So this year has been fairly sucssesful for our school and teams. But now were left woundering what we can do better?
Im starting this conversation to talk about new designs and all of the so far sucssesful ones, what can be improved, and what is currently the most limiting.
I mean, there are infinate possible designs, but if you ask me, side rollers need the love and enginuity this year most
So far the claw seems most sucssesful.
But if side rollers could be used in collecting stars you need a good way to score.
Yeah, i seems as if side rollers are due for a good cayapult pairing
We tried to do this for months. Didn’t turn out very well because of the power you need to launch so many stars with limited motors. It’s difficult to figure out how to do this while maintaining a high capacity. We have since moved to a claw, especially with claws picking up 8 stars now. Side rollers don’t really have an advantage over claws at this point.
This is true, but im saying a good innovation or two could mak3 them great again. #makesiderollersgreatagain
Have you tried using pneumatics?
Yes. We tried a lot of things, including a double ratchet slipgear catapult lift system. If that sounds complicated its because it was.
Not gunna lie, i tried really really hard to incorperwte a rachet into our robot, but i couldnt think of anything
I think the real problem with a catapult is compacity and speed. I couldent imagine a side roller catapult picking up 4stars and throwing them in the space of 3-4 seconds.
The current style of robot is a back dumper, but it can be countered by a well tuned 6bar forceing the back dumper to spin around and take longer.
Another problem ive been seeing is burnout on drive.
We used a ratchet and slip-gears to power our lift and catapult. 5 motors would power either the lift or the catapult depending on the direction they spun, and it used slip-gears to launch stars and lower the lift. It would have worked if the ratchets and pawls we used were stronger and had less tolerance, but we determined it was impossible with Vex parts. After that we moved to a pneumatic launcher, but that didn’t turn out because we could only really launch 2-3 stars. This would have been acceptable if claws weren’t scoring 8 in the time we did 3.
My robot is a Claw and is quite a successful and is one of the best bots at my league so I would say that the claw is the most successful design.
Yes, right now a claw is definitely the dominant design. Other designs just aren’t as effective at picking stars up and scoring them in the far zone.
Claws are very efficient and have a large maximum capacity for stars. They are also easy to build and aren’t overly complicated. A good claw can match almost every other form of intake.
@Crazycrabman Yes, I also say that the claw is the way to go especially when you have a good driver…
I agree, the claw is the best design for this season, especially when you use VEX Pneumatics. Our team has been designing and building our new robot during Winter Break. Hopefully it works.
-Ian Clavio, Co-Captain of Nerd Herd Team 687A
@Ian Clavio Actually my motor claw out performs most pneumatic claw. So I would not say Pneumatics are better…
@DylanMckenzie33 This is the king of assumptions and generalizations. You can’t say that because your claw is motorized and is performing well motorized claws are the best design. Unless you’ve explored all designs (which I doubt that you have) you can’t say that any design is truly the best.
@NightsRosario I did 10 hours worth of research I’m pretty sure I know what I’m talking about. Thus I am not making an assumption.