Servo - December 2013

the robot to ascend without losing its grip on the ribbon.

The last optimization we thought to do was to improve the balance of the robot. Even with the bracket and improved climber, the robot could still sometimes lose its grip because the center of gravity was not in line with the ribbon.

We rearranged the mounting bracket to place it low and hanging off the front of the robot. It was not so low that the bot couldn’t drive around, and it did significantly improve the bot’s balance and put its center of gravity in line with the ribbon. With these improvements in place, the robot was able to ascend and descend the ribbon with ease.

Elevator Music

This project demonstrates the major benefits that can come from even simple optimizations. We realize that many projects — especially those for competition — do not always have enough time for extensive trial and error, but even some very rudimentary real world testing can reveal problems that might not have been apparent on the drawing board.

We think this project has another important lesson. Esoteric challenges like ribbon climbing can be pretty daunting. Sometimes when you try to work out something completely on paper before physically putting it together, it might seem like an endless list of design decisions and obstacles threaten to confine your ideas to the four corners of the page.

We think that sometimes just going ahead and building something can be the best way to advance a project. We don’t mean to minimize the value of sketching things out and crunching the numbers, but a successful proof of concept can really jump-start a project. Nothing quite compares to the inspiration and excitement of actually building something. Once you do, you’ll see solutions and new designs that may not have jumped out at you from pencil and paper.

We think this project is a great example of that. Few things seem more esoteric than a space elevator, but with a basic VEX kit and some good old fashioned trial and error, we came up with a surprisingly effective mechanism that likely isn’t that far off from what you might see at future events. This isn’t the sort of thing that’s merely confined to competitions — there are truly exciting real world applications out there.