West Islip Robotechs - Autodesk Inventor Award 2007 Entry

The Design Process
[click on the images for a larger version]

After the kickoff in January we came together as a team and started to discuss the various designs that we came up with. We decided that there were two ways to play this game:

Place tubes on the rack.
Play defense for the match then somehow lift our alliance members above the ground at the end of the match.

We had several designs for each aspect of the game. These were the final four considered designs.

Tubes

“The Satellite Dish” Picture / Render

“The Satellite Dish” - This design used a spherical cage that rose to the many levels of the rack on a forklift-like system. The tubes would be gathered in the “cage” and then be pushed onto the rack.

Advantage: score tubes on all levels of the rack
Disadvantage: top heavy, no way for rising alliance members

"The Gripper" Picture / Render

“The Gripper” - This design used a pivoting arm with a mechanical gripper on the end of the arm. The point was to clamp on the tube and bring the tube horizontally over the end of the spider leg of the rack and release the tube.

Advantage: Simple to pick up tubes.
Disadvantage: Less control of the tube.

Ramp

"The Triangle" Picture / Render

“The Triangle” - This design folded up to form a sort of triangle. The ramps would fold down and alliance members would have two ways to access the center platform.

Advantage: Very accessible.
Disadvantage: No tube ability.

“The Kneeler” Picture / Render

“The Kneeler” - This design deploys a platform out one side and a ramp out the other creating a place for one robot to get up and another to follow behind also the middle section would kneel to make the ramp angle much more gradual.

Advantage: Extremely easy to get up (very small incline).
Disadvantage: No tube ability.