Based on feedback from many of you in this episode I would like to show you how to build an active attachment that changes the orientation of a gear wheel placed vertically to a gear wheel placed horizontally. This attachment could be used in competitions and shows a basic principle of changing the orientation. All attachments could follow the same principle.
- 16 Oct 2014
This video is all about constructing and is starting a news series. Appart from changing the orientation I also stop at how to improve the stability of the construction which would be shown in Episode 56
The robot used will be presented in next videos.
Building instructions for a LEGO Mindstorms EV3 Active attachment for changing gear orientations
In this video I would like to show you how you can change the direction of a gear that's positioned vertically, like this, to a gear that's positioned horizontally. Given that we have our current competition robot and the motor is positioned in a way that the gears are vertical, we would like to transfer the movement to a gear that is horizontal. A useful example is if you'd like to accomplish the following mission - lift the flag (this is from the Senior Solutions, I think). If we can transfer the movement from vertical to horizontal, we can, for example, use this to lift the flag.
Now, let's start from what is initially given. We have our robot with a motor at the front. We will attach one of the gears to this motor. Like this. And now we should find a way to position this gear horizontally so that both gears work. We can do this in several different ways and I'll show you just one of them. For example, we can use the following parts. It will be an attachment that looks something like this - at the front of the robot. Let's try it.
OK. If we place the attachment like this, we can position this on the robot but now we should find a way to position this wheel on the attachment. I know that we can use this part - with the hole in the middle.
Now we need one additional axle to actually
position the gear horizontally.
OK. Generally, this should work but as you can see, (I will lift that closer) the two gears cannot work together as there is a gap between them. Now, the question is how to solve the problem with this gap. The black gear wheels (30/60, I think) always make problems like this. There will always be a gap between the gears when you turn them from vertical to horizontal. You can solve this by using the following little yellow parts. They are a half of a Lego unit.
One half here and one half with the other gear.
Now we have both gears placed. I'll turn on the robot and I'll add the following black parts. The robot is working. This attachment could be used during the competition. It is quite easy to place as you have these two black attachments. Just attach it and make sure that both gears are connected. The robot is on. I'll try to make a small test with the motor control.
As you can see, the gears are turning. Now we can attach our beam to the horizontal gear and we could actually accomplish our mission.
I'll have to hold this.
I suppose it should be a little slower so we should program the gear. There is one more important thing to consider during the competition. It takes some time to position the attachment. I know that it seems quite easy but it might become a matter of time during the competition. Even if it is seconds. So, you can position the attachment like this.
Make sure the gears are connected. Or we can find other ways. For example, it might be easier (we should experiment with this) to use these parts. I'll remove the black ones
and position the red ones under the beams.
And attaching the attachment to the front of the robot would look something like this.
You might find this easier for some cases and harder for other cases. You could find the instructions for constructing this attachment below the video. You can use them for your robots. I would welcome any comments. Please, feel free to comment below the video.
Courses and lessons with this Tutorial
This Tutorial is used in the following courses and lessons