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antoine_ego wrote:How have you all managed to solve the craft rotation issue (when your craft slowly rotates along the side until it hits into the wall)?

I angled my fan, so it just hugs the side of the barrier.

But there will be varied amts of friction between the hover and railings...

shrewdPanther46 wrote:But there will be varied amts of friction between the hover and railings...

That's been a really big problem for us, eventually our hovercraft just stops moving because of the friction.

antoine_ego wrote:How have you all managed to solve the craft rotation issue (when your craft slowly rotates along the side until it hits into the wall)?

Just making the hovercraft go faster has been working for me. It rotates, slows it self down for about 15 sec.

arv101 wrote:

shrewdPanther46 wrote:But there will be varied amts of friction between the hover and railings...

That's been a really big problem for us, eventually our hovercraft just stops moving because of the friction.

Honestly, I've kind of given up on timing and am heavily relying on weight scores, and our hovercraft moves well enough that friction isn't a problem. Even with the friction, ours almost always goes too fast.

If you have time, try making a hovercraft with more thrust and then just brute-force your way through.

But if you want a more precise timing mechanism and also no spin by hugging the walls, you could just test with multiple barriers. (Or if you area is like mine, just test with the barriers all the proctors use.)

antoine_ego wrote:How have you all managed to solve the craft rotation issue (when your craft slowly rotates along the side until it hits into the wall)?

You could try taking a small wheel, and pin it to the front corner of the vehicle, so that it can freely rotate around the Z axis. This actually worked well during classroom testing, where we had propped up thin boards as outer boundaries, so the wall height was about 15cm. The vehicle eventually bumps into the wall, but since the wheel can spin, it sort of crawls along the side for the length of the track. Unfortunately at the last competition, the wall height was much lower (3cm is the minimum, and 2x4 height is about 3.8cm). This is quite a bit lower than the top surface of the vehicle, so that plan was scuttled. I'm sure it's possible to engineer a vehicle that could carry some sort of wheel/bumper at an appropriate height, though.

SPP SciO wrote:

antoine_ego wrote:How have you all managed to solve the craft rotation issue (when your craft slowly rotates along the side until it hits into the wall)?

You could try taking a small wheel, and pin it to the front corner of the vehicle, so that it can freely rotate around the Z axis. This actually worked well during classroom testing, where we had propped up thin boards as outer boundaries, so the wall height was about 15cm. The vehicle eventually bumps into the wall, but since the wheel can spin, it sort of crawls along the side for the length of the track. Unfortunately at the last competition, the wall height was much lower (3cm is the minimum, and 2x4 height is about 3.8cm). This is quite a bit lower than the top surface of the vehicle, so that plan was scuttled. I'm sure it's possible to engineer a vehicle that could carry some sort of wheel/bumper at an appropriate height, though.

I might try that out - not sure how that would work compared to completely hugging the wall, since I would imagine hugging the wall would have a straighter path. Thoughts?

Tesel wrote:

SPP SciO wrote:

antoine_ego wrote:How have you all managed to solve the craft rotation issue (when your craft slowly rotates along the side until it hits into the wall)?

You could try taking a small wheel, and pin it to the front corner of the vehicle, so that it can freely rotate around the Z axis. This actually worked well during classroom testing, where we had propped up thin boards as outer boundaries, so the wall height was about 15cm. The vehicle eventually bumps into the wall, but since the wheel can spin, it sort of crawls along the side for the length of the track. Unfortunately at the last competition, the wall height was much lower (3cm is the minimum, and 2x4 height is about 3.8cm). This is quite a bit lower than the top surface of the vehicle, so that plan was scuttled. I'm sure it's possible to engineer a vehicle that could carry some sort of wheel/bumper at an appropriate height, though.

I might try that out - not sure how that would work compared to completely hugging the wall, since I would imagine hugging the wall would have a straighter path. Thoughts?

The wheel thing reminded me of a design last year. Someone put ball bearings on the side so it hugs the wall with less friction.

Tesel wrote:

SPP SciO wrote:

antoine_ego wrote:How have you all managed to solve the craft rotation issue (when your craft slowly rotates along the side until it hits into the wall)?

You could try taking a small wheel, and pin it to the front corner of the vehicle, so that it can freely rotate around the Z axis. This actually worked well during classroom testing, where we had propped up thin boards as outer boundaries, so the wall height was about 15cm. The vehicle eventually bumps into the wall, but since the wheel can spin, it sort of crawls along the side for the length of the track. Unfortunately at the last competition, the wall height was much lower (3cm is the minimum, and 2x4 height is about 3.8cm). This is quite a bit lower than the top surface of the vehicle, so that plan was scuttled. I'm sure it's possible to engineer a vehicle that could carry some sort of wheel/bumper at an appropriate height, though.

I might try that out - not sure how that would work compared to completely hugging the wall, since I would imagine hugging the wall would have a straighter path. Thoughts?

I would imagine hugging the wall would slow down the hovercraft, would that throw off your calibrations? Or do you just calibrate with the hovercraft always against the wall?

sciduck wrote:

Tesel wrote:

SPP SciO wrote:
You could try taking a small wheel, and pin it to the front corner of the vehicle, so that it can freely rotate around the Z axis. This actually worked well during classroom testing, where we had propped up thin boards as outer boundaries, so the wall height was about 15cm. The vehicle eventually bumps into the wall, but since the wheel can spin, it sort of crawls along the side for the length of the track. Unfortunately at the last competition, the wall height was much lower (3cm is the minimum, and 2x4 height is about 3.8cm). This is quite a bit lower than the top surface of the vehicle, so that plan was scuttled. I'm sure it's possible to engineer a vehicle that could carry some sort of wheel/bumper at an appropriate height, though.

I might try that out - not sure how that would work compared to completely hugging the wall, since I would imagine hugging the wall would have a straighter path. Thoughts?

The wheel thing reminded me of a design last year. Someone put ball bearings on the side so it hugs the wall with less friction.

Maybe something like this could be an easy-to-try solution. (If the image doesn't work, it's a picture of shower curtain rings with rolling beads to reduce friction). They would probably be easy enough to clip on somehow.