Robotics Education & Competition Foundation
Inspiring students, one robot at a time.

Hinge Bracket

0

525798
Entry ID #: 5708
Created: Tue, Dec 18, 2018 9:20 AM


For the Make It Real Challenge 2018, our team wanted a part that would help with our folding claw. It folds down on hinges and rests on two standoffs underneath to maintain the correct height to pick up the caps. This is sometimes inconsistent though as the standoffs may become bent or loose. We also wanted a smaller and more compact way of keeping the hinges at a constant level. The Hinge Holder is made to be attached to the back of the hinge and can be bolted on. It is flush with the back and the bottom is held up to a certain angle. We made a 90 degree and 135 degree gussets to accommodate multiple designs. 0 degrees and 180 degrees would be flush to the bar the hinge was mounted on. A 45 degree part would result in interference of the angle due to the closeness of the screws required to attach the hinge holder to the hinge. This part is 3 spaces wide, designed to be placed in the middle of the 5 space hinge but it could be placed anywhere on the hinge. The current design does not hold much weight, it will bend and become warped if too much weight is placed upon it as seen in the above images. This part would be especially useful in any game where a component of the robot would have to be secured for the start of the match and released during the match. In this case, hinges are normally used, and sometimes they are blocked as they are on my team’s robot. The current system of blocking hinges is highly unreliable and easily stress or broken. The sides of the locking mechanism are flush with the hinge but the curve of the locking is not so that there is enough play in the hinge so it may not become jammed or stuck. The holes within the locking mechanism are identical in size to those found on a typical hinge found in any robotics package. The thickness of the locking mechanism is identical to the thickness of the hinge so that the hinge does not become very large and bulky with the locking mechanism attached. Continually, the mechanism does not expand past the height of the original hinge so that it may be contained within the original size. Any current attempt to lock a hinge to a single angle is bulky, awkward, and unreliable, this Hinge Holder is a simple fix to a problem without a current quality solution. The we had other ideas for our part as well. One example was to make the gussets 5 spaces wide to allow for a support bar on each side. This however would limit the usability because it would have to be used on the whole hinge rather than just a section, making it harder to find space for but the thickness of the locking mechanism would remain the same. Another idea was to add a small cylinder to the side of the hinge pin that would lock the hinge into a slot. This idea makes it smaller and more sturdy, but it also is not reversible in a match if we wanted to move the hinge.

Files

There is nothing here.

Links / Videos

There is nothing here.