Recently, one of our readers, a girls STEM club, reached out to express their appreciation for our online blog and how they used it for their robotics research project. We’re really glad that people find the content we publish useful because that’s what our blog is all about: making robotics more accessible. They also shared a great robotics resource with us, a glossary of commonly-used robotics terms, which we want to share with everyone. Here’s the link: https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/robotics-terms/

Task: Analyze our performance at the Full Moon Scrimmage

Today, Iron Reign attended the annual Full Moon Scrimmage hosted by Marcus High School. We competed in two matches and won both, but they were primarily due to our alliance partners since we faced lots of problems with our robot.

The biggest issue we faced was our wiring management. Since our pincer claw was attached the night before the scrimmage, the wiring was very unorganized. In the morning of the competition, we tried to fix the wiring quickly, but we were unable to do so and the wires ended up getting more tangled and confusing. By the time our first match came, the claw was inoperable due to the wiring being done incorrectly. We tried to make last minute efforts, but in the second match as well the robot was only able to push samples in the bucket zone. Even though we were unsatisfied with our performance, we were able to learn a lot about how to fix similar problems in the future. Now, we plan to organize our wiring, replace the claw with our beater bar system, and to design a new chassis using our swerve modules that were developed this summer.

Task: Analyze our performance at the League Meet 1

Today, Iron Reign went to our first League Meet of the season. We made it to 7th place out of 29 teams, and improved heavily from the Screamage.

Match Recap

Match 1: 29 to 9 Win

Scored 1 sample into the low basket during Auton. 1 sample fell out of the claw because it went through the color sensor but we picked up a 2nd one from the spike marks and scored. Finally, we scored 1 sample from the submersible. However, we did get a penalty because while we were scoring, we pushed 1 sample into the net zone, resulting in a double control penalty.

Match 2: 46 to 35 Win

We scored 4 total samples, including 1 in Auton, including 2 from the submersible. However, the elbow seems to also be having a little bit of trouble.

Match 3: 31 to 21 Win

We scored 3 total samples, including 1 in Auton. Slow sensor response times limited how fast we could intake samples, and our linear slide was quick wobbly leading to poor accuracy at the basket.

Match 4: 48 to 70 Loss

In this match we forgot to adjust the alliance color we were on, so we could only intake yellow samples, but we still scored a couple including our preload.

Match 5: 73 to 75 Loss

We scored 4 samples, including in Auton and all 3 from the spike marks. However, at the end of the match, we got confused and tried to touch the first bar instead of going to the observation zone.

Game Analysis

Our Auton was very consistent throughout all 5 matches, and we scored a sample in the low basket each time without fail. However, while the Auton worked well, it only scored 4 points each time. Code-wise, our next steps for the upcoming League Meet involve scoring on the high basket and picking up neutral samples from the spike marks.

In Tele-op, our cycle times for the low basket varied from 15 to 33 seconds, with a mean of 23.2 seconds and a mean of 22.5 seconds. Oftentimes, the robot got the sample up to the low basket but the sample would end up outside the bucket. For our slower cycle times, we noticed that alignment between the robot and the sample was the biggest problem. Even though there was not an issue with picking up samples of the other color due to the color sensor, the alignment had to be somewhat accurate for the beater bar to intake the sample.

There were some outlier cycle times because in one of the matches, we forgot to change what color samples the beater bar picks up. This resulted in only letting the robot pick up yellow samples. Also, the beater bar is too slow, and we noticed that for yellow samples it took a longer time for the belt to stop rolling so that the sample would stay in place.

During the end game, we struggled with scoring points and deciding on a strategy. For two of the matches, the drive team was able to quickly maneuver the robot to the observation zone at the last few seconds to score parking points. Other times, we tried to touch the low bar to get the first level hanging points, but we were never able to. One of our limitations was that the robot needed to slowly approach the bar so the arm would not break.

Our strategy was also poor at times. In our last match, we were very close to touching the low bar, but the timer ran out once second to early. If we had been prepared and instead traveled to the observation zone, we would have won that last game by one point.That is why one of the biggest goals for our team before the second league meet is to give the code and drive teams about a week each to make sure simple mistakes like that don’t happen.

This past Thursday, Iron Reign went to William B. Travis Middle School to help and mentor their First Lego League robotics team. Iron Reign first was established as an FLL team at Travis, and it was a full circle moment to go back and mentor the current team there. Primarily, we helped out with building challenges, starting the code for their robot, and their presentation.

Presentation wise, we taught the team how to make their presentation more formal, organized, and techniques to convey information in a better way. For example, we helped them reorganize some parts of the presentation so instead of big chunks of words, there were bullet points so it would be easier for the judges to understand. Another part of their presentation we helped with was specific wording. We helped them understand how to identify unclear or awkward parts and how to fix them. After mentoring them over specifically the information, we taught them how to clean up the presentation and make it neat, but also making it unique to themselves and their team. One specific part of their presentation that we helped out with was picking better pictures to capture the meaning of their slides. Another thing we helped them with was better formatting and color/font selections.

Our code team helped Travis’s code team mainly with the basic code for the drive train. Since most of the team was composed of 4th and 5th graders, we were able to teach them something new and complex for elementary schoolers: Circular Geometry. First, we derived a formula for the distance traveled by the robot per revolution. We calculated the circumference of the wheels, the diameter of the drive base, and used both pieces of data to create custom EV3 Mindstorms blocks that would make the robot drive forward precisely 10cm and turn (roughly) 90 degrees. We taught them how to apply the math and geometry they were learning in the classroom in a much more real-world setting by contextualizing physics in robot code.

Finally, the team had recently received their challenge map, so we helped them build and place the challenges on the map. Also, we helped them brainstorm ideas for attachments on the EV3. We helped them place the built challenges on their map as well as building. Brainstorming wise, we showed them videos on some ideas they can use for this year, and we gave them some ideas that may help form the first iteration of their robot. The build team also helped the team with organization and gave them tips and techniques to keep an organized space.

Near the end of their meeting, we had a quick presentation for them about FTC and all the changes between FLL and FTC. We talked about how FTC has more freedom in terms of parts available, and we talked about the complexity difference. We also showed the amazing outreach opportunities Iron Reign got to be a part of. The main purpose of the presentation was to spark interest in continuing FIRST robotics and moving onto FTC when they are older.

Overall, we had an amazing time helping out the FLL team at Travis. It was a fulfilling experience going back to where the team started and mentoring the current team. Thank you so much to Mr.Delgado, the team’s coach, and all the team members for being wonderful people. We can not wait to go back soon!

Task: Analyze our performance at League Meet 2

We had our second league meet today at UME Preparatory Academy. Overall, we had a satisfactory performance because there were definitely parts of our performance that could be developed, but some of the things worked relatively well.

Match Recap

Match 1: 31 to 18 Win

One of the teams on the other alliance did not show up. We did not run auton since if we did, we risked self destruct. With our alliance team, Iron Core, we were able to score 28 points. The robot was mainly operating as a push bot while our sister team was scoring specimens. At the end game we got three points since Iron Core got first level ascension.

Match 2: N/A

Sadly we missed this match because the whole team was at the practice field and did not realize that we had a match. Luckily since our alliance team won, this round did not affect our standings.

Match 3: 9 to 104 Loss

We were unable to move during this match. During auton, we were unable to run auto, and our partner team, Iron Giant, tried to score a specimen but failed. Our opponent team placed a specimen and parked. During teleop, we were pushbot again and placed 3 samples in our net zone. Iron Giant continued to practice scoring specimens.

Match 4: 43 to 24 Win

No teams had auton during this match. We were unable to fix our intake, so we continued as pushbot. Unfortunately we became static due to our battery connection and could not move during the rest of the match. Our partner team, 22344, placed 5 samples in the high bucket. During the end game, our partner team touched the rung scoring 3 points.

Match 5: 21 to 39 Loss

No teams had a working auto. During tele-op we operated as a pushbot and effectively placed 13 in our net zone. During the endgame, we were able to touch the rung scoring 3 points.

Match 6: 45 to 22 Loss

During auton, our opponent side were able to gain parking points. Neither of us, in our alliance, had a working auton. During Teleop, both of us were push bots scoring around 7-10 points. During the endgame we were able to score 6 points since both robots got first level ascension. We were able to win since we got 25 foul points (2 major and 1 minor by the opponent team).

Analysis

We never had an auton working in any round since the code team only had a few hours with the robot. During practice time, we had to figure out wiring and other issues meaning we did not have time to calibrate the auton for it to work properly.

For every Teleop our robot was only able to push samples into the net zone since our linear slide or beater bar did not work. We were able to get four or five samples into the net zone consistently which only contributed to four or five points to our score.

In the endgame we never got any points either except for two of the rounds. We were able to get first level ascension twice when our linear slide worked slightly.

Task: Improve our Arm Mount

When we decided to switch to a worm gear as our shoulder as opposed to a coaxial shoulder or a bridge mechanism as our earlier robot had, we had to consider how we were going to attach the linear slide arms to the worm gear axle.

V1:

Because the worm gear axle has a key to help a shaft collar or a mount adhere, we designed our first model of the arm mount with a slot to slip onto the key, and holes which were the appropriate size to attach to our custom nylon spacers.

Additionally, because we were trying to repurpose our last year’s chassis for this year's game, we had to make the arm mount L-shaped so it could clear the top of the back plate.

We quickly came upon a problem: because of the high amount of torque required to rotate the full (heavy) arm assemblies, the 3D printed spacers were deforming and were no longer reliable. The same issue would occur every time we printed another set of 3D printed spacers so it was like putting a bandaid on a bullet hole; we needed to find a new solution.

V2:

We switched to a 14 mm metal keyed flange as opposed to the 3D printed parts so we had to repurpose our arm mount. In addition, we used to put the arm mount on the inside of the assembly so it would be flush against the wide side of the 3D printed spacers, but for additional strength, we wanted to make a wider center hole so we could put the mount against the flanged edge. This meant we lost one set of holes we were using to attach the mount to the spacers, but it was no longer necessary.

At this point, we were still using last year’s chassis so we retained the odd L-shape of the mount.

V3:

Ideating for our new chassis had started so we had to switch over to a more efficient arm mount. One of our goals was getting the linear slides in an intaking position when they were fully parallel to the ground so we had to get them closer to the chassis base plate. Because our new chassis is designed for this game, we could mount the shoulder lower to the ground and we no longer had to clear a back plate, making our new arm mount design simpler.

We also switched to cheaper metal keyed flanges which didn’t have the most precise hole locations, so we added slots to the holes which connect the mount and the keyed flange. While the earlier mount designs were designed with a 12 mm hole distance on the linear slides in mind, we swapped to a hole pattern which can accommodate both a 12H slide and a 9H slide so anyone on the team can reuse this design in the future. We retained the wider center hole which we had in the last mount.

We have an additional carbon fiber plate on the linear slides to help attach a pulley for our belted system, which we incorporated into this plate so we can push the linear slide mount further back.

Task: Present to Texas Tech Mechanical Engineering Student

Today we met with a current mechanical engineering student from Texas Tech to discuss several important things like our progress through this season, the current robot, and the future version of our robot.

After explaining the basic structure of this season’s game, we divided straight into talking about the current iteration of the robot. First, we showed the chassis and talked about how it is not optimized for this season since it was meant for last year’s game, but how it still works as a starter chassis. Our mentor liked the idea of the sampler since it does not require driver precision and is efficient when built properly. We used the latest version of our sampler to show how sometimes we rush the building and testing processes which inevitably leads to inadequate subsystems. Some problems that arose due to rushing were the color sensor being mounted incorrectly and the beater bar being too stiff of rushing the build. Our mentor helped us learn the importance of testing by telling us his own experiences and encouraged us to do more robot testing so mistakes like axons breaking do not occur. However, we did show our team’s problem solving skills by showing how we were able to make the new version of the beater bar functional. We then discussed our progress with the linear slides (and how it was able to defeat our coach at a game of tug and war), and our mentor liked the build and design of the linear slides. The team also presented the progression of our shoulder from the REV rail bridge to the worm gearbox, and the professional we met with complemented our idea to use the gearbox.

After discussing the problems with our current robot and receiving advice on what we could change, we recapped the three meets we have had so far and the impacts they had on our team. We showed statistics like average looping times and points scored as well as talking about how our team organization is a little rough sometimes because our code team always receives very minimal time to code the robot. We talked about how meet 3 being cancelled was something that would hurt our team since meets are the way where we can truly see how well we are performing and what level of performance we are on compared to other teams.

Finally, we showed CAD models of the future robot and talked about how it is a swerve chassis with a sampler and specieminer attached to it. We showed several different versions of the speciminor and its development to the current version. We also broke down the swerve module and showed how it was going to function as the wheels for our drivetrain to give us more mobility. Some of the main problems that the team discussed with the metro was how to balance the weight since most of it is on one side of the robot where the arms are located. This weight imbalance can lead to tipping especially when both the arms are fully vertical.

In this meeting, we gained important insight that will help us make several different improvements to our current and future robot. We really appreciated meeting with our mentor and can not wait to meet with Texas Tech again!

Task: Analyze our current power challenges

Power Issues:

Today, we experienced some significant power challenges. When we attempted to fix the cables, some of the crimps did not work, so we had to redo them. Additionally, we realized that the elbow was drawing a lot of power to maintain its position.

We realized that all the rails for the servo ports (EH and CH) were dead, and all the power came from the power injector and the signal from the ports. Even though we were only trying to power one arm with two servos, we could not push enough power through the RJ45s or the bits that connected the wires to the servos.

Servos:

On the topic of servos, the superspeed servo stopped working under the code. We were able to confirm that the wiring was not the issue as the servo worked with the servo tester directly and through the wiring so we know that it is a code issue. However, we are not exactly sure what the issue is since a different servo worked under the code. As a result, we had to take a servo out of the speciminer, stopping it from running for the time being.

Speciminer:

As per the speciminer, when its elbow attempts to move, it starts to jitter and the color sensor starts to phase in and out. Lastly, when we attempted to switch out the belt for the sampler arm, the belt was too loose and kept despooling.

• All the rails for the servo ports are dead, both EH and CH: all the power is coming off the power injector and the signal is coming from ports
• While trying to fix the cables, some of the crimps didn’t work so had to be redone
• Power wise, can’t push enough through the rj45s or the bits that are connecting the wires to the servos (could be both) and they’re only trying to power one arm with two servos
• Elbow is drawing a lot of power to maintain its position
• Superspeed servo stopped working under code: definitely not the wiring, it’s working with the servo tester both directly to the servo and through the jumble of wiring but not working when its running on code - running a different servo through code works but we have no clue what’s going on with the og servo (had to take a servo off speciminer so now it literally cannot run)
• Whenever speciminer elbow tries to move, it starts jittering and color sensor starts to phase in and out
• At one point, when we tried to swap out the belt for the sampler arm, the belt was too loose and kept despooling

Task: Present to Director of Research and Development from HOYA

Today we had a meeting with the Director of Research and Development at HOYA. We discussed our robot’s design and updated him on this season’s challenge. Specifically, we spoke about our past versions for Sample and Speciminer, our current design, and our future robot. We finalized our presentation with a detailed report on our current progress of the design of our swerve model and our new chassis.

We received a lot of feedback on our presentation skills and how to make it a smoother operation. Our mentor made a useful analogy and talked to us about how our whole team is a second “robot” that must function in unison to achieve greatness. He encouraged us to run more dry matches on the field so that the driver can perfect their maneuvering skills and decrease loop times. He also told us to spend time perfecting the portfolio presentation by going over it several times to make sure it flows smoothly. On the more technical side, we discussed weight balancing issues that will arise on the new iteration of the robot. The problem that we found is that we want to keep the robot as light as possible so it can properly ascend, but we need more weight in the front so there are not any weight balancing issues in the front and back of the robot. We showed one of our solutions to fixing this problem would be placing our battery in the front of the chassis to counterbalance the weight of the arms on the back. Our mentor also suggested we look at other engineering companies such as EPSIN to see how they fix their imbalanced weight issues. Another part of the robot we discussed was structural integrity of the linear slide arms. Our mentor brought up the point that our arms may sometimes wobble which would make scoring harder and also give strain on some sensors. Our solution we presented was that we switched back to making belted linear slides that help solve the wobble issue that used to occur.

We gained a lot of insight on how to improve our team organization and presentation skills as well as ways we can fix some technical problems on our robot. We really appreciated the advice and can not wait to meet with him again.

Task: Analyze our performance at the U League Tournament

Today we had our U League Tournament. Overall, we won the majority of our matches at 4 out of 6, and became an alliance captain during the playoff matches. While we lost both of our playoff matches, we still made it to 8th place. During awards we won Inspire 2, and have qualified for regionals.

Match 1: 83 - 61 Win

During auton we were able to score 1 sample in the high basket, but then got caught and lost balance not scoring the second sample. We did well in teleop, but are in desperate need of driving practice as 4 samples landed outside the field when we tried to place them in the high basket. We were able to place 4 samples in the high basket, and our partner placed 2 specimens on the high rung. During auton, we were unable to touch the lower rung.

Match 2: 90 - 87 Win

During auton, we were able to place both samples in the high basket, but the sampler got stuck on the basket. This cost us a lot of time but we were eventually able to get sampler unstuck. We switched to using speciminer, but the servo went out of limits and stopped working causing us to be unable to grab specimens or samples. Our partner was able to ascend, giving us 15 points. During this game, we received 2 penalties, totaling to 30 points for the opposite team, by touching the opposite alliance bot during their ascension and starting early in teleop.

Match 3: 125 - 70 Win

During auton we were able to place 2 samples in the high basket fixing our issue from the earlier match. A new problem developed as the color sensor did not work properly. This issue caused all samples to be ejected, not allowing us to pick up and deposit any. We effectively became a pushbot and placed 3-4 samples in the basket zone. During endgame, we touched the bar, giving us level 1 ascent.

Match 4: 66 - 149 Loss

We placed one sample in the high basket, but did not intake the second sample due to misalignment during auton. We were able to place 2 samples in the high basket, but missed 5 samples due to lack of driver practice. We reached level 1 ascent via touching the bar during end game.

Match 5: 78 - 27 Win

We placed both samples in the high basket during auton. We placed 4 samples in the high basket shakily.We touched the bar, scoring us a level 1 ascent in the end game.

Match 6: 87 - 187 Loss

We got a 25 point auton,During auton, we placed both samples in the high basket. We used speciminer in this game instead of sampler and scored 3-4 specimens on the high bar. This game showed us that we needed practice in creating specimens and picking them up and placing them. During the end game, we reached level 1 ascent by touching the bar. with the purple pixel barely touching the tape. The robot did the “spin sequence” again, but timed out completely so the yellow pixel wasn’t dropped at all. We also got parking. In Tele-Op, we first scored the yellow pixel we couldn’t score because of the weird auton. One of our alliance partners also knocked one of our pixels off the backdrop. Placing one of the pixels resulted in a ricochet so we couldn’t score a mosaic. We had a total of 6 pixels on the backdrop by the end of teleop. In end game, we couldn't score a drone because the drone launcher wasn’t tensioned. This was the second match where we noticed this issue.

Takeaways

During this tournament we did well in our performance and advanced further. However, there is a lot of progress we have learned from this tournament, and we will work to be better prepared for regionals in 3 weeks. We will prioritize drive practice because it was evident it was a major flaw in our game play, along with advancing our code and fixing arm issues.

Task: Conduct an Analysis on our Day at U League Tournament

Today we conducted an in-depth analysis of our performance at the U League Tournament on February 2nd. We discussed how presentations and interviews went, how coordinated our team was.

Logic and Preparation

The day started off shaky due to us not being 100% ready for our presentation and formal interview. First , we brought the wrong TV that was not able to be mounted on our CartBot. We then spent time trying to fix the TV and mount it, but it never turned on. This cost us time to run through a proper run through and clear our minds. While we did have great strides the week prior with our portfolio, our presentation was not fully made and edited the day before the competition, which was another major reason we were not fully prepared for our judging presentation. We packed better than former meets, but we also realized we need to include structural elements like REV rails for last minute fixes.

Judging and Preparation

Our presentation went mediocre according to team standards, due to the lack of planning there were occasional slip ups and stuttering throughout.The team also spoke too fast causing the judges to be a little overwhelmed with the amount of information we covered. Despite speaking too fast, we did not get through most of our motivate and connect slides. However, we live demoed our robot and gave out prototypes and parts, keeping the judges engaged. This caused the judges to ask several questions, even after 10 minutes.

Our pit interviews had some highs and lows as well. The connect and motivate panel were interested in all the outreach events we participated in throughout the season. They enjoyed how we went back to Travis to give back to the school where this organization first started. One revelation our team had with some of the panel's questions was that we needed to function more as a school team. They asked several questions about what we have done to increase recruitment at our school and if we are the reason some people decide to go to our school.

The Innovate and Design panel did not go as well. We did not have our robot as it was in a match, but they wanted to continue our discussion anyways. They did not show active interest in the robot or designs and showed minimal interest in sampler and speciminer. While we did go through some of the physical prototypes we had as well as GIFs of our robot working, we were not able to make a big impression on the judges making the interview lackluster and leading it to abruptly end.

During the Code panel, our main coder was not present since he was at one of the matches as a drive coach. He came in the middle of the interview which created an awkward restart to the interview and stopped the flow. Overall, the panel went well and we talked about how the Auton worked and future coding implementations.

Teamwork

We did not have assigned roles for every single person for the day of the tournament until the morning of, so it happened relatively quickly and no thought was given into what role would be best for each person. In spite of that, everyone was busy doing something. However, everyone being so far apart had its cons; for example, there were only around 3-4 people in each pit interview instead of the majority of the team. This led to a lack of team energy at the pit interviews. One area of improvement was that we could have bettered our scouting performance because we were only able to interview around 5 teams.

Taking the time to break down our day into different sections allowed us to reflect on how we acted individually and how it affected our team. It provided us the opportunity to learn and better ourselves for future competitions to ensure we use our time effectively during these stressful events. We plan to take this feedback and continue to improve.

Task: Conduct a SWOT Analysis on our Day at U League Tournament

Today, we conducted a SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) dissection of the robot and the team as a whole of our playthrough at the U league Tournament. These analyses allow us to learn what we did well and ensure we continue doing those habits. It shows us where and how we need to improve, and gives us a space to brainstorm how we can solve those issues.

Strengths

Our best strength today was winning Inspire 2, allowing us to advance to regionals. Another strength of our robot was the capabilities to score both specimens and samples using two separate intake systems. This functions as a strength because not only did both intakes work, but no other team had two separate intakes, allowing us to stand out. Another strength is that our robot was much more reliable than it was at meet two showing improvements throughout the season. We also took much better match notes allowing us to look back at them to see exactly what went wrong and the statistics of each match we played.

Weaknesses

A major weakness was that our coder was coding the day of the competition. This made it so that we were not able to play practice matches with future alliance partners, and the coder could not do other things like seeing what to improve for next time. Another weakness is we did not have enough people at pits for the judging panels, and our resources to explain to the judges (digital and printed) needed to be better planned to gain the judges attention. Build wise, the sampler was too big and took up a lot of space, so it could not get into gaps and had a hard time getting samples in the hard-to-reach areas of the submersible. The speciminer was also heavy and difficult to pick up samples with.

Opportunities

One goal that we have is that we want to run complete simulations of every aspect of the tournament from full on matches as well doing dress rehearsals of presentations. We have goals set in place to create pit designs and other promotional material for regionals. To develop our Motivate and Connect performances, we want to have 5 more connect meetings. To strengthen our portfolio, we would like to include more data and video footage in our presentation.We also have decided to improve communication, we will setup a system where we can efficiently signal each other to make sure we all show up for pit interviews.

Specifically code team wise, there are several opportunities and goals we have such as enhancing and adding different types of sensors. We want to find a better latching angle for scoring specimens so there is less stress on the servo. We also want to continue developing our auton, trying to score specimens as well.

For the design and build team, we want to figure out a way to stop samples from getting stuck inside the robot accidently and further innovate subsystems. We also want to see what we can accomplish with LEDs and develop a version of the swerve chassis.

Threats

Our major threat is time. We have a lot to accomplish in only three weeks. We have a major problem of burning out too quickly and feeling apathy leading to a lack of motivation. We also have very limited driver practice under our belt which leads to silly mistakes and fouls during matchplay.

Taking the time to do a deep dive about how the tournament went this past Saturday was very beneficial as it allowed us to reflect on what we can do better and to create a list of goals we want to accomplish. Our SWOT analysis helped us recognize how well we are doing and what steps we need to take to better our team and robot.

Task: Analyze the future and current issues of continuing with a swerve chassis

After our analysis of the U League Tournament, our CAD and Build teams went further in detail of problems we have or will have in the future with swerve chassis.

• We currently have no idea how the swerve chassis will work and are replacing our proven, with lots of experience mecanum drive for an experiment
• The entire chassis is 100% unproven
• There are pretty slim chances of this chassis being able to compete and not self destructing, This is impossible by regionals and really slim past regionals
• We need to add a third swerve module that has to be built, but we likely do not have all the parts
• The head swerve builder/CADer has speciminer as a priority and speciminer requires a lot of work still
• Currently, trying to stop the swerve module with your hands causes it to slip and wear down. We still have not solved this issue and have only made them stall without the gears slipping
• it’s easy to stall the motors
• If we change the gear ratio, it will have more torque but that will cause it to slow down, something we cannot give up
• While robot will be lighter because it does not have double nacelles, it will only be driven by 2 (maybe 3) instead of 4, 2 motors cannot compete with 4 motors
• When arms are in the front, the omni wheel assembly will press into the ground and into the foam, it will act as a pivot and be impossible to strafe because of resistance
• It won't work if we need to travel sideways around the submersible, so adding a 3rd swerve to the front is almost a necessity

Making this list of swerve chassis problems has made us realize it is a very risky idea and placing all of our time into it may not be the best way to prepare for regionals. Nonetheless, we will continue to iterate swerve and continue trying to implement our swerve chassis into our robot.

Task: Conduct a To-Do List for Regionals

After winning Inspire 2 at the U League Tournament and advancing to regionals, our CAD and Build Team put together a to-do list for the next 3 weeks. We hope this to-do list will keep us on task, and ensure we keep our goal in mind, making sure we are ready for regionals.

To-Do List

These are our current ideas of how to prevent samples from falling into our robot:

Task: Analyze and Plan new Drive Goals and Strategies

Currently, due to constant build fixes and code changes being implemented on the robot, the drive team does not have strong experience with the robot.Therefore, moving forward, we aim to prioritize a strategy to reduce the amount of mistakes made during official matches and to ease communication between drivers, drive coaches and coders.

Firstly, we changed some movement articulations to avoid parts of the robot being exposed when expanded. This prevents any damage to motors, servos, and writing. It also gives the driver more confidence in the robot’s durability, giving the ease of mind to achieve faster cycle times.

We’ve made sure we emphasized intaking from both sides from the submersible to reduce travel distances between cycles. With the (soon-to-be) addition of our second arm, we will also be able to score specimens, granting us control over both high baskets with samples and specimens on the high chamber.

• when on the right side of sub, we can go for specimens as the observation zone is closest and specimens would provide us more points
• when on the left side of sub, we can go for samples in the high baskets as the net zone and baskets are closest.
• we now focus on eliminating needless movements and reducing travel time between areas on the mat, prioritizing whichever game element will maximize points while minimizing travel time and driver error
• we are still focusing on high “levels” for both the chambers and baskets to maximize scores but we still need to work on making time for practice matches during regular meetings

Task: Present to Hoya as a mock Presentation

Today we met with Hoya to practice our presentation for our upcoming tournament at regionals. We went through our presentation, but we went over the 5 minute limit by 40 seconds, so we will work on our delivery and try to find solutions for this issue.

Hoya gave good advice and intriguing questions. He advised us to speak slower and give more information on our innovations and technical slides. He also stated we need to try and match our modulations and timbre between people. A key weakness is us not rehearsing more as we had many technical issues that could have easily been fixed by being prepared.

During the Q&A section, he told us we need to give a brief and direct answer before our examples. We typically give examples first causing it to seem wordy and unclear. He also stated many questions focused on competition readiness, so we should dedicate a slide in our presentation. Another suggestion was to include slides after our presentation to go along with the most common questions asked to be more prepared to answer.

Overall, this meeting helped us prepare for our tournament next week and make any last minute changes to our presentation. To prepare further we will continue to work on our presentation and do dress rehearsal.

Task: Present to DPRG as a mock Presentation

Today we had another meeting with DPRG to have a mock presentation. We went 30 seconds over and still did not finish our slides, so we plan to cut down what we say and focus on the key details. After our presentation, we went through each slide and they told us ways we could highlight the key details since we only show each slide for a few seconds. By going through each slide and picking it apart, we could notice how small details would add to each slide and plan to edit the slides before our competition. After going through our slides, we went further in depth on our technical robot and updates since our last meeting. They gave us good advice on our V3 reborn of Broseidon, specifically the swerves.

Overall, we plan to take the advice they gave us to prepare for our area competition and improve our presentation skills. We also will continue to improve our subsystems and our V3 model.

Task: Present to Lockheed as a mock Presentation

Today we met with 2 Lockheed engineers and did a mock presentation. We hoped to gain insight on our presentation skills along with our actual design. We ran a little over time, but we were able to cover the majority of our slides, an improvement from previous mock presentations. They also gave us mock questions, which allowed us to practice our answers and be prepared for the upcoming area competition.

The engineers gave us advice for our future, and getting an engineering job. He stated that a large part of engineering is never being satisfied and always striving to better your work. Overall, this meeting was very productive and helped us prepare for our future competitions along with life after highschool in the workforce.

Task: Analyze our performance at the NTX Area Championship

Today, Iron Reign participated in the NTX Area Championship. Robot-wise, we performed quite well, winning 6 out of 7 matches and becoming the 4th seed in the Ruby Division. In playoffs, we made it to match 8, where we lost to the 1st seed alliance. Awards-wise, we unfortnuately did not win anything and were unable to qualify for the World Championship.

Match 4: 176 - 137 Win

We started on the sample side, but unfortnuately, our color sensor died and we missed a yellow sample. We only scored 1 sample in auton, but in teleop, we cycled 7 samples between the Sub and the high basket. However, we lost some time at the beginning of Teleop because we had to reset our arm to get the color sensor on Sampler to work properly, which cost us 1 sample.

Match 11: 237 - 99 Win

We only scored 2 samples in Auton and struggled to pickup samples from The Sub. We were planning to rebuild the Sampler to improve its ability to pickup samples from The Sub but ultimately moved on to focus on other tasks before Regionals. Because of our struggles picking up samples from the Sub, we only scored 2 samples in the high basket in Teleop. In endgame, we also scored a Level 1 Ascent.

Match 14: 161 - 129 Win

Our reliability issues continued to plague is in this match as well. We had to reset our arm at the start of teleop and Sampler still took long to rake in Samples. However, when scoring the Samples, our arm did not reach high enough and ended up crashing into the basket itself, leading to missed Samples. We ended up scoring only 5 samples and a Level 1 Ascent in endgame.

Match 23: 133 - 196 Loss

We scored a totoal of 7 samples on the high basket, but struggled with the same problems as before. We also had to reset our arm at the start of teleop, which cost us a sample. We also switched to Robot Oriented Drive instead of a Field Oriented Drive to improve the driving experience.

Match 27: 150 - 149 Win

In Auton we scored no specimens and we had a 10 second delay at the start of Teleop. We struggled to pickup the proper colored Samples for Specimen conversion, but anaged to score 2 specimens on the high chamber. However, we ended up losing by 4 points due to a multiple posession penalty. While we were moving to score a Specimen, our robot caught onto another Specimen lying on the ground and pushed it towards the baskets. However, we argued that because Specimens could not be scored in the baskets, we gained no advantage and thus the penalty should not be applied. The referees agreed and we were not penalized, which resulted in us winning the match.

Match 33: 222 - 104 Win

This match, we started on the Specimen side and struggled to score Specimens in Auton because the Speciminer kept dropping them immeditely after wall pickup. We needed to improve the grip strength of the Speciminer to prevent this from happening in the future. Luckily, we were able to still score 3 specimens on the high chamber.

Match 40: 158 - 134 Win

Our auton stopped prematurely on the Specimen side, and we recieved a penlty when our motor moved during the transition phase. We still struggled to consintely scored Specimens and ended up only parking in endgame.

Playoff Match 1: 167 - 298 Loss

We scored 2 Samples in Auton and 6 Samples in the high basket during Teleop. This was a solid performance, but just was not enough to win the match.

Playoff Match 6: 227 - 178 Win

We scored 14 Samples in the high basket. Our opponents disconnected in Auton and were unable to catch up to us in Teleop. This win kept us alive in the playoffs.

Playoff Match 8: 181 - 361 Loss

We scored 1 Sample in Auton and 8 Samples in Auton, but were unable to keep up with the 1st seed alliance. We ended up losing this match and were eliminated from the playoffs.

Takeaways

Our final ranking was probably higher than our actual performance thanks to favorable matchups, but we still performed pretty good overall. We need to work on our reliability and Sampler's ability to pick up samples from The Sub. Award-wise, we did not win anything even though we had a solid judging interview and a couple of callbacks. Even though this is the end of our season, we are hopeful that there will be a UIL compeition for us to work towards.

Task: Explore 3D Desgin with the GEMS Afterschool Program

Today we held our first meeting with the GEMS after school program. The GEMS organization is a non-profit, founded in 2010. They are committed to introducing middle school girls to the world of STEM. Focusing on key aspects like Science and Technology, they hope to make STEM opportunities more accessible to minorities.

We did a brief presentation of who we are and how robotics has helped us improve our skills in documentation, engineering, and computer science. We then used the program TinkerCAD to introduce a key aspect in robotics, 3D designing. We showed them the basic concepts and allowed them to explore the platform. We utilized this time to show how 3D Designing is a key aspect in robotics and explain how it will be used in a future meeting to print 3D keychains.

This meeting allowed us to work with the girls and show how robotics combines many ideas and skills. We hope to have many meetings in the future and introduce them to the world of STEM.

Task: Explore Psuedo Code with the GEMS Afterschool Program

Today was our second meeting with the GEMS organization. Since we focused on 3D modelling last time, the team decided to start teaching the students basic coding skills. Using code.org’s block code programs, we were able to show how pseudo block code can turn into real java.

First, we did a make your own music program where the students were able to pick a famous song and make a remix out of it, or they had the option to create a unique song of their own. As we taught them how to use the program, we were able to teach them about methods. For example, outside of the main block of code, the kids could write separate blocks such as the intro, verse, and chorus. We taught them how writing methods make coding easy and efficient because instead of coding the same thing multiple times, they could just call their “verse” method multiple times.

Next, we used a minecraft program to teach the students about loops such as a while and for loop. Instead of having 5 separate blocks of code saying move forward, we showed the girls how you can walk until you reach a coral or another barrier using a while loop. Along with teaching them loops, we taught them basic if statements to only perform a certain action during a certain time. At the very end, we talked briefly about organizing your code with the use of semicolons and curly brackets because one of the students was curious why the real code had them.

We had an amazing time, and we can not wait to help them make their own 3D printed keychains next time!

Task: Introduce FTC robotics to passerbys at Moonday

This Saturday we were exhibitors at the 17th annual Moonday, which is held to honor the anniversary of the first moon landing in 1969. Moonday is hosted by the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas,Tx. This year, there were approximately 1000 attendees. During this event, we introduced robotics concepts like programming and designing.

We held 4 main stations to demonstrate skills we've developed in the FIRST program and fun activities. These stations include our Hovercraft, our Air Cannon, Lego EV3 robots, and our 3D printers.

Our Hovercraft has received some upgrades from last year, but still consists of the same fundamentals. It is designed using triangular shaped pieces from trash bags, a circular piece of plywood that is painted, duct tape, foam tubing, and an industrial leaf blower. Our newest attachment is a plastic inflatable chair placed on top of the Hovercraft to create a more comfortable ride and ensure individuals sit in the correct position. Kids sat on top of the chair and were guided using a small rod, simulating a carnival ride. Many children enjoyed the Hovercraft and felt as if they were floating.

Our Coca-Cola can launcher was a fan favorite! Our can launcher “sucks in” cans and then throws them out for kids to catch or dodge. Everyone also loved trying to drive and aim the cart the cannon sat on.

Using EV3 LEGO Sumo Robots, we taught students how to do simple block coding. They got to learn how to use color sensors to make sure the robot doesn’t go out of bounds, different motor functions to change the way the robot moves, and adding loops and wait times to see how long the robot does a specific action. Some kids even used extra logo pieces to customize their own robots for better performance.

The final activity we had was a station where kids could learn how to CAD simple designs and create their own keychains. We used SketchUp to teach the basics to 3D modelling like how to create basic shapes and extrude them as well as how to add text to their patterns.

On top of having all the activities for the kids, we got to talk to them and their parents about joining FLL or FTC. We even got to meet a superintendent of a small district that was going to start implementing FIRST, and we shared our experiences with her about how FIRST has benefited us. We also encouraged several parents and some teachers to even try and create a FIRST team at their school.

Overall, we had a blast hosting all these activities at Moonday and it was an amazing opportunity getting to connect back with our community and get both parents and children interested with FIRST.

Task: Introduce FTC Team Iron Reign to Freshmen

Earlier today, some members from our team went to TAG’s annual club fair to promote our club and recruit prospective members. To everyone who seemed interested, we gave a quick presentation about the three main parts of our team and showed off our robot from last season. We also gave out business cards to interested members so they could check out our blog posts to learn more in depth about some of our projects and our past seasons. Recruitment efforts like this one help sustain our program and spread FIRST throughout our school.

Our next steps would be to host a more detailed recruitment information session at school, and then start off the season by kicking off our “bootcamp” to teach the recruits the foundational skills across all three subteams.

We can’t wait to start off the season strong with a motivated group of new members!

When building a flywheel launcher, understanding the physics is essential. Our Desmos-based trajectory simulator helps us model and test different launch scenarios using kinematic equations.

At the core of the simulator is the projectile motion equation: y = x·tan(θ) - (g·x²)/(2(v·cos(θ))²). This combines horizontal and vertical motion into one formula. The x·tan(θ) term represents the initial upward direction of the launch, the second term accounts for gravity pulling the projectile down, and Y0 adds the effect of any launch height. We use this same equation twice with different velocity inputs to compare two launch scenarios.

The purple trajectory can use any initial velocity inputted, giving us the textbook projectile motion path. The red trajectory plugs in a velocity calculated from our flywheel system, where V_tangent = F_rpm·(2π·F_radius) This equation converts rotational speed (in revolutions per minute) into linear velocity at the flywheel’s surface. It models how a spinning flywheel actually launches the projectile. Our simulator also accounts for gravity (g=9.81 m/s2), launch height, motor efficiency, and gear ratios, giving us a complete picture of how the system behaves under realistic conditions.

To visualize accuracy, the simulator includes a goal box that defines our target area. This box is created using boundary equations that set the top and bottom y-limits between specific x positions, forming a clear rectangular “hit zone.” It’s immediately obvious whether the trajectory passes through the goal or misses.

This saves a lot of time compared to building and rebuilding physical prototypes. We can test dozens of configurations in minutes and understand which parameters actually matter for hitting our goal. The visual feedback makes it clear when adjustments bring the trajectory closer to passing through the goal box or when we need to try a different approach. The combination of physics modeling and visual feedback makes it much easier to understand what's happening and make informed decisions about our build.

If you want to check out the calculator for youself, here it is: Desmos Trajectory Calculator

Since designing, building, and testing the first iteration of our flywheel, we’ve made some minor but important changes to the design. These changes resulted in the flywheel being capable of launching with enough power. While the results are satisfactory, we will continue to improve and experiment on this design as well as possibly test different flywheel concepts entirely.

The major difference between v1 and v2 are the flaps that cover the outermost face of the T-tires. During testing of v1, we noticed that there wasn't enough traction between the Artifacts and the flywheel. For this reason we’ve redesigned the flaps to be 5mm long, 0.4mm thick (which is as thin as we could print them), and reduced the overall number of them. This resulted in the flaps actually being flexible instead of being stiff, similar to how they were on the original T-tires. On the top image is the T-tire design used in v1 of the Flywheel and on the bottom is the design used for this version of the Flywheel.

In addition to the new flap design, we also replaced the 3D-printed nylon standoffs that connected the two sides of the flywheel with COTS aluminum hex standoffs. We made this change to increase rigidity and reduce unwanted wobble, which was a recurring issue we encountered while testing v1. Similarly, we swapped the nylon ring that sandwiches the T-tire for one printed in PA-CF. The original nylon ring deformed when the bolts were tightened, while the PA-CF version provided noticeably greater rigidity and structural stability. However, even the PA-CF ring remains somewhat weak under high stress. In future iterations, we plan to either machine the rings out of metal (potentially copper, brass, or steel) to both strengthen the assembly and add weight for increased rotational momentum, or redesign the part to accommodate thicker sandwiching rings.

Despite these improvements, v2 still doesn’t produce enough power to be fully reliable when used on our first iteration of a stand-alone launcher. To help combat this issue, our next focus area will be increasing the friction within the system. Potential solutions include enlarging the T-tires (specifically by extending and heightening the flaps) or adding strips of TPU with flaps along the launcher’s back rails to enhance artifact contact. Additionally, we’ve observed the motors heating up quickly due to the enclosed design of the shell, so ventilation holes will be added in future versions to improve airflow. Finally, while rigidity has improved, there is still some unwanted wobble, which we suspect is due to the standoff-based structure. Our next design will likely move away from this approach entirely, and we instead would use a secondary shell to connect both sides and create a more stable assembly.

For our testing results, refer to our Launcher v1 blog post, and keep an eye out for our next update!

This is v1 of our actual launcher. With this iteration we’ve moved away from the large testing rig and over to a smaller and more standard launcher design/formfactor. Since we are still in the testing phase we’re continuing the use of MDF due to it being cheap and easy to manufacture with. For large parts that are highly subject to change we’re using PLA. Testing from our v0 launcher, and physics in general, we decided to continue to use a 45 degree angle for our launcher due to it being the middle-ground for max x and y displacement. Launcher v1 uses our new and improved v2 flywheel (check out that blog post for more info!). Additionally, it features an adjustable hood in order to control the launch angle and has side guide rails in order to introduce increased compression for more powerful shots.

The test results for v1 revealed some glaring issues and confirmed our suspicions about certain possible problems. First of all, we knew we would have issues with launch power due to the shorter distance for which the artifact was in contact with the flywheel compared to the v0 launcher. Slow motion videos revealed that a lot of the energy was going into ball spin instead of forward velocity. Additionally, a lack of ball compression could be playing a major role in this issue. Secondly, immediately after finishing the build for this version of the launcher we could tell that we had not designed the hood properly. Its installation was more complicated than it should have been. It was also far too flimsy, didn’t quite work as intended, and added a lot of bulk to the back of the launcher. Once we realized our errors with the hood, we decided it would be best to remove it in the meantime, especially as there was no real benefit in having it due to varying the flywheel speed performing essentially the same task with less mechanical complexity.

After our initial testing, we went back and made some minor, but important, changes. We took out the moving parts of the hood and left the purely structural components in order to simplify the build. We also printed a couple different sets of guide rails in order to test different levels of compression on the artifact. The most important change of all was suggested by the DPRG (check out our previous blog if you want to know more!). They suggested we use TPU in order to make the surface of the guide rails more grippy in order to reduce ball spin and use that energy for forward velocity. We designed and printed TPU strips with flaps that would glue onto the front face of the guide rails. The effect of the TPU strips was instantly noticeable as we were getting much closer to the goal in both the x and y axis; however, we weren't quite there yet.This made it clear that we would have to improve on our current flywheel design.

All in all, we made some great strides forward with this version of our launcher, but we still have a long way to go before reaching a working and consistent launcher. While our testing method wasn't full proof due to launching balls from the floor instead of a more realistic height, it made some things quite clear. For v2 of our launcher we’ll have to move onto v3 of our flywheel. In addition to that we’ll transition any PLA parts over to Nylon (our go to material) and simplify the back of our launcher by removing any remnants of the adjustable hood. We will also have to continue to play around with how much compression we introduce into the system until we get a good balance between power and speed.

We’ve made some crucial updates to our flywheel design, resulting in a much-needed boost in power. This iteration, named Rimfire, builds upon lessons learned from our previous versions and focuses on improving rigidity, airflow, and traction to create a more efficient and powerful launcher.

One of the biggest overhauls was to the disks of the flywheel themselves. The T-tires were made larger and more substantial, which required a bigger PA-CF sandwiching ring and the machining of new mounting holes on the carbon fiber plates. The flaps were also extended in both length and height to increase the amount of surface contact and friction between the flywheel and the artifact. The flaps profile of the TPU flaps were re-designed to more closely match the profile of the Artifacts. To accommodate the new T-tires, we also increased the thickness of the sandwich ring. While this was necessary to fit the larger tires, it had the added benefits of improving the rigidity of the solid TPU structure beneath the flaps. The result was a flywheel that feels sturdier and transmits power more efficiently during launch. The old version is on the top, and the new version is on the bottom.

We also made significant improvements to the motor mount and external shell. The new motor mount now features oval-shaped ventilation holes: a shape chosen to maintain structural strength while maximizing open area for airflow. These holes help air circulate around the motor to prevent overheating. We also designed a nylon outer shell to connect both sides of the flywheel. It includes the same ventilation pattern for cooling and adds valuable structural support. In future versions, we may experiment with chamfered or directional openings to better control airflow, potentially channeling it along the flywheel’s spin to further improve cooling. Interestingly, the added weight from this outer shell also increases the system’s rotational inertia, contributing to higher launch momentum.

Over the past few meetings, we taught one of our team members how to use the CNC machine. Here is his experience with it and some of the challenges he encountered:

Learning to use our CNC machine wasn’t exactly a smooth process. In fact, it started with some confusion, the fear of damaging thousands of dollars' worth of equipment, and a whole lot of “wait” and “what does that button do?” moments. Looking back, I’m grateful to have shared this journey with my teammates and to have learned how precise manufacturing works.

The first step was deciding what to cut. Anda walked me through the CAM process, showing me how parts are prepared before they touch the machine. I learned where to place screws so nothing shifts, how toolpathing is generated, and the types of bits used in the process. It was really interesting seeing that there is a lot of planning that goes into a simple cut.

Next, Fernando showed me how to operate our CNC machine. Standing in front of the machine was both exciting and intimidating. Fernado walked me through every step carefully and made sure we followed proper safety procedures like wearing safety glasses and keeping our hands clear from any moving parts. One of my first tasks was securing the carbon fiber sheet to the spoilboard so it wouldn’t shift during the cut.

We then zeroed the X and Y axes. After that, we ran an air pass to make sure the toolpath looked correct. Once everything was checked, I zeroed the Z axis by lowering the tool, tapping the down button, and gently adjusting until the bit was touching the surface. I also learned how to switch a drilling bit to the milling bit and also how we have to zero the Z axis to finally start cutting.

There was definitely a learning curve at first. A lot of staring at the control panel, and a lot of “Is this the right file?” However, after a bit of fumbling with the controls and a LOT of questions, I slowly learned:

- How to load files onto our ancient computer (which feels older than the machine itself)

- How to zero the machine and set the offsets

- How to change milling bits for different files

- How to safely use the CNC machine

Using the CNC machine was a great experience in itself. I was able to get hands-on with the actual machinery while being safe about the process. Running my first real part and seeing it come out exactly as we designed was genuinely satisfying. I now feel confident operating the machine, and I’m excited to see where my robotics journey takes me next.

Our first iteration of the shooting system was designed around driver-controlled, single-ball operation. Each time the driver wanted to fire a ball, they had to press the shooting button to initiate the sequence. This approach gave us precise control over when balls were fired, but it placed significant demands on the driver during matches.

When the button was pressed, the flywheel motor would spin up to launch speed. Once ready, the intake system fed a single ball from the magazine into the shooting mechanism. A servo then lifted the ball into the launch position, and the flywheel fired it toward the goal. After each shot, the system reset and waited for the next button press.

The original code implemented both minimum and maximum velocity limiters on the flywheel. The minimum limiter ensured the flywheel reached sufficient speed before firing, preventing weak shots. However, the maximum limiter created an unexpected bottleneck.

The flywheel had to accelerate to full speed, then actively decelerate back down to the maximum threshold before the ball could be released. This acceleration-deceleration cycle added considerable time to each shot.

While this system worked reliably for single shots, the repetitive button pressing and built-in delays made rapid scoring difficult. We knew we needed a faster, more automated solution for competitive play.

Our first league meet of the season proved to be an intense learning experience for our team. Competing in five matches, we walked away with a 1-4 record, but more importantly, we gained crucial insights that will shape our improvements moving forward.

Match 1: 38-5

We secured our only win of the day, though it came with a 30-point penalty awarded to us due to opposing team fouls. While the scoreboard favored us, our performance revealed critical issues. Our robot moved too aggressively, crossing into the opponent's launch zone and colliding with their robot. The flywheel showed promise by launching artifacts, but our accuracy needs work. We also experienced an artifact jam in the flywheel mechanism that we managed to clear during the match.

Match 2: 32-139

Facing a well-coordinated blue alliance, we struggled from the start. Technical issues prevented our autonomous routine from running, and our robot remained stationary for several seconds after match start. The opposing team's defensive strategy effectively blocked our shooting opportunities. Our paddle mechanism stopped functioning, leaving us unable to score. We also incurred two major fouls for contacting opponents in their secret tunnel during endgame.

Match 3: 31-71

We faced several accuracy challenges throughout this match. Most of our artifacts were shot too high, revealing tuning issues with our trajectory. Our positioning strategy also needed refinement; we discovered that shooting the artifacts required us to position at the very back of the forward triangle for any chance of success. An autonomous programming error caused us to venture too far into the opponent's zone, resulting in another major foul.

Match 4: 41-91

We faced significant intake issues. Our belt-driven intake system proved unreliable, especially when driving wasn't perfectly precise. The artifacts needed to be approached in a straight line for successful collection, making "messy" driving particularly problematic. Our overshooting issue persisted throughout the match, continuing the accuracy problems we'd experienced earlier in the day.

Match 5: 36-37

Our closest match ended in a one-point loss. We struggled with consistency, missing our purple preloads repeatedly due to both directional errors and power inconsistencies. Battery voltage may have been a factor as some shots lacked power while others had too much. The match concluded with a major foul when our teammate accidentally opened the blue alliance's gate. A critical missed opportunity came during endgame when our driver, lacking sufficient practice time, was unable to execute the parking maneuver. Those lost parking points proved to be the difference in this razor-thin defeat.

Key Takeaways

Mechanical Issues: The paddle tick configuration needs correction, and our flywheel occasionally jams. Artifact intake and shooting mechanisms require better tuning for consistent power and accuracy.

Programming Refinements: Our autonomous routines need boundary awareness to prevent zone violations. Robot speed control must be improved to avoid aggressive movements and collisions. Also, it takes a very long time to shoot the artifacts because all three parts of the outtake sequence have to be manually done by the driver. Implementing Limelight would also be beneficial since aligning our shots takes too long right now, reducing our scoring opportunities.

Driver Skills: Limited practice time showed during critical moments, particularly in endgame when parking maneuvers weren't executed successfully. This cost us valuable points in close matches and highlights the need for dedicated driver training sessions.

After a challenging first league meet, we returned with renewed focus and determination. Our second competition showed marked improvement with a 4-2 record, demonstrating that the lessons learned from Meet One were paying off.

Match 1: 95-24

Partnering with 23778 against blue alliance 30461 and 23913, we started strong. Our autonomous routine executed smoothly, scoring two purples and a green in the opening seconds before leaving the zone with 9 seconds remaining. In TeleOp, we maintained consistent scoring with 10 successful shots, though we continued to experience overshooting issues on occasion. Human player loading showed some difficulty, and we missed the endgame park. The first ball took approximately 40 seconds to shoot (from 2:00 to 1:36), while subsequent shots averaged 6-7 seconds each, illustrating our flywheel spin-up delay issue.

Match 2: 83-106

Teaming with 23913 against red alliance 3734 and 18227, we had a solid performance despite the loss. Autonomous was clean with three successful shots before leaving. TeleOp saw us score 8 balls with only 2 misses. Human player coordination was messy, slowing our reload cycles. We successfully parked during endgame. However, we did receive a foul for the human player transitively touching the robot since the artifact was touching the robot at the same time the human player was.

Match 3: 55-43

Partnering with 27013 against 31625 and 32324, we delivered one of our most consistent performances. Autonomous routine completed successfully, and TeleOp flow improved significantly. Human player coordination was notably better than previous matches. We scored 11 balls total with strong accuracy. However, we sacrificed parking points attempting to shoot a final ball in the closing seconds, demonstrating a strategic decision that could have gone either way in this close match.

Match 4: 51-15

Teaming with sister team 3734 against 21963 and 27013, we faced early technical difficulties. Our robot failed to move at the start of TeleOp, losing valuable seconds before getting operational at 1 minute and 46 seconds. Despite this setback and missing our autonomous leave bonus, we recovered to score 6 balls. Ball overflow issues appeared twice, and we had a brief moment stuck at the gate. We successfully parked during the endgame, showing improved driver skills from league meet 1

Match 5: 69-106

Partnering with 26644 against a strong blue alliance of 25802 and 8626, we faced intake challenges throughout the match. Our autonomous was solid, and we managed 6 successful TeleOp shots. Opening the gate at 1:14 showed good timing. We executed a successful park at the 10-second mark, demonstrating continued improvement in endgame execution.

Match 6: 58-21

Closing out the day with 31792 against 23778 and 18072, we delivered another win. Autonomous had one miss but otherwise ran smoothly. TeleOp proved challenging with the opposing alliance playing aggressive defense, resulting in some missed shots early. However, due to our limelight, our robot was able to reposition itself sometimes. We recovered to score 6 balls total.

League Meet Two demonstrated real growth. Our 4-2 record reflects not just improved mechanisms and code, but better driver skills, strategic awareness, and team coordination. The autonomous routine has become a strength rather than a liability, and parking execution during endgame showed dramatic improvement. However, the data reveals clear areas for continued development. The first-shot delay needs to be addressed, and Intake efficiency must improve to maximize scoring opportunities during the TeleOp period. For a more in-depth analysis about how our league meet 2 went, check out our SWOT analysis.

Following League Meet Two, we conducted a comprehensive SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to guide our strategic planning. This analysis combines performance data and technical observations to help create a roadmap for improvement.

Strengths:

Autonomous Performance: Our autonomous routine has become a significant advantage. Consistently scoring 2-3 artifacts before leaving the shooting zone gives us a strong foundation in every match.

Three-Artifact Shooting Capacity: We can shoot three artifacts in sequence without needing to reload between shots, allowing us to score more points per cycle. While our overall cycle time remains slow, this capacity provides a tactical advantage in maintaining scoring momentum.

Versatile Chassis Design: The unconventional chassis shape enables both full and partial parking configurations during endgame, giving us strategic flexibility. This design choice has proven valuable in close matches where parking points make the difference.

Limelight Auto-Alignment: Our vision system provides consistent auto-alignment for shooting, reducing driver burden and improving accuracy. The system even demonstrated resilience when an opponent collision knocked us off position since the Limelight automatically repositioned us. However, this feature can be further optimized through code refinement.

Solo Scoring Potential: In one round, we achieved approximately 80 points operating independently, granted we did receive 30 points due to the other alliance committing 2 major fouls.

Anda's Equation: Our custom flywheel velocity equation provides somewhat functional shooting across a narrow set of field positions. While this equation was developed from just a single test rather than extensive field mapping, it worked to a practical extent.

Weaknesses:

Cycle Time Inefficiency: Data analysis revealed our critical bottleneck: shooting cycles are significantly slower than competitive teams. Within each cycle of three artifacts, the first shot takes approximately 7 seconds while shots 2-3 take 3-4 seconds each. This pattern repeats because our flywheel spins up to full speed, maintains momentum for quick follow-up shots, then decelerates. The flywheel's control strategy, accelerating to maximum speed then reducing to reach desired velocity, wastes time and energy with every cycle. More problematically, the gaps between cycles that are spent intaking artifacts average 30-40 seconds, which is too inefficient.

Intake Design Limitations: The intake mechanism is too narrow, causing artifacts to either bounce away or deviate from the intended path. This directly contributes to our long intake times and missed scoring opportunities.

Mechanical Issues: The paddle mechanism occasionally gets stuck between artifacts, causing jams. Wire management remains problematic. The robot is excessively back-heavy, affecting handling and stability.

Ranking Point Generation: Even in matches we win, we're not accumulating enough ranking points. This weakness could hurt our tournament seeding.

Lack of Funding: Limited financial resources constrain our ability to purchase materials and iterate on designs.

Opportunities:

Refine Anda's Equation: Further refinement of our flywheel velocity calculations could optimize shooting accuracy and consistency across all distances.

Mechanical Redesign: Curved Ramp: Replace the paddle lift mechanism with a moveable curved ramp that allows artifacts to roll naturally into the flywheel. This could eliminate jamming issues and improve feeding reliability.

Two-Motor Flywheel: Adding a second motor to the flywheel should significantly reduce spin-up time, addressing our cycle time weakness. This could cut a significant amount of time per shot in each cycle.

Enhanced Autonomous: Expand autonomous to score additional artifacts beyond our current 2-3 artifact routine. With our autonomous reliability, adding scoring could generate crucial ranking points.

Odometry Pods Integration: Implementing odometry pods with RoadRunner path planning would enable more sophisticated autonomous routes and precise field positioning throughout the match.

Limelight Distance Refinement: Further tuning of distance calculations from the Limelight could improve positioning accuracy and reduce alignment time.

Flywheel Compression Testing: Experiment with artifact compression in the flywheel, potentially removing the clear adhesive material to optimize grip and launch consistency.

Visual Communication Systems: Install LED lighting on the robot's rear to improve communication between the driver and human player, reducing coordination delays.

Hardware Upgrades: Brass plates instead of CF could add weight to the flywheel for better momentum. New diagonal-flap belts might force artifacts sideways and inwards for more reliable intake.

Increased Driver Practice: Additional practice sessions focused on efficient cycles and endgame parking would directly improve match performance.

> Threats:

Defensive Vulnerability: Our robot is prone to defensive pressure from opposing teams. Since our robot is super lightweight and short, we are more vulnerable to being hit by bigger robots and/or being pushed while we try to score.

Advanced Autonomous Routines: Competing teams have demonstrated sophisticated autonomous routines that significantly outpace our current capabilities.

Cycle Time Gap: Some robots can shoot three artifacts in the time we shoot one. This 3:1 performance gap represents a threat that must be addressed.

V2 of our launcher has proven to be significantly better than v1. The main difference between the two being the switch over to using Rimfire (v3 of our flywheel) on v2 of the launcher. Make sure to check out our blogpost on Rimfire in order to learn more about what we changed in regards to that. Initially, we started off by using the exact same launcher structure as v1, but using Rimfire instead. After using the testing platform and observing incredibly positive results we made the change over to the final iteration of our v2 launcher. The outer MDF plates were replaced by 3mm CF plates, our complex and finicky hood system from v1 was replaced by a curved 0.5mm cf plate, and the guide rails were reprinted out of nylon. Additionally, we replace the TPU flaps on the guide rails with silicone tape. This not only did a good job at reducing spin, but also made it easy to tune compression by allowing us to increase it in increments of 2mm on top of the default compression created by the guide rails. While we may have removed the adjustable hood from the launcher, we are still able to manually change the launch angle (outside of matches) in order to find the sweet spot for us thanks to how we mounted the launcher to the chassis.

Initial off-bot testing went really well, the launcher had more than enough power to score from the far launch zone. Quick consecutive shots aren’t really possible due to having such a low moment of inertia. It can maybe shoot two consecutive artifacts with little recharge time in between if close enough to the goal but definitely cant due a volley of three consecutive balls. The initial goal behind this flywheel was to make it as lightweight as possible in order to reduce spin up times and the straight on the motors; however, over the course of our testing we’ve learned that having a good middle ground is important when it comes to the weight of the flywheel.

After running this launcher for the past two league meets we’ve learned some pretty important information that we’ll need to act on over winter break. Rapid consecutive shots aren't possible due to the flywheel having such low inertia due to its weight of 260g. We think that using a hub motor design for an application like this is incredibly cool, unique, and good for conserving space; however, we believe that we’ve reached the limits of the design. In order to increase the mass of the flywheel while also maintaining a good balance with the spin up times and low motor strain we’ll have to switch over to a simplified flywheel design that uses two external motors. During our league meets we noticed that it took about 7 seconds to get our first shot off and about 3-4 seconds between consecutive shots, which are both quite slow times. This is primarily due to an inefficiency in the code for the shoot sequence (make sure to check out our blogpost over that!). However, changing over to a heavier flywheel will enable us to reduce those times even further. Moving away from flywheel issues, we believe it would be a good idea to add LEDs to the back of the hood in order to make the job of the driver and human player easier. A mix of LEDs and sensors inside the robot's channel will make it much easier to know how many balls are loaded and how many balls are still needed.

After our first league meet, we identified the shooting system as a major bottleneck. Watching match footage revealed how much time we lost with the manual, single-ball operation. Our drivers were constantly managing button presses while trying to navigate and position the robot, creating unnecessary pressure during critical scoring moments. We decided to overhaul the system to make it faster and more autonomous.

The new sequence activates the flywheel and uses the distance sensor to detect when a ball is ready. The servo lifts each ball into the launch position automatically, cycling through all available balls until the magazine is empty. Now, a single button press fires everything we have loaded.

After LM2, we removed the maximum velocity limiter, keeping only the minimum threshold. This allows the flywheel to maintain optimal speed throughout the sequence, dramatically reducing cycle time between shots. The code improvements alone made our shooting significantly faster.

We integrated a PID controller for precision turning using IMU data. The system can also lock onto April tags using Limelight tx values to auto-center the robot toward the goal. For autonomous routines, we calculate shooting distance using the Limelight's ty value combined with known heights and angles.

Our three-ball auto routine uses the distance sensor for backward travel measurement, executes the automatic shooting sequence for preloaded balls, performs a 45-degree IMU turn, and drives forward to the designated leave point.