a couple mechanisms at the most (slow is ok, reliability should be priority) instead of stretching motors.
Objects can be descored legally if they are not completely inside the goal or if they are in a floor (corner) goal. Our idea for a corner descorer was basically a piece of metal that folded down and then pulled all of the objects out of the corner. Rather hard to explain.
Our robot has an H-Holonomic drive. We are debating whether to have 2 2-Wire motors on the main drive or 4 3-wires. Our “strafe” motor is running off only 1 3-Wire motor, meaning it is extremely slow, but it is only useful for fine adjustments anyway.
I don’t think I’m at liberty to divulge information about our lift (my team probably wants to keep it secret, lol), but it’s pretty epic, If it works completely (Its almost functional right now) then I’m pretty sure it will be a head turner =).
I would definitely be a fan of strong reliable systems also, but it’s really not feasible unless pneumatics are used for a manipulator. That way a 6-motor drive chain and 4 motor lift can be used.
We don’t have pneumatics right now, but they should be arriving in about 2 weeks, so hopefully our future robots will be considerably more solid.
I will be sure to update you on how our intake prototyping goes once I get back to school on Tuesday, and thanks for the help!