Information needed on tractor attachments for a school project

[bluebricks]

Hi there! Our robotics club is working on a design for a tractor attachment to pick up field debris after a tornado. We don't know anything about tractors and are wondering if anyone on this site could help us. We are wondering if there is an attachment for a tractor that attracts metal and picks up other debris such as insulation that is already on the market? If so, does anyone know what it is called? Does anyone have experience with picking up debris after a tornado that could give us suggestions?

Thank you so much!

Lincoln Christian School Robotics Club

 

[dieselcrawler]

Sounds like you need to combine a street sweeper with a big magnet!

Sorry... can't help but good luck with your project. Share your progress with us!

 

[aczlan]

For attracting metal, you would need a magnet, I would recommend a electromagnet like they use for moving scrap metal, but in most cases, that will requite an axillary engine mounted somewhere to power the electromagnet.
For picking up general debris, I would go with a grapple (such as FFC 66 Scrap Grapple or Construction Attachments Skeleton Rock Bucket with optional grapple ) on a loader to get the big stuff and a landscape rake (like: Landscape Rake for Compact Tractors ) on the back of the tractor (or mounted to the loader like this one: 102 inch FFC Grader Rake with Hydraulic Angle and gauge wheels ) to rake up and windrow the small stuff.
Most companies would mount this to a skidsteer, but it could also be installed on a tractor. No matter what, I would foam fill all the tires to that you don't get flat tires.

If you are going to look at working with damaged buildings or trees, I would add a excavator with a couple of buckets, a thumb (ie: Amulet POWERBRUTE Hydraulic Excavator Thumb for 1-3 Ton Excavators ) and a grapple (ie: Kenco Brush Grapple )

Aaron Z.

 

[mjcountrybumpkin]

You could run a power unit for the electro magnet off of the pto ( power takeoff ) Run a rotary broom into a bin on the back of tractor off of hydraulics to pickup small stuff to dump in roll off dumpster. Mount a grapple on the back of that so you could back in and pick up large items. Good luck there will be better ideas to come I'm sure.

 

[mjcountrybumpkin]

Use something like a square baler to base machine on. Use pickup on baler to lift material off of ground and on to a conveyor to feed into a dump trailer being pulled behind baler chassis. I'm sure ill have another crazy idea on a bit

 

[Leejohn]

Why in the world you want it to attracts metal ? When doing clean up after after a tornado the main job is to make room so power, food, and water can get to people.

 

[Baby Grand]

Why in the world you want it to attracts metal ? When doing clean up after after a tornado the main job is to make room so power, food, and water can get to people.

Sounds like the team needs to go back and review their wants vs needs & reprioritize.
It would seem to me that you need some mechanism to pick up debris and move it into a shredder to chop it all up and reduce its volume. In the shredded state, the volume reduced debris could then be blown into attending trucks for transport away to the recovery area where the ferromagnetic fraction can be recovered. This all assumes that there are no survivors in the path of this beast.

 

[pwright]

Why in the world you want it to attracts metal ?

Because they are assuming that there would be metal that needed to be picked up from the field.

When doing clean up after after a tornado the main job is to make room so power, food, and water can get to people.

Except that isn't their job. Their job is to design an attachment that would clean up tornado debris from a field.

Less condescension and more constructive comments/criticism would be good.

Sounds like the team needs to go back and review their wants vs needs & reprioritize.

Scoping out the requirements of the project and assigning appropriate priorities would be a good first step.

Are we talking about all debris from paper, clothing, cans and bottles on up to tree limbs, road signs and pieces of structures?

Assuming just the smaller sized debris the baler and street sweeper mechanisms would likely be a good source for ideas. Larger stuff would need different solutions.

Would this attachment need to be used in already planted fields such that it needs to be designed to minimize additional damage?

Collecting metal debris has its own issues. There is likely to be a lot of non-ferrous metals like aluminum and copper in the debris. That will require mechanical pickup and size will play a big factor.

What about possible hazardous waste/materials?