05 - Rope Climbing Robot
Team Members:
Parker Burton, Ananya Chintalapudi, Megan Hummel
Background:
Our team was inspired for this project by a video of a university competition where teams designed a robot to traverse a horizontally suspended rope. We also found a video of a small Lego robot that climbs up a rope through elastic bands and human actuation of the rope. We wanted to adapt this idea so the robot is driven by a motor and can climb the rope without human assistance. This idea is useful because it could be adapted to transport materials vertically, which could be useful for industries like mining and construction.
Summary/Overview: Our project is making a robot that can independently climb a vertically suspended rope using a crank-rocker mechanism. It has applications for transportation in difficult terrains and internal transportation.
Problem Statement:
Our problem is creating a mechanism with a complex position profile to allow our robot to traverse a rope that is suspended vertically and horizontally. The legs of the robot need to be in coordination with each other for the robot to maintain its weight distribution. Controlled forces need to be applied to the rope to ensure stability and keep the robot moving along the length of the rope. Simple joints will not work for this system due to the oscillation of the rope and the need for balance.
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