Team Toad: Polar Vortex 1

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Polar Vortex took second place at the Miami Stem Tech Olympiad 2014

A kinder, gentler killer

Although there was no RoboGames in 2014, Nola Garcia arranged for the STEM Tech Olympiad to include robot combat up to heavyweights, so we built a new robot for the event.

What was the scariest thing I could bring to Miami? The Polar Vortex!

Since this was an educational event, I wanted to demonstrate a basic engineering principle. I chose the Four Bar Linkage. Our most successful robot up to that point was Ice Cube 3, so I decided to make a heavyweight version with lifting legs and an angled wedge.


For several years I thought I'd invented a new form of robot, but last year Jason Vasquez of Team Fast Electric Robots showed me an antweight he made in 2013 called "Crabby" that has a single lifting leg under its wedge.

Victory

Polar Vortex went 4-2 at Miami Stem Tech Olympiad, and took second place. This page is still being written, but for now we'll just post these three photos that show the lifting-wedge knocking out an opponent by flipping it over and sticking it on the wall:

KO against Shrederator
 
KO against Touro Maximus

Publications

Since Stem Tech was part of an educational conference, I wrote a "poster paper" for the event describing the engineering behind the lifting-wedge and a longer article for Servo Magazine (link to article requires paid subscription).


Polar Vortex Poster (1 page PDF)
 

SERVO Magazine July 2014 (5 page PDF)
 



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