[TC14] Gyroscope

[The_Icestorm]

I thought I might try to replicate this ride design for this contest.

The ride consists of 3 spinning 'rings' with the riders attached to the innermost ring, and the ride rotates them around 3 axes.

Some functions I want to include in the ride:

1. Independent motorised control of each spinning ring.
2. All motors external to ride, using a Mindstorms EV3 controlled system.
3. Whole ride raises and lowers to allow riders to get on and off (like in the video)

As I want all the motors to be external to the ride (having motors attached to the rings will cause wire entanglement issues) I have to somehow transfer power through the rings to spin the inner ones.

Here's a diagram showing how the power will be transferred to spin up the inner rings. Red line is power transmission.

Some pictures of the middle (green) ring and a basic mounting frame (not final). Black axle is input and tan axle is output.

 

[Jim]

Me likeeee!

[pagicence]

Nice one. You don't see that every day in lego.

[BrickbyBrickTechnic]

Awesome! This certainly seems like a scary ride 

[sheo]

Great idea!

I tried to do something similar in the past but never truly finished the project.

Maybe this will help you somehow. 

 

[TechnicRCRacer]

Cool! There is one opening soon near me called Cyborg Cyber-spin. Too scary for me 

[kieran]

Nice ride, hope you can make it work. What sort of finished size are you looking at

[Milan]

Nice one!

[LennyRhys]

...

having motors attached to the rings will cause wire entanglement issues...

Not necessarily.  Based on the size of your current prototype, you should be able to fit a AAA battery box into each of the middle and outer rings.  Or, if you want to save weight and space, an old System 9V battery box with PF extension wires would do the trick nicely, and you will have plenty of room for, say, an L motor plus gearing.  Bung an IR receiver in each ring, and job's a good un.

Really nice idea btw. 

[Lakop]

Look forward to seeing this one in action.

H

[shadow_elenter]

well... that's...
I started working on this same design as well...

I guess we'll see how well they measure up to each other then 

[The_Icestorm]

12 hours ago, sheo said:

Great idea!

I tried to do something similar in the past but never truly finished the project.

Maybe this will help you somehow. 

 

Had a look at it, looks pretty similar to what I have in mind. I probably won't be using gear train system to transfer motion though, due to my lack of pieces, and the rectangular nature of the rings. U-joints sond like a better idea for this design.

5 hours ago, kieran said:

Nice ride, hope you can make it work. What sort of finished size are you looking at

At the moment, I aim to make each ring's cross section 3x3 studs. The black ring I made is approximately the size I want for the middle ring.

5 hours ago, LennyRhys said:

 

 

Not necessarily.  Based on the size of your current prototype, you should be able to fit a AAA battery box into each of the middle and outer rings.  Or, if you want to save weight and space, an old System 9V battery box with PF extension wires would do the trick nicely, and you will have plenty of room for, say, an L motor plus gearing.  Bung an IR receiver in each ring, and job's a good un.

Really nice idea btw. 

I don't have any AAA battery boxes on hand, or IR receivers, so thats not really an option (I also have a lack of PF motors and cables). Besides, I like the idea of the ride automatically operating via Mindstorms, so I think I'll stick with that.

3 hours ago, shadow_elenter said:

well... that's...
I started working on this same design as well...

I guess we'll see how well they measure up to each other then 

Uh oh, judging on your previous builds, it looks like I have some serious competition now . Can't wait to see what you come up with!

[mocbuild101]

6 hours ago, shadow_elenter said:

I started working on this same design as well...

I almost did too... Lucky I've thought of another idea...

 

[The_Icestorm]

Update post.

Due to space constraints, I've decided that my original plan of having a 3x3 cross section for all 3 rings is too small, so I've redesigned some things and bumped it up to a 3x5 cross section. This allows for more room for motion transfer axles/gears, as well as making it easier to reinforce things. Pic below shows the new 2 outer rings vs the original middle ring.

At the moment the middle ring can move independently, controlled through one of the grey axles sticking out to the sides (the other grey axle controls the innermost ring). The outermost ring rotates via the turntable.

Due to the larger size of the rings, I found it was easier to transfer motion via bevel gears rather than u joints. Overall there was surprisingly little friction in the system, which means I should be able to get a smooth and accurate rotation of the final structure.

I may need to decorate the rings with more beams or technic panels to keep the colour scheme consistent (I don't own a lot of system pieces). I want dark grey for outer, light grey for middle, and black for inner.

[shadow_elenter]

Wahaha now they're really gonna be twins!
At first there was at least a difference in scale but mine is in this scale aswell and even quite a few of the same techniques...

I guess I should start a topic too soon, I haven't come around to it yet because I was finalizing the video of my 6x6 zombietruck MOC I just posted.

Ah well 

Edited July 7, 2018 by shadow_elenter

[Jurss]

Challenging model. 

It will be interesting to see, how You will manage to stop it properly, so all frames are in line.

[The_Icestorm]

Another update on the build.

Finished making all 3 rings, replaced some of the structural O-frames in the outer ring with dark grey beams to fit the colour scheme better (rings are still very structurally stable). All the power transmission system in the rings is also installed. I also had to increase the overall reduction via the bevel gears to decrease the torque necessary to operate the system smoothly.

 

Hooked up the system to some EV3 large motors to test out the inner rings spinning. I'm pretty happy with the result so far.

 

Edited July 9, 2018 by The_Icestorm

[Jim]

Dude, that is awesome! 

Off-topic: Now that I see how you have attached the motors to the large turntable, I might want to reconsider using axles for my big EV3 robot. Maybe I also need to attach them directly to avoid strain on the axles.

[Jurss]

Looks good! For real one it seems too fast.

[Seasider]

I think you might have some complaints with the ride going that fast !

Great looking model though

[Jim]

Just now, Seasider said:

I think you might have some complaints with the ride going that fast !

I think the word you are looking for is casualties...instead of complaints 

[Seasider]

Just now, Jim said:

I think the word you are looking for is casualties...instead of complaints 

Well I didn't want to write DEATHS ! ... I could theoretically do some g calculations and then give you some Head Injury values ... but I think it'll be in the very high type classification

[The_Icestorm]

1 hour ago, Jim said:

Dude, that is awesome! 

Off-topic: Now that I see how you have attached the motors to the large turntable, I might want to reconsider using axles for my big EV3 robot. Maybe I also need to attach them directly to avoid strain on the axles.

I'm not entirely sure about the geometry of that mounting system (it was just a quick way to get the motors on), but geometry wise it looks close enough to be viable. Strain might be a problem, I don't see a good way of attaching another mounting point to secure the motor. Also what is this 'big EV3 robot' you are working on? Sounds like a large project...

4 minutes ago, Seasider said:

I think you might have some complaints with the ride going that fast !

[Jim]

Just now, The_Icestorm said:

I'm not entirely sure about the geometry of that mounting system (it was just a quick way to get the motors on), but geometry wise it looks close enough to be viable. Strain might be a problem, I don't see a good way of attaching another mounting point to secure the motor. Also what is this 'big EV3 robot' you are working on? Sounds like a large project...

Basically, it's the big project I will probably never get arount to finish hehe. I made a promise to myself to create a big robot, using my EV3 units. I have invested quite a bit and I do need to do some interesting stuff with it. The link to the topic is in my signature, or simply click here.

PS I forgot that I need to use axles to connect to the wheels, so attaching the motor directly to the turntable doesn't solve anything. But it's working looking into anyway.

[Marxpek]

I can't wait to see this thing launch figures all over the place, great (and fast) progress!