Team 4 Element, a team of high school students from Van Nuys, California, have designed, manufactured and assembled a robot climber to compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) 2013 Ultimate Ascent game. The robot utilizes Thomson MTS Flange Mount Supernuts with stainless steel lead screws to drive the entire robot climber, with the goal of climbing a 10 foot tall pyramid in less than five seconds.

Thomson MTS flange mount Supernuts provides lubricity and the dimensional stability of proprietary acetal with the convenience of an integral flange. Thomson application engineers were able to help Team 4 Element complete the solution and meet their performance goals with complementary high performance lead screws.

Team 4 Element students work tirelessly from January through May to design, build, wire, program and learn to operate their robot. The robots are both autonomous and human controlled, so once assembled students practice operating to develop their skill and ensure autonomous functions work perfectly. This year the climbing cycle is a completely autonomous canned cycled to leverage the speed of the Thomson lead screws which, according to Chriqui, should secure Team 4 Element as one of the fastest climbers in the 2013 competition. The robot is designed to climb with a breaststroke swimming motion and students can independently control each arm set.

Thomson
www.thomsonlinear.com