Woodpecker was one of the robots that we built for the 2012 Vex Robotics World Championships College Challenge, and played as part of the AURA team which placed 4th after qualifications and finished as the finalists.
Woodpecker was the extension of one of our first interaction robot designs, Carwash. Carwash was designed to be an interaction robot which colour sorted objects in the interaction zone, and passed to the isolation robot. We later realised that it was better to also have the robot scoring in the closest two isolation 30″ goals. For this design, we used what we know works: A very long six bar. Furthermore, we had recently aquirred mecanum wheels, and strafe was a good bonus for this robot as it would be able to easily score both 30″ goals autonomously.
Drive: 8 Motor drive (6x 269, 2 x 393, 1.2 Drive ratio)
Lift: 2 x 393, 1:7
Intake: Side suckers with folding out front ramp, holds 5 – 6 objects.
Scores two closest 30” goals in the isolation zone from the interaction zone in autonomous with 1:7 lift
8 motor drive with strafe, 1.2 drive ratio with mecanum
Video of Woodpecker driving around the lab: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJdOjerj1vY
Videos of Woodpcker playing in matches at the World Champs: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0B00CF593F9116E9