Yes, our team's had the same troubles and we were just discussing this as a team yesterday. Part of the problem they noticed was that pushing the yellow bar up does not turn the mission the same amount every time. Sometimes it would take 13 times to turn the mission and other times it would take 14 or 15 or 16 times (even lifting the bar by hand). Here's the things we've tried:
1. Rebuilding the mission - this helped some so maybe the gears weren't meshing correctly?
2. Changing the gear ratios and motor power, which did affect the mission's success. They had to use a lower gear ratio, however, which increased the time it takes to raise the bar, even running the robot on 100% power. Currently it takes 3 seconds to lift the bar once, which is total about 50 seconds. A really long time.
4. They also braced their gears better to prevent slippage, because it take so much power to lift the bar.
These things have solved much of the problem, but we still have a small percentage of time that it won't turn the mission entirely around. However, the refs at our regional tournament said that the animals only have to be past the halfway point in order to score, so that's helpful.
Amy
Our model moved inconsistently sometimes faster than others. I did notice that there seems a speed that the robot needs to move the bar to get it to turn faster (not necessarily as quickly as possible). Also noticed that when I saw it moving slowly sometimes it was the result of the colored tray not being fully snapped together. Ours would start coming apart after a few times of use. Finally note from our experience that the biggest turns come when yellow bar it taken to it highest possible point.
Hope this helps.
Thanks,
Todd Lennox
Coach
Think Tank
Sent from my iPhone