YOU GUYS DON’T KNOW HOW SATISFYING THIS IS
Why does YouTube love to make the thumbnail the frame with my hand in the corner
While that seems so much better and I’d love for that to be how the real platforms work, I probably wouldn’t recommend using this fix because you might end up being unprepared for platforms at real events where they aren’t allowed to fix the wobble in this way.
Obviously it would be best if an official fix was made or something to legally allow events to minimize the wobble in their platforms, but unless there is it’s probably best to practice with a wobble platform instead of a balanced one so you know your robot will be able to use platforms at events.
hopefully, they make this the official fix
That’s awesome! But, probably not very marketable as a standard fix. Is it possible and or successful to switch the standoff between the circular plate and the support to one size lower (.75" to .5" i believe)?
You bring a really good point, it’s not the usual stand-off fix that were used to. But I would partially disagree because the corner brackets are just what I had laying around, and out of all the teams attending I hope that someone has anything thin enough to fit under there and stay. We’ll just have to see what vex does.
As for the smaller stand-off, let me test that now and I’ll get right back to you.
Ok I tested it, here are the results:
-Unfortunately 0.5” standoffs saw no difference in wobble, I was hoping it would work.
However, I decided to test my lump theory while I was at it, here are the results (that I am very happy to see):
-With just the plate [so no stand-off at all] the platform still had wobble, which was worsened by not having a screw, this came as no surprise.
-With nothing at all [so no stand-off OR plate] there was no wobble whatsoever.
Of course we don’t want to have an unsupported block, but this further proves that there simply can’t be a lump or hill under that block if we want easy stability.
Alright, is it possible to achieve a similar outcome using either axles or zipties in place of the corner brackets? Might be janky, I’m not totally sure.
Anything that works. Like a cat, if it fits I sits.
I find the plates optimal because they’re the same thickness as the circle plate and they won’t bend either.
Possibly a steel 5x structure plate, a small stack of paper if you can get it in there. The corners were just next to me so I decided to shove em in there.
But I mean it when I say anything that works👍
I would love to see what other people could come up with, maybe more accessible to everyone, maybe better tucked away, just go nuts with it
Simple question, but did you have the metal disk part (275-5677-015) oriented the correct way up?
Absolutely, I do my best to maintain and make sure our team’s field is in top top shape.
Similar to the CU zipties, I would have to imagine that this would result in many events not having fields set up right.
Thank you for these video updates.
Random update:
I’m hesitant to say how but we managed to fit 11 rings on the alliance mobile goal, and we did actually manage 5 on the branches where none would fall off
Ok - specifics of side to side “wobble” of see-saw platform towers. Just received our game&field elements. The tower structures do have a wedge shape base which if unachored would make the towers appear to be wobbly. The field assembly describes were the bracing/anchor of towers occur to mitigate this side to side movement. One is to use the stand offs to brace tower to field perimeter (not ideal as field perimeter in the center of field typically exhibits the most variance as robots crash into them during competition, so not great “fixed” reference point. The second is the anchor on the outer tower of the see-saw platform which is a structure attacher to small plates beneath the field and the towers is assembled around the anchor. (n.b., this will be sure to be an issue for early season field builds as fields may be assembled with floating towers as it seems easier to preassemble the whole tower/see-saw platform … yes we did that! but not competition season yet). The anchors should be snug - but small round plats compared to previous season large plates, I would think latter pairs would be better than using field perimeter for anchoring towers.
So, I think early field builds “wobbly” cause may be only one tower properly anchored (say field perimeter), extremely wobbly are ppl who are assembling platform too quickly (like us) and not anchoring both towers.
A student asked me if I thought the field set up was easier - I was like sure - two see-saw pivot structures to attach to field - but I am wrong, this is more complex as it requires more assembly of field element subsystems - i.e., outer tower to floor anchor subsystem. Easier would be two floor plates and screw in tower to them and not have wobbly tower base in the first place - why not flat?
Season prediction - lots of early complaints about wobbly, then why are EPs not setting up fields same way, … then…
You know, this is a good sign of getting back to a normal season!
Best wishes for this competition season!
Second wobble - along see-saw axis - I would think the small base plates are a problem “1 screw holding it is nice” from Golf video (thanks - I watched it after to see how our HS team approached assembly and see what could go wrong). I am going to experiment tomorrow using previous games large plates to see if that reduces wobbly along see-saw axis.
The reason to check out different solutions is to expect that field setups at worlds might use anchoring of towers directly to raised platforms, as was the case during Skyrise Worlds. Or seeing EPs use better anchoring for their events. Problem is not having consistent competition setups which no one likes.
@Golf thanks for your video - my concern is that having a solution that is not compliant with game setup means that it will be inconsistent with going to an event using one system with another. I hope we can come up with a solution early on so all teams have same field consistency!
[update: follow up with regards to gap / wobbles / standoffs ]
It appears that the standoff that connects the tower to the plate is longer than the height of a foam tile and raises tower off the tile rather than lie flat against tile like tower near field perimeter.
I did an experiment and changed the standoff to be a shorter one 1/2". Used shorter screw on base plate side 1/4". This resulted in standoff from baseplate being flush with top of tile, and now the tower base lies flat against tiles.
The wobble - still there, but no gap underneath tower base - matches perimeter side.
As an EP, I think the platforms are going to be difficult to store between competitions as you really need to pull the two tiles under with the see-saw platform. So you will need 2x4’ flat area for each platform - have not figured out how to stack them. Taking platforms apart into smaller components is not going to be easy.
The platform with robots/towers is stable, the wobble goes away when loaded.
Wobble might be an issue for some when platform is unloaded.
That’s all I have for now.
and yes - still relates to thread topic - Wrong Standoffs here applies to base plate standoffs.
Also, what are those four washers for?
Can confirm that this was our solution as well
Another update not worth a whole video.
As platforms are used, they lose their “stick” and become more slick than it would be fresh out of the box.
So if you remember in my video I showed that some goals would stay on the platform even if it was tilted, but now that we’ve used ours a bit, the goals are starting to slide off. They can still hold it’s just easier for them to slide off now.