We worked with the Engineering manager of VIC's cranes, Mike Lins, to get a tour of their Rosemount facility. This wasn't really a sponsorship trip, but we just wanted to learn more about the facilities' cranes so that we could apply the knowledge we got to our robot arm. Once we got approved, we drove to the facility after school on Monday, October 10th, 2022. We would say this trip was a success. We got to see cranes up close, as well as examples of forklifts, scissor lifts and so much more. We paid close attention to the information about how these cranes worked and even got advice from Mike Lins on how to make our robot arm and linear slide better. Some attached photos can be seen below.
Photos
We learned a lot of valuable information at VIC's cranes. First, we learned about the company's CAD works and how they use CAD to map out how they would use the cranes on certain tasks. For example, they use CAD to predict what task a crane does before actually doing it so they can prevent as many mishaps as possible. We are also implementing CAD more and more into the robot-building process. This is so we can find what the item would look like on the robot before actually putting it on our robot. Next, we saw a small telescopic crane. Most of these cranes, use chains to help power, support and stabilize the crane arm. The chains can also make them extend faster. Next, we saw two all-terrain cranes. These types of cranes have telescoping support beams that push hard against the ground and keep the crane stable while it is operating. These beams come out from many directions and then into the ground. Next, we went into the warehouse and saw a super big crane and a forklift. The forklift is the most interesting because the forklift acts just like the linear slide on our robot. We got to see how the forklift works and saw how the chains. It uses chains to go up, and when the top chain catches, they use a second chain to get some extra height. The first slide could also retract after the second one went up to get more control. That is something we did not have and would be very helpful with our robot because it could give us more control while trying to get the cones on top of the poles. We planned to implement this plan in our linear slide. Next, we saw a scissor lift that can use a linear actuator and a direct drive gear system.