Rope Runner
Please see the disclaimer for more information.
This was my second submission for the contest
"Rope Climb"
held at BrickBots. It was the winner.
You can find the building instructions here.
Robot Name:
Rope Runner
Score:
89.37
Brief Description:
No hand over hand climbing.
Parts for "Rope Runner"
Brain: 1 RCX
Motors: 2 Electric Technic Mini-Motors 9V
Sensors: 2 Electric Touch Sensors
Programming language: Not Quite C with RCX Command Center (Source Code)
Details:
Rope Length: 2.16m
Time to climb up and down: 29s
Time to climb up: 25s
Time to climb down: 4s ( The robot does not let go but drives down
as fast as possible )
Rope Runner uses a simple gear mechanism to climb a 8.5 mm "Rebschnur"
I used as climbing rope. The gears that are connected to the rope are
8 technic gears with 16 tooth as shown below.
The red arrows indicate how the gears rotate when the robot climbes up.
Here is a front and side view of Rope Runner hanging on the rope.
As you see in the side view the robot is
balanced very good and the batteries are very close to the rope.
The motors are geared down from the red 16 tooth gears to 24 tooth
gears and then directly to the 8 gears on the rope. See the left image
for a detailed view of the two motors connected
to the gears. In the upper left corner of the image you see the rope
and the upper touch sensor.
In the right image you see 6 of the 8 gears that are
connected to the rope in a detailed view ( an axle removed for a better
view ).
Source code comments:
The program assumes, that the robot is on the ground and thus the lower
switch is pressed. The motor is switched on in UP direction until the
upper switch hits the ceiling. Now the motor direction is toggeled
and the motor stops when the lower switch is pressed again.
Markus Matern, February 2002 
