Boots for Vorpal's legs

[Miroslav Pienčak]

I'm thinking of some kind of rubber of silicone boots for the Vorpal's legs to decrease the slip while moving on a smooth surface. What do you think? If you have you tried something similar, what was the results?

I have just designed a casting form, just need to test it, but I never did it before. :) 

[vorpalrobotics]

Casting is a great skill to learn!

I have used silicone rubber tubing, something like 8mm inner diameter, and it kind of works. Cut pieces about 15 to 20mm long.

A custom shape rubber boots would work a lot better though!

[Miroslav Pienčak]

So I've used very soft Shore A20 polyurethane prepared for Sumo robot wheels. 

The booties fits perfectly, but now the legs have too much grip and robot has problems to move. I have a feeling it wants to destroy itself. :)

I think a software update would be needed for these to use. 

I will fallback to the booties printed from FlexFill.

Dňa sobota, 7. apríla 2018 14:58:49 UTC+2 vorpalrobotics napísal(-a):

[Steve Pendergrast]

You want a shape that has high friction when the hips are moving forward and backward to move the robot over the floor, but also the shape has to present lower friction when the knees are moving the legs up and down.

When I used silicon tubing, I would slit the sides such that when the knees moved the legs off the ground, the tubing would "flap" and not present much friction. But when then hips moved to thrust the robot forward, the flaps orientation would instead provide friction for movement.

You could reproduce such a strategy perhaps with the shape of the boots, or have a post processing step where you slit them the same way I'm talking about.