Robotics - Springs not Strings

The John Deere engineer that sometimes comes in and helps us recommended that we try to use springs to stop the hanger bar from falling forward while we're driving. The capstan motor would easily be able to overcome the springs, so they wouldn't cause a problem for the pull-up. Since we didn't have good springs on hand, we extracted a few from some new mousetraps that the supervisor found. A few people, including me, messed around with putting the springs inside the turning point of the bar, but with no success. Only near the end of the meeting did we discover that the spring we were using is a stretchy spring, not a stereotypical springy spring. Next meeting, we will use pliers to add tension to the springs, which should fix all our problems!