Rescuing Two Victims at Once

"Robot 42" was built by Ian Serlin and Andrew Downsworth in the Spring of 2006. It uses two servo motors attached to two rakes along with a third rake that acts as a ramp and the natural contours of the robot's body to securely lift and transport two victims at once.

The robot approaches the first victim and sweeps it up the ramp and into the robot's chassis using the lower (#1) rake. The upper (#2) rake then sweeps up from its dormant position and locks the first victim securely into place. The lower rake then resets to its original position and the robot approaches a second victim. When the second victim is within reach, the lower rake sweeps it up the ramp and holds it in securely in place. The robot then returns to the hospital area and resets the lower rake which releases the second victim and then resets the upper rake which releases the first victim. The robot can repeat this procedure indefinitely or until all victims have been rescued.

Of course, this all presupposes that the victims are oriented properly because the rake's radius and the structure the of the robot's chassis only allows it to lift victims that are oriented horizontally (i.e. not head first or feet first). Obviously this is not always the case, so we solve the problem with a combination of the victim's visual center of gravity (using the camera) and two flex sensors to allow the robot to eventually approach the victim at the proper orientation. This is why the immobile rake (#3) is not a solid piece of material -- the camera needs to be able to have an unobstructed view of what is in front of the robot (the camera is located at the front of the robot at ground level behind the immobile rake).

You can see the robot in action and gain a better understanding of the precise sequence of events by viewing the following video (WMV): Double Victim Pickup.

We believe that with time and a little planning that the same idea can be extended to pickup 3, 4 or even more victims before necessitating a trip to the hospital and we hope to see this in future semesters, good luck! (NOTE: We also considered designs utilizing a conveyor belt and a large rotating wheel constructed with rakes at 30 degree angles to pick up multiple victims and solve the orientation problem, but these proved to be infeasible given the limited time and materials we had to work with.)