Pneumatic Flipper Design Overview
Click here to go to the pictures of the Preliminary Design Robot.
The basic design of our Robot is a pneumatic flipper which utilizes a four bar linkage system to maximize the effectiveness of its lifting power.
This is composed of three movable segments attached in at two pivot points at the base of the robot. When stretched out, it almost becomes a square with pivot points at every corner. The main difference, however, is that the front segment will be longer than the one towards the rear of the robot. Because of this, as the arm raises, it pushes up and out in a trajectory that is very different than one with a single pivot point. The pneumatic cylinder is attached to the longer link in the front of the robot in order to provide rotational motion to raise the arm.
Our Robot has four active driving wheels; each with their own axle and chain.
The wheels on right side are in sync, but each side will be independent of the other - giving the robot tank-like driving maneuverability. We are using the 150 Magmotors which have an incredible amount of power with only 3 lb. of weight. Magmotors, along with their gearboxes, are designed exclusively for robot fighting and are built to be extremely durable. The motors are mounted directly the gearboxes which will reduce the high rpm's of the motors down to a reasonable amount. From there we are transferring power from the gearboxes to the wheel via four chains; one chain for each wheel. The reason for this is that if one chain fails then there we will still have a driving system.
which hit the top of your robot with 600 lbs. of force. We are using Lexan because it will absorb some of this energy better than metal without deforming. In order to keep the pneumatic arm lightweight, the vertical beams are going to be made out of a sheet of 3/8 thick aluminum. The tip is going to be made out of a wedge of aluminum which is welded to the vertical beams. The top section of the arm is going to be protected by a sheet of Lexan.
