Spring based design(Scoring)

Task: Design a way to lift the ball tube

The ideas we have come up with for scoring the balls in the rolling goals have undergone many changes throughout the year. The basic plan was to somehow stack adjacent tubes on top of one another and raise the balls to maximum height and score in the highest tube. Today, we came up with the actual design:springs. Utilyzing springs, one will be attached to each tube and a simple servo with a toggle will push each attached spring and push the tubes on top of one another. This allows us to bring the balls to optimum height and score to secure the highest number of points possible.

Reflections:

Because the tube must be folded up to fit into the size restraint, our idea was to fold them up accordion style and then pull them up into a complete tube. We believed that having a series of motors or servos would be too bulky and hard to mount, so we experimented with bungee cords and springs to hold them up. Instead of having an action to pull up the tubes at the beginning, we would have one clip holding everything down, and releasing that clip in initialization. This would take less power and time, and less work to program.