Task: Preparing the Robot for the Upcoming League Meet
General Fixes:
The LED battery holder from the previous meeting snapped, requiring us to rebend and make a new gate for the LED Battery holder from scratch, which took a bit of time. In addition to this, all the set screws on the robot for the shaft collars and the pulley systems, as well as using threadlocker on the right motor mount in...
October 29th Screamage Overview By Georgia, Aarav, Anuhya, Trey, Gabriel, and Leo
Screamage at Marcus High School Overview
Today, Iron Reign attended the Screamage at Marcus High School to play a couple of practice matches. This event allowed us the opportunity to better understand the game flow and further develop a strategy, finally get some drive practice, and point out any flaws in the robot and its design to help improve the next iteration of TauBot.
Task: Build a robot that can be adapted to any challenge
The new challenge is upon us and with a new challenge comes new robot designs. This year we have found that we are going to need to focus on the chassis of our robot more than ever. This is because the barrier to the warehouse is an important obstacle that we want to be able to climb or get around in order to...
A Prerequisite Chassis to Robot In 3 Days By Trey, Cooper, and Aaron
Task: Build a robot that can be adapted to any challenge
The challenge reveal is going to be quite soon. In the weeks leading up to the challenge reveal we began to wonder if there was anything we could do that would make our transition from preseason to prototyping any better. And obviously, there are many things we could do that would make our work...
Task: Review our failure of rushed build leading up to the UTD qualifier
As discussed in the post "Making the Ringevator Legal" there was a lot of rushed build leading up to this qualifier. As a recap of that post, the Ringevator was too wide and too tall to be legal, so we had to cut off the front of the robot, split the omni wheels, shorten the assembly, and shorten...
Task: Make the Ringevator legal so we can use it in competition
We’re at the point now where we have a lot of our systems ready to be put on the robot, but we have to face another big challenge, which is making everything legal. Since the robot is a circle, we don’t exactly have any space to put an intake in the sizing cube. We can...
Task: Describe the construction and development of the Ringevator intake
This year we have done a lot of work on intakes and launchers. The purpose of this post is to go over the function and overall design and build of the Ringevator intake. It doesn’t go too far in-depth so if you are looking for something more specific I would recommend that you look at specific posts discussing different parts...
Today we worked on different intake systems to place the rings in the launcher. We finished our first prototype for a belt type intake and lift. The 3d printed belt was able to slide rings along a vertical piece of polycarb to place rings into the launcher. The speed of the motor and belt makes this one of our quickest intake and delivery prototypes. Our other...
1/16 Build Progress - The first rings fly By Trey, Cooper, Aaron, Paul, Bhanaviya, and Jose
Task: Continue developing the ring launcher and do preliminary testing
Today we continued to further our progression on our ring launcher, finally getting to do some preliminary testing to see what the design might do. For starters, we started to get some of the walls off of the 3d printer which was the first piece...
Today we made some progress on our round robot. We moved the rev rails and big wheels on the Bigwheel chassis to be able to fit inside the polycarb circle that we previously made. These movements gave us a good idea of where to position the rev rails, but the wheels were too close to the edge of the circle, to the...
Today we were able to drive test our "robot in 2 days" robot. We used our robot from the previous season, Icarus, as our alliance partner. Jose and Trey drove several matches. They were able to score around 40 points consistently. This was a relatively high number considering Icarus was only used as a push bot (it hasn't been adapted...
When attaching the hook to the servo, it was very important that the configuration gave the hook its widest possible range of motion. The open position needed to as far back retracted as possible for an easier lander dismount, and the closed position had to be closed enough so that our robot would not fall off the lander in competition.
In post E-116, I showed all the big wheel articulations. As we shifted our robot to Icarus, we decided to change to a new set of articulations as they would work better to maintain the center of gravity of our robot. Once again, we made 5 major deployment modes. Each articulation is necessary to maintain the robot's center of gravity as its mode of operation shifts.
A big part of our redesign is improving our intake system. To see where some of the errors may lie, we took detailed videos of our robot intaking silver and gold minerals from a side view, one mineral at a time. We measured the time between when the intake first made contact with the mineral, and when the mineral was directly underneath the rotating icecube tray, and therefore in our...
Updating the Bigwheel model to the robot’s current configuration was a challenge. The new linear slides are not standard parts, so we had to model them from scratch. There was some cleaning up that was needed on the drivetrain of the model. This was mainly attaching floating motors to motor mounts and axles to bearings. These were mainly cosmetic changes, but they help define the purpose of...
In our motion, our robot shifts multiple major subsystems (the elbow and Superman) that make it difficult to keep the robot from tipping. Therefore, through driver practice, we determined the 5 major deployment modes that would make it easier for the driver to transition from mode to mode. Each articulation is necessary to maintain the robot's center of gravity as its mode of...
Fixing Mineral Dropper Components By Jose and Evan
Task: Fix any issues with the mineral dropper
At the STEM expo we saw a clear issue with the mineral dropper: it is very poorly geared and doesn't deposit minerals well. A quick look at the gear configuration revealed that the gears were attached in a poor manner such that there was a lot of gear skippage. To remedy this, we attached a gear-box to the dropper to keep the gears interlocked.
Task: Assemble the V.3.5 latch and attach to the robot
We assembled the fourth version of the latch today. Some of the improvements on this latch include using bigger bearings and thrust bearings inside. This latch is designed to be stronger and more reliable. After cleaning the parts and trimming some edges, we assembled the pieces. Upon assembly, we discovered an issue: the gears required a different amount of pressure to catch the lock. If left...
We need to add omniwheels to the intake arm to allow the arm to rest on the ground, while still maintaining the necessary height for collecting the minerals. If the height is too low, the minerals wouldn't be able to move through the intake. If the intake was too high, it wouldn't be able to grip onto the minerals and pull them through. We decided to use omnidirectional wheels as...
Early in the season, we made a hook, Although it was durable, it required a higher amount of precision than we would have liked to have, especially in the rushed last seconds of the endgame. As a result, we designed a latch that is completely 3D printed and placed it on the robot.
This is the general model of it fit together (excluding left panel)....
Regionals is coming up, and there are some driving issues that need to be addressed. Going back to November, one notable issue we had at the Conrad qualifier was the lack of friction between Bigwheel's wheels and the field tiles. There was not enough weight resting on the wheels, which made it hard to move suddenly.
Since then many changes have been made to Bigwheel in terms of the...
So, our dream this year is to create a static robot. Last week, we found out about a rule change that would prevent our mining robot from staying within the crater. Naturally, we found a way around this, leading us to the Mining Base 2.0.
The robot will be fixed under the lander's hooks, and have a horizontal and vertical linear slide attached to...
At one point, we were thinking about creating a "mining facility" robot that stays static within the crater and delivers the blocks into the mining depot. In our eyes, it was legal as it would hold as many blocks as possible inside the crater but only deliver two at a time outside. It would be super-efficient as we would be able to stay within the crater, and not...
Right now, we're working on a static-deposit system. The first part of this system is having an intake mechanism that passively differentiates the balls and cubes, reducing complexity of other parts of the design. Thus, we created the corn-cob intake.
First, we bought ice-cube trays. We wanted a compliant material that would grip the particles and be able to send them...
Task: Create wheel mounts for our Mini-Mecanum chassis
Today, we modeled two possible designs for mini-mecanum wheel mounts. The purpose of the mounts is to hold a churro or hex shaft in place to mount mecanum wheels to. The first design was a 6cm by 6cm square with rounded edges that was 5mm thick. A hexagon was removed from the center to hold the churro that supports the mecanum wheel. This design,...
C.A.R.T. Bot Summer Project By Evan, Abhi, and Janavi
Task: Enhance our robot-building skills
At Iron Reign, we hate to waste the summer since it’s a great time to get all the ridiculous builds out of the way. Thus, we created C.A.R.T. Bot (Carry All our Robotics Tools). Our constant companion these last few seasons has been our trusty Rubbermaid utility cart which has been beaten and abused, competition after competition, as it carried all our tools...
Tired of slipping set screws? Want a rigid drive shaft as long or tall as your robot? Have a bunch of REV Rail lying around? Have we got a solution for you...
Turn your REV Rail into a beater-bar, a drive shaft or a heavy duty hinge with our Spintastic Axializer System … The REVolution System
Iron reign has developed these parts over the course of this...
Task: To have a working relic arm in time for Worlds
For weeks now, Team 6832 has been working hard to have a functional relic arm designed and mounted on the robot. We feel that it is absolutely necessary to be able to complete relic recovery at Worlds if we do not want to be crushed by the competition. Well, fear not, our relic arm is here!
With FIRST Champs right around the corner, we needed to update our CAD model to match our current Kraken. After all, Kraken can't be lackin' any features. I decided to reopen Creo and make some modifications.
One of the most important things I needed to put on was the Relic arm. After planning on it for the whole season, we finally finished it recently. I...
Building. It seems so simple but alas I was wrong, so wrong. During our post mortem, when we discussed our roles on the road to worlds, Kenna and I volunteered for building a pushbot. We both wanted to get more experience in building and thought this would be a perfect way to becoming well-versed in building. Our task was to create a drive base that, when placed on...
This is the fifth or so article in our series on robotics testing. Today's spotlight will be on the constants of our robot's bungees, and how they're affected by various wear and tear. So, we took three bungees from the same set as the ones on our robot, and placed them in various places: stretched outside, stretched inside, and a control sitting in the...
Two words describe the picture above: "Oh dear". The wires shown above are connected to our jewel thief on the bottom of our robot. The reason the wires are so shredded and torn is because the chain on our grippers would rub against the wires when the lift was in the lower position. However, it was not always like this.
When we went to Super Regionals, we forgot about where to put our flag with the new design. That led us to strapping a zip tie to a side shield, ruining the aluminum aesthetic. We decided we need a specially designed part to put our flag in since duct tape didn't look nice (we're classy like that). I embarked on a mission to create a...
Kraken LED Installation By Ethan, Austin, Evan, and Abhi
Task: Install LEDs on our robot
This has been a low-priority task for the robot throughout the season. We wanted to be able to a) look cool and b) signal team color and problems with the robot with LEDs. And, at Supers, we just happened to have access to a Fender switch, servo, and a roll of LEDs, so in our downtime we decided to take advantage of it. If we knew...
Task: Design and implement a new Relic Arm mechanism
At the North Texas regionals, we realized that if we really want to go further in the robot game, we need to significantly improve. Part of this is designing the new grabber-flipper system detailed in a later post, but another good way to score points is to score the Relic. So, we designed v1 of the Relic Arms, as detailed in this post....
Task: Implement the new grabber system and record how it works
So, we've been talking about our new gripper system for a while - we've made prior 3D models and started it, hoping that we'd have it done by the Oklahoma Regional, since that was sort of a low stakes tournament for us. Unfortunately, we didn't get it just in time, so we had to go back to the basic...
It was a temperate night. The waning moon shone overhead, a blazing reminder of the continuity of time, for as the moon dipped lower in the sky, our precious little time until the tournament dripped away. Under this oppressive, singular symbol, we labored, trying to outpace the continual march of time.
Over the past week, we had worked tirelessly on the robot. In...
Robot Drive Team By Charlotte, Tycho, Karina, and Evan
Task: Build a solid drive team.
One of the leading problems Iron Reign faces is our ability to allot time to effective driving practice. Driving practice is essential for our success in the robot game, but it is sometimes difficult to find time to practice due to other team members working on various robot improvements. We have created two different drive teams, a main team and a backup team, so that despite...
After analyzing the lack of speed from our last competition, we decided to continue the journey of attaching the gripper arms to a conveyor belt as previously designed. To do so, we realized that we needed to utilize the REVolution system to make the grippers work better. Also, we needed two points of attachment for our robot after seeing that one didn't work with the first version of the...
As the season wears on, the robot game looms over Iron Reign since the bot we built scores only a fifth of the world record. To lessen the gap, we continue to invest in the flipper system I contrived earlier on in the season. As of late, we’ve furthered the project by building a chassis for it to rest in. It’s a slightly modified version of the one...
Over the course of this past season, I have been learning how to use Creo Parametric to learn 3-D modeling. Since this is Tycho's last year on the team (so far he has been our main modeler), I decided to learn from him so the modeling legacy would continue.
The first project I was tasked to design was the wheel guard on the robot....
One of our issues with the previous iteration of the gripper was the fact that the material that coated the actual pincers weren't even and would often lead to blocks slipping from the bottom of the gripper and falling out. Our solution to this was to retest materials and in this process we decided to try our hand at 3D printing...
When we designed our new grabber with the octopuckers, one of the variables we neglected was the width of the new grabber once assembled and resting. After the grabber was completed it’s width was actually greater than that of the housing bay we had built into the current drive train, so to get the grabber to fit we actually had to widen the bay....
The world advances on innovation. We strive to make the most efficient devices and aparati to complete jobs for us. There’s a hundred different ways to work a task, but only one will be the best at functioning in the areas of efficiency and timeliness. Just as America runs on Dunkin, advancement runs on efficiency. That’s why the robot must be outfitted with a flipper system...
The jewel thief we built before *worked* but that was about it. More often than not, it failed or, even worse, knocking off the wrong jewel due to instability. And, in the Greenhill Qualifier, we lost several rounds because of a problem that could've been easily fixed. So, we had to redesign it.
The jewel thief was initially intended to be simple. It...
Version 2 of our gripper arms worked much better than our original. Due to their silicone material and trianglular shape, we definitely had more control over the glyphs than our one degree of freedom grabber arms. However, we still had issues we needed to address. When glyphs were taken in, since the silicone surface did not have much mobility and compressibility, glyphs would often fall. Due to slight...
At the Oklahoma qualifier, we saw numerous teams with similar systems to that of ours. However, since we had the mobilized gripper arms to stack with auto alignment, we were able to collect glyphs easier. In spite of that, after observing other teams in action, we realized our current gripper method had the issue of not being ready by the time we got back to the cryptobox. This is...
The basters are here and in full swing. We spent a late night putting together the two intake columns. They were attached to a backing by previously, allowing to finish it by attaching the final servo and tieing it to the two columns. Since the new intake needed new code, we whipped up some code to allow us to have control. Upon doing this he realized...
Task: Learn how to Assemble parts in Creo Parametric
In addition to making parts to print in Creo, it is sometimes useful to combine multiple parts to make a model. For example, we can make a robot model by assembling parts in Creo. We have conducted a video on how to do so.
For this tutorial, we first created two simple parts...
Task: Become experts at driving the robot and scoring glyphs
Iron Reign’s robot drivers Abhi, Charlotte, and I, have been working hard to decrease our team’s glyph-scoring time. The past few meets, we have spent many hours practicing maneuvering on the field and around blocks, something that is crucial if we want to go far this competition season. When we first started driving the robot, we took approximately 4 minutes to complete a single...
The task today was simple. We replicated the prior work with the first gripper, as stated in the prior post, so we can begin connecting them. The biggest problem was finding all the parts to make it. We are hoping we can connect and mount them in the next couple days so it will be ready for the qualifier in Oklahoma. The improvement over last post was the addition of the rubber gripping material, as...
The jewel thief, the mechanism for knocking off one of the jewels, was going to be one of the tougher parts of our bot to integrate, based on the chassis we began with. But, with a little engineering and some long thought, we came up with a few ways to implement it. First, we began with a side mount, and it was alright...
Refering back to the design of the wheel guard, we decided it was time to actually mount it on the robot. At first, it seemed like the part was perfect for the robot since it fit just snug with the screws on the wheel. However, upon mounting, we discovered the following:
Turns out that the part is acutely shorter than the real height of wheel relative to the horizontal axis superimposed upon the vertical plane. As a...
Since damaging field elements is a huge no-no, we needed to fix this, we decided to create a 3-D part to protect the glyphs from our wheels
Model:
During the first attempt, I had just self taught Creo hours prior to construction. As a result, I was not very precise nor efficient in my design. Nevertheless, we recognized that there were some basic shapes we could use for construction such as a semicircle for the bottom half and two rectangles on the...
Because our robot at this point has merely become a collage of prototypes that we compete with, there are often subtle improvements that need to be made. Starting with the wheelbase, Abhi has written a blog about the shields we printed to protect the glyphs from the gnashing bolts of our mechanum wheels, and we also tensioned all our set screws and motor mounts to make sure that our...
We were tearing up our glyphs like this because our wheels had no guard for their screws:
More specifically, we had multiple issues with damaging the glyphs. First, the exposed screws on the mechanum wheels (Fig 1) tended to cut into the glyphs as seen in the above picture. As well, you can see relatively sharp edges on the wheels where the block could also be cut, and that the blocks could be pinched by the...
With our single degree of freedom lift fastened to the robot we focused on the appendage that would grip to within an inch of its life any glyph we fed it. We initially toyed with simple tetrix channels to form a make shift rail that would hold axels for pivoting points, however we found tetrix to be a bit too cumbersome and decided to use rev...
Task: Design the grabber design and make future plans
The grabber has been evolving. A column made of a turkey baster and a wooden dowel attached to servo has come into fruition. The first drawings and designs are coming along, and some 3D printed parts have been thought up to allow the square dowel to become a hexagon. An adapter of sorts. The grabber and lift have been outfitted with a...
The games have begun and it’s time to build. So that’s what Austin and I did. A war had been declared. Legions of the indentured collided on the battlefield. Millions were slaughtered during this new age armageddon. Austin had his army. I had mine. Two different ideas to do the same task: lift glyphs into their correct positions. A simple job but one that caused a rift in...
After determining that the treaded channel was much too buggy to perfect with the time we had, we shifted attention to other scoring systems like grabbers, however before finding the right grabber we decided we needed to get the track for it completed first. We’ve had experience in the past with all sorts of rails from Tetrix kits that convert their standard channels into lifts, to the newer...
In an attempt to get a working lift system before the coaches meeting we will be presenting at, a linear slide has been attached to the robot, along with a pair of grabbing arms. They work surprisingly well and aren’t as complicated as my idea. Plus the importance of speed has really taken hold on me this year. We need to be as fast...
Over the past couple of days we’ve experimented with a horizontally mounted track system that we had hoped would serve to move blocks through the entire length of the robot and into the crypto box. Immediately we noticed a few issues, the primary one being that the tread was static in terms of mounting and therefore wasn’t accepting of blocks when feed at an odd...
The sun came out and it was back to the field. We got started right away, both of us building our designs. Since the cryptoboxes were wider than the 18 inch sizing cube, we started by designing a fold out for the conveyor belt. This was entirely proof of concept, purely to see if it was at all aplicable in the game...
After the game reveal video was released we had some ideas on how to have our robot grip onto the blocks, but we couldn't test it without a makeshift glyph to hold onto. So we decided to upcycle some old cat and weather damaged field tiles by cutting them up into 6 X 6 squares and placing them in a cube formation. Attached below is an image of our handiwork and a image...
Task: Compare build designs for the cryptobox intake system
The block scoring system is going to be an integral part of the competition this year, and it will have to built sturdy. It’ll have to be reliable for us to have any shot of winning any matches. So we got to brainstorming. We spent a while at the whiteboard, drawing up various mechanisms and ways to pick up blocks. One idea was the idea...
REV Robot Reveal By Tycho, Austin, Charlotte, Omar, Evan, and Janavi
Argos V2 - a REV Robot Reveal
This video was pulled from Argos visits to: The NSTA STEM Expo in Kissimmee FL, in the path of eclipse totality in Tennessee, and in North Texas at The Dallas Makerspace, The Southwest Center Mall, Southside on Lamar and the Frontiers of Flight Museum. We hope you find it interesting:
One man's harrowing journey through copyright free music lists
The Robot Reveal video is underway. With most of the filming done, the sky grows dark and the day ends. A night time of editing sets in for the poor miscreant who volunteered for the task. Huddled in the corner with a raw fish and his precious computer, the boy opens premiere pro to begin. All is right with the world. The five hour...
Inspire Award By Tycho, Jayesh, Lin, Omar, Max, Darshan, Evan, Ethan, Janavi, and Charlotte
1st Place at North Texas Regional Championship
Iron Reign members left to right are Ethan Helfman (Build, Communications), Janavi Chada (Programming, Communications), Tycho Virani (Programming Lead, Main Driver), Jayesh Sharma (Business Lead, Build, Communications), Darshan Patel (Build), Lin Rogers (Communications Lead, Logistics, Business) and Charlotte Leakey (Programming, Logistics), with Evan Daane (from BTW, Build, Photography) in repose. Not shown: Max Virani (Design Lead, Programming), Omar...
Task: Build a backup flywheel track and remount side shields
Previously, our side shields were zip-tied through 4 bolt holes on tetrix pieces per side, and we had taken one off to reach our drive system. When putting it back on to fine tune autonomous we took the time to cut out space for a wrench and bolt it on. The holes were already the correct size, we just had to line...
Building the Fly Wheel Launcher By Jayesh, Omar, Darshan, Evan, Tycho, and Max
Task: Create a particle launcher with a higher scoring rate
The first particle launcher we saw by another FTC team was actually a crude flywheel and rail design back in October where the rail was a cut up PVC elbow. Back then we considered a number of different designs including impact launchers, catapults, flywheel + rail systems and dual flywheel shooters like our sister team built. We decided to go with a catapult design because Max...
Robot Drive Team By Charlotte, Tycho, Karina, and Evan
Task: Build a solid drive team.
One of the leading problems Iron Reign faces is our ability to allot time to effective driving practice. Driving practice is essential for our success in the robot game, but it is sometimes difficult to find time to practice due to other team members working on various robot improvements. We have created two different drive teams, a main team and a backup...
Motor Controller Mounts By Ethan, Darshan, Max, and Tycho
Task: Prevent static shocks to our robot
Throughout the year, we've dealt with static issues with our robot, as shown here and here. And, now that we've pretty much gotten autonomous and the lift out of the way, the static was our only remaining issue.
To prevent the static shocks, we needed to isolate the motor controllers and other...
Cap Ball Lift By Omar, Jayesh, Darshan, Evan, and Max
Task: Build a lift to try cap-ball scoring
Although we're confident in our robot's ability to shoot balls and press beacon buttons, we decided that in order to be competitive, we should try to score the cap ball. The lift would have to be strong enough to lift the surprisingly heavy ball, but also not take up too much space. Our robot, as like every year, is very close to the 18 inch size limit in all directions, so we...
Mapping Out Autonomous By Janavi, Tycho, Omar, Evan, and Darshan
Task: Mapping Out Autonomous
To tell the robot how far to move forward we had to calculate our motors RPM. We did this by telling the robot move to 10 rotations forward and calculating how far it travelled. After he RPM we created a model field upon which we designed a set path for the robot during autonomous. One path for red and then one for blue....
Beginning the build for the Cap Ball Trapper By Jayesh and Omar
Task: Give Deadshot flexibility in end game scoring by designing Cap ball launcher
One of the issues we saw in Arkansas was in the lack of flexibility we had in terms of the end game. We efficiently scored balls and beacons, but when our teammate for a specific match could do the same, we lost possible points scored. This led us to conclude that a Cap Ball Trapper,...
Up to this point, we hadn't given much attention to a beacon scoring mechanism that we could use in both autonomous and tele-op. At the scrimmage we learned that scoring the beacons was almost vital to winning the match, and we couldn't do that. We rigged up a short u-channel on a plate and attached it to our robot, hoping we could just ram...
Robot Frame and Rewiring By Jayesh, Omar, and Evan
Task: Build a frame to increase available surface area on robot to rewire current configuration
The wiring, which had been on the robot, had been a constant issue. The wiring tangled, interfered with the scoring mechanism, and led to some inefficiencies in electrical output. In order to increase the available space to reconfigure the inner workings of the robot, we built a second testrix layer, which also conveniently serves as a handle.
Today marks six days until Doomsday (AKA Little Home, Arkansas), so we needed to finalize everything. For the catapult, Jayesh and Omar fixed my catapult "fixes". However, with the new fixes, the catapult was more powerful, and required recalibration. To adjust to the new fixes, we removed the old stop-mechanism, and replaced it with a wooden one that stops it on the 2nd level of...
Task: To bring the catapult within size limits and improve it
What Actually Happened: Abject failures
So, the original catapult, when not stuck, performed pretty well at the scrimmage. However, since we opted not to measure our robot at the scrimmage, we didn't realize that our robot was not within the FTC size limits. When measured after the fact, it was 18x19x20 in x, y, and z axes respectively, due to the catapult's position on the robot. To rectify this, we decided to cut the catapult down,...
Task: Replace rubber bands with smaller versions and add wider intake area
New intake area is wider than before
At the Scrimmage we noticed that the rubber bands would get tangled as they rubbed against the underside of the catapult bowl, and so didn't reach as far down at the bottom. We untangled them before each match but decided to test out the smaller ones when we had the chance at...
First and foremost, we now have one completely functional, terrifying, catapult. The motor mechanism is cannibalized from our sister team's attempt at a catapult, which broke apart on testing.
Flywheel
So, while we don't have a functional flywheel as of...
Stabilizing Our Driving Base By Jayesh, Omar, Max, and Darshan
Task: Stablize Meccanum wheel base so the driving is more stable and consistent
Our Meccanum wheel base idea started off on a shaky note. While we had a good amount of success in the tass we wanted to complete, like driving right or let without turning the entire robot, including the basic driving functions. However, as we went on with testing, we found that over time, the force the meccanum wheels...
Task: To build a launching mechanism for the particles
For the 2016-2017 season, particle scoring is really important. During autonomous, balls that are launched into the center vortex earn 15 points each, and balls that are launched into the center vortex earn 5 points. If done quickly enough, the particle scoring can negate most of the advantages another team has - just 8 particles scored during the driver-controlled period is equivalent to scoring all 4 beacons. With a good scoring mechanism, the only thing that your team...
Building the Robot Base By Jayesh, Omar, and Darshan
Task: Design and test implementation of a driving base
We have spent the last few practices formulating a new driving base for our robot this year. We went through various possibilities: tank-based drive using both tracks and the omni-regular system (both of which are systems that we have utilized in previous years). However, both systems showed inefficiencies with this year's competition. We decided to go to a system using mainly Mecanum...
First Official Practice of the Season By Omar, Lin, Jayesh, Darshan, Ethan, Evan, Janavi, Max, and Tycho
Task: Pull ourselves together for the new season
At this practice, our goal was to get everybody familliar with this year's game, Velocity Vortex, and to brainstorm some ideas for this year's robot. Some organization also needed to be done in terms of parts (everything is everywhere and nowhere at the same time) and also in terms of this year's meeting structure. Last year...
Geb Fixes and Adjustments By Jayesh, Omar, and Lin
Task: Prepare Geb for competition and get it into running condition
With all of the large projects and events that Iron Reign have been commiting to (with more still to come), we have unfortunately been neglecting Geb and as we came to find a few weeks ago, many of the running parts that give us the majority of points in competition were falling in disrepair. We found that the tape measure system...
New tread material test By Lin, Tycho, Max, and Evan
Task: Initial tests for new tread material
The standard Tetrix treads and tread inserts aren't nearly as sturdy as we would like. When they snap it's a real effort to put back together stretched over the idlers, and the inserts peel apart, bringing our traction down. The new material is a rubber conveyor belt material from Andymark, and the underside track chain is 3D printed in nylon to mesh with the...
Let's assume you are building a LEGO Mindstorms or Vex IQ based Sumobot, but you want to skip some of the basic mistakes beginners will make. Here are some tips and tricks.
Know the rules. It's silly to get disqualified because you didn't pay attention to the rules. Know the size and weight limits. Know the allowed construction materials and techniques. Know the startup behaviors. For example, your robot must not move...
Hoverboards and PID By Lin, Omar, Darshan, Tycho, and Max
Task: Continue with the Hoverboard and tweak PID
After the long weekend last week, today was a reasonably relaxed practice. We decided that we could work on anything, as long we stayed focused. The two main foci were the -Robot on a Hoverboard- and fine tuning our PID for autonomous.
Reflections
We experimented with balancing the robot more evenly on the hoverboard to keep it on a straight path...
Robot On a Hoverboard - Try 1 By Lin, Max, Tycho, Darshan, Omar, Evan, Ethan, and Jayesh
Task: Try to drive the hoverboard with the competition bot
In the middle of Saturday's event we decided it would be a GREAT idea to put the competiton robot on the hoverboard and try to drive it around. Theoretically if we got it centered correctly it could only drive forward and backwards. We could extend...
Fixing Up Our Climber and Trough Attachments By Jayesh, Max, and Omar
Task: Replace servo on CliffHanger with a motor
At both competitions we've been to so far, we've noticed that the servo that controls the cliff hanger's elevation often stresses and heats up due to the strain being put on it, especially near the end of the match. It has already scorched quite a few of our fingers. To remedy this, we decided to replace it with a...
Today, we realized that the tape-measure attachment that's supposed to push the buttons on the beacon could have multiple functions instead So, we designed an attachment to the tape measure that can push any buttons, including people's. Max designed it in PTC and then printed it. We have yet to actually test it on the robot, but it works in-hand.
The Double-Wide Experiment By Jayesh, Max, Dylan, and Evan
Task: Strengthen our tape-measure climber against folding and sideways forces
Our tape measure is constantly under stress, which usually isn't a big problem if the driver is positioned with a straight 90 degree angle, but when twisted can result in cracks.
While our tape-measure design worked decently at our competition last week, with multiple mid zone scores and one high zone score, we are going to need more consistency to be a valuable ally in our matches. At...
It's a Bloodbath By Ethan, Alisa, Max, Darshan, Jayesh, and Tycho
Task: To dye all our nylon parts red
Today, we took every single 3D-printed part off our robot to dye them. We used RIT clothes dye, which worked because our parts are nylon. The purpose of dying all our 3D-printed parts red was so that they would stand out from Tetrix parts while demonstrating the robot. It was a bloodbath. The color was the color of the Nile during the Plagues of Egypt. It seemed as if we...
Since we have a semi-reliable form of going up the ramp (which we are working on to make closer to 100% efficiency), a priority for our team robot-wise is to establish an effective method of scoring blocks. We've designed a preliminary model with our old plastic trough that uses a conveyor belt made of fabric and foam sewn together that we tried to use before but decided not to. The foamy...
Cliff Hanger - Tape measure based climber By Trace and Max
Task: Creating an attachment to climb the mountain
We have recently been working on a new approach to climbing the mountain. Our strategy so far was to have one system customized for climbing the mid and upper mountain (Churro Climber), and a separate system for climbing the cliff (Crossbow Grapple). The Churro climber system was beginning to work but it was floppy and we were thinking about stiffening the nylon extensions with...
A Presentation for the Ages By Ethan, Jayesh, Max, Tycho, Lin, Omar, Evan, Alisa
Task: Work on our presentation to the judges
Our main weakness in previous years had been our presentation. This year, we plan to change that. When our team was solely FLL, we practiced our presentations beforehand, so, we're applying that to this year. We've done 2-3 presentations so far and it seems it really helps us. As well, we're making a powerpoint presentation to assist us, giving us information we might forget and providing a visual...
Prototyping and Making the Flipper By Jayesh, Omar, Darshan
Task: Design an apparatus to deposit the climbers in the beacon bucket.
One of the methods to score in this year's competition is depositing the two climbers in the bucket behind the beacon. This being relatively simple, we decided to concentrate this practice on creating something to get us these easy points. We discussed possible ways to deposit the climbers and came up with a design that used some of the scoring mechanism we already had on our robot. The idea was to...
Rebuilding the Churro Climber System By Omar, Darshan, Max
Task: Fix bending axle on churro climber permanently
After further testing of the churro climbers, we noticed that the axle the gear is rotating on had been bent severely due to the strain on it of the arms pulling. If we left the axle as it was, it might wreck something else later and become unusable, so we tried to figure out a way of creating something that served the same function as the axle but wouldn't bend as easily. We decided...
Task: Model a part to keep the slide from going too far forward
Since we mounted the beater bars on a slide, we have been keeping them from going too far and falling off their rails either by obstructing them with a couple of bolts or with a bent piece of steel wire, but neither method is fool proof. The wire can get bent out of shape as the slide moves forward and collides with it, and...
Task: Model a part to keep the churro climber cable ties on path
As we continued to work on the churro climber mechanism today, we decided that the cable ties bowing out would be a big issue that needed fixing. By making a small guide piece, we could ensure that the cable tie actually extends from the front of the robot instead of flopping around like overcooked spaghetti on the other side. So, I've made a rather...
Improvements to Churro Catcher and Ramp By Jayesh, Lin, Omar
Task: Make improvements to Churro Catcher and Ramp and make blog more accessible
Iron Reign held our first of two meetings before the New Year season to concentrate on improving our main designs to ensure they worked as expected. Starting with our Churro Catcher, we found that as the motor moved the two arms down, the tension in the two churro climbers was two low to actually push out the latches forward from the robot. We built two small metal segments...
Optimizing the Churro Catcher By Jayesh, Omar, Darshan
Task: Improve and fix our Churro Catcher + finalize design for trough
The team met up on Sunday and we focused our meeting on finalizing our trough design and making our churro catchers usable. Beginning with our trough prototype, we put in an angled metal piece to the main box compartment and shortened the height of the box. This height was specific to the height of the blocks, allowing us to shave off blocks that become stacked upon those that we've already collected and...
Task: Model a part to help the robot climb the churros on the mountains
Most of the big-value items in terms of points have to do with the mountains, so climbing mechanisms are a must have. Since the tank treads have problems scaling the churros on the middle and upper mountains, we need another way to pull the robot higher. Our solution was to put hooks on the ends of long, heavy-duty cable ties that we could...
Task: Prototype the trough using materials such as cardboard to give us a baseline
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The team had a meet before the busy Christmas period to focus on the main part of of our scoring mechanism: the trough. We discussed possible courses that would be easiest for us to score points and code at the same time. We went through multiple ideas of how the trough would work. One idea was to have our trough consist of rotatable base to account for...
Improving the Catcher Design By Dylan, Darshan, Omar, Jayesh, Evan, Alisa
Task: Add Improvements to the Catcher Design
Today our team worked on improving the methods of capturing and holding blocks and balls. Our first design involving zip ties had major difficulties including that it had little strength to pull objects in. For this reason, we redesigned the beater bar using a 3-D printer that had stronger materials to capture materials along with frictionless tape which did not cause the blocks to become stuck. Through our tests we can see that...
General Improvements By Jayesh, Omar, Darshan, Max, Lin
Task: Perfect and improve multiple of our main characteristics of our robot
Iron Reign held its first Christmas break parade today and we decided to focus our time on making multiple small improvements, rather than adding one big part on our robot. Omar, Darshan, and I spent our time on rewiring and fixing our side motors. We found that one side was greatly lagging behind the other, so we tested to see which motor was failing, and rewiring the system fixed our driving system....
Task: Model a part that lets us hold back the slide with a trigger to release it
The beater bar mechanism was put on a slide so that we could restrain it until some point during the match, but we had yet to actually build a restraint and trigger to serve this purpose until now. Since the mechanism would likely include rubbing pieces and need customized parts, we chose to model and 3D print the part in...
Scrimmage at Greenhill By Darshan, Alisa, Omar, Lin, Max, Tycho, Evan
Task: Practice with other teams and see
This past Friday, the team tried to get the robot working in a small scrimmage with seven or so other teams. At the scrimmage, we managed to get our cow-catcher working, even though we nearly burned out our servo. During the process of finding the right positioning and testing it while driving we managed to tear up quite a few rubber inserts on our treads. Even though the scrim was scheduled to...
Design and prototype a churro latch mechanism By Lin, Darshan
Task: Design an alternative churro climber mechanism
Currently Max and Tycho are working on a beater bar 3D part that is stiff enough to pull in blocks, and will hopefully double as a churro catcher when spinning. However, since the parts take 4 hours per set to print, and are harder to rapid-fire test and change and tweak relative to some other options we're going for other options till they're tested. The churro catchers help us to secure holding up the ramp but...
Why we should measure twice, and cut once By Ethan, Evan
Task: To redo our bumpers
"Measure nonce, cut twice," is Iron Reign's unofficial slogan, as hidden in our html.
We especially learned the error of cutting hastily today, as we errored in the production of our bumpers.
Evan and I spent multiple practices on working on the front and back bumpers. We easily took ten hours cutting them into their perfect shape. However, after we...
Prototyping the ramp for the intake system By Jayesh, Omar, Ethan, Evan
Task: Make a physical prototype to plan out the next step in our ball/block intake system
We held a post-Thanksgiving meet to focus on the mechanical side of our robot, as we had been devoting a majority of our time to software and other such things. The problem we faced with our beater bar being installed on two sliding extrusions is that we had to have an incline adjusted to going up two levels and not...
As the point values make clear, managing to get the robot to hang on the end of the "cliff" is likely worth the effort. As such, we've worked on making a strange grappling-hook type contraption to pull the robot up. This first version works rather like a crossbow. A telescoping fishing pole has its largest loop hooked up to a long "bolt" which extends beyond the pole to a bungee cord tied to a pair of arms on...
Task: To try out the robot in a competition setting
Last weekend Darshan and I tried to drive the robot in a small scrimmage with eight other teams. Even though we hit a few bumps along the competition we were able see how the robot drove and handled. We also saw what we could do easily and what was hard for us. Among the bumps was an incident involving a tread falling off the track because we hit...
We needed to create bumper shields because the debris on the field interfered with the tread. We had a prototype on the left, Evan and I cut the bumper shields out of polycarbonate with two made for the front and two for the back. To do this, we were trained how to use a bandsaw. We cut them down so that they will be moveable.
Beater Bar Launch Mechanism by Omar, Darshan, Evan, Max
Task: Design deployment mechanism for beater bar
Similarly to last year, the beater bar on our robot needs to be deployed in order to stay within the size limit. Using motors would make the robot heavier, and potentially too heavy to go up the ramp anymore. Bungee cords are something that we've always resorted to in order to save weight, so we decided to use them once again. By tying them to the back of the beater bar sliders...
Meeting other Teams at the Scrimmage By Lin, Omar, Darshan, Jayesh, Tycho, Max, Evan
Task: Get a feel for where we are and the progress of other teams
Whether or not we were allowed to compete, we felt that it would be worthwhile to go to the scrimmage, if only to see how we compared to other teams. Climbing the mountain is the hardest mechanical design challenge so far, and we were able to see their solutions.
Reflections
Many teams had treads like ours, with different arrangements of idlers, while...
Addition of Beater Bar to Robot By Omar, Ethan, Darshan, Lin
Task: Fix and alter robot to include sliding beater bar
Since the robot's last run, several fixes and adjustments had to be made in order to make the robot operational again. All we had to do was tighten a couple of bolts, so it wasn't that big of a deal. We'll probably have to do a quick check from now on to make sure nothing's falling off. Afterward, we set to using the same beater bar we used last year (the first...
A few weeks back, I designed a new chassis. It was a combination of the rocker bogey and a tank to make the rocker boogie tank! With the advantage of sturdiness from a tank and the ability to adjust to surfaces from the rocker boogie. This combination is unstoppable!!!
Reflections
The task proved to be easy (just added tank treads to a rocker boogie) but worked. After I tested the prototype on a number of surfaces, it...
Before Scrimmage basic tests By Lin, Tycho, Omar, Max, Darshan
Task: make sure the robot can run
There's a scrimmage next Saturday that we may or may not be going to based on Dallasisd technicalities with our team. Our goals for today were to get a basic autonomous going to dump climbers and maybe some mountain climbing tests. However, the controller apps needed to be updated and we got a lot of errors when connecting.
Reflections
If the controller gives an error mentioning "USB UART" apparently the only fix is to...
Dylan, Ethan, and I decided to watch videos to see what other teams were doing to build and improve their robots during the Circle Meeting outside. We wanted to see if any of the designs were successful so we could learn from them. The videos included Robot in Three Days, RiTD Explained, and Trojan Robotics .
Reflections
Every video we watched was ahead of us; we have a...
Task: Improve our 3D Printable case for the Adafruit BNO055 IMU
Last week I designed a case for our IMU sensor in Creo and wrote up how it could be improved. I've fixed most of those issues and we are ready to share the results. There is one version with Tetrix hole spacing and another that works for Actobotics channels. Either can be used with aluminum extrusions though you might have to drill out the mounting holes depending on your bolt size.
Task: Make a 3D Printable case for the Adafruit BNO055 IMU
We're used to having gyros to help maintain heading, but we've never been fans of the Hitechnic gyro sensor. Now we have more options and the BNO055 looks pretty good. But our testing has been off robot so far and we need a way to securely attach the sensor to our robot which bounces around like crazy when climbing the mountains. So in PTC Creo, I'm designing a 3D printable case for this sensor that we...
Arrangement and Rearrangement of Motor Controllers By Omar, Darshan
Task: Find better configuration of motor/servo controllers and power distribution module on the robot
Today, we tried to figure out the best possible way to stick all the motor controllers and the PDM together to minimize the amount of space they take up on the robot. Fitting the finished product into the gap on the back end of our robot would also be a bonus. We had previously thought of one way of doing it: When placed on the robot,...
Driving up the mountain - test 2 By Lin, Darshan, Jayesh, Omar, Max, Tycho, Evan
Task: Test how the condition of the mountain changes robot performance
After last week's fail we decided that we should change a couple of variables of the environment. The first and easiest to fix being the condition and cleanliness of the mountain ramp. Having dust on the ramp would severely lessen the friction holding the robot in place, so we wiped it down with glass cleaner and started up the robot.
Task:Discuss multiple possible solutions to climb steep incline on field
We held a team meeting outside on the field discussing multiple possible solutions to the problem of the robot ascending to the top of the ramp. While we are already able to climb the ramp, the robot strafes significantly as it climbs above each rung on the ramp. This can be accounted for during the driver-controlled period, but the strafing can't be accounted for during autonomous, unless we have each side of the...
Building the Field: Part III By Ethan, Trace, Alisa, and Evan
Task: Building the field for the third week in a row!
Today, for the third time, we worked on setting up the field. We finished the mountains and the climber setup. We made several mistakes along the way. Firstly, we screwed the mountain climber mounts in wrong, not one or two times, but three times. Then, we realized that the mountains couldn't even fit inside the tent and the wooden boundaries. So, we had to dissasemble it,...
Building the 2015 Field By Evan, Dylan, Alisa, Trace, Ethan
Task: Cleaning and building the Field
Today we were charged with the task of building the FTC field. There was one problem. The tent we were setting it up in was in a state of decay. We cleaned out the area to make space while others put together the field. It was changed comletely from when it started. When cleaning we discovered many cool things like cassettes and floppy disks. The mat of the field was a little old but...
Task: Insert grips into alternating treads to boost traction of driving system
I am so done with these treads. For the past three hours I have worked to soak the treads and tread inserts in dish soap. *takes deep breath* The process is painstakingly slow and also literally painful. The process itself seems simple but after soaking both pieces the insert must be pushed in with a considerable amount of force. This is not user friendly and is not what the company...
Task: Design a new build platform more suited to this year's challenge
Since the robot game for this year came out about a week ago, we were thinking about which kind of drive system would work best for the challenge, which mostly involves climbing. Some of the concept we came up with were rocker bogies, rubber-banded tires and a tank drive with treads. Since we already had the preliminary design started for a tank drive, I started modeling that.
Meeting After Game Reveal By Dylan, Darshan, Alisa, Ethan, Evan, Lin, Tycho, Max, Trace
Task: Discuss robot design
Now that the game has been released, we as a group discussed the different amount of points per each possible game strategy that would give us the most ample amount of points during the given time limit. We also discussed the different ideas on the tracks and wheels that are possible for our design. The arm attachment was discussed for the grabbing of the highest mount of the mountain which would give us the...
Overview of new hardware and software By Max,Tycho,Lin,Alisa,Ethan,Trace
Task: Getting a first glimpse at the new motors and controllers with Imperial robotics
We continued our meeting at the Dallas Makerspace after the GitHub tutorial. We unpackaged the new motors and motor controllers for the first time and took out the phones to scan the hardware configuration. We added Anderson Power poles to some of the motors. Lin taught Alisa and Ethan how to crimp wires and attach the power poles.
Reflections
Scanning the hardware configuration was very troublesome...
Task: Get some pre-season experience with Android controlled robots
We've been experimenting with Android controlled robots while we wait for our ModernRobotics modules. Argos is a chromovore - it seeks an identified color using OpenCV4Android machine vision processing. It tries to maintain a given distance from the colored object and follow it around. It's built using the IOIO-OTG for low level interface with the motor control electronics. The ZTE Speed phone is mounted on pan/tilt hardware from ServoCity...
With the scissor lift elevating with the screw-motor system, and the drive chain-claw system for scoring the balls all in place, our robot is now officially ready for competition next week. Our advantages lie in the stable,continuous driving chain of the robot and also our ability to maintain a constant stream of scoring balls in a mostly stationary position.
Reflections:
Driving practice is now our main object of concern. We also need to put the finishing touched on the...
Our method for elevating the platform for optimum height has been decided. A simple scissor-based design with support on either side seems the best option. Supporting each opposite side and also lifting the platform, the scissor lift is efficient, and with the added support of the center beam, should stay stable long enough for the robot to score each consequent ball. The "scissor" has been measured to have an optimal angle (For the greatest stability). During...
Task: Make emergency scoring mechanism for competition
With competition only a week away, the team has decided that the rolling tube will not be able to be completed by the competition. We are now switching to a elevator based design with a drive chain. This decision has opened up a multitiude of new builds and with a scissor- wedge design(elaborated in later posts), we believe the final version will help us in the qualifier(atleast more than an incomplete scoring tube).
After finishing about 2/3 of the drive train, I came across the first custom part. We sliced a small chunk off of the inner beam so we could install our goal catcher. Getting the alignment on the model to be accurate for the real robot was a challenge, as the robot was in another room, and I'm pretty sure we just eyeballed the cut in the first place, which meant there were no real recorded measurements I...
A Solution we have produced for the placement of the tube was to place to long beams to opposite sides of the robot and connect with a third beam. This addition grants us more surface area to place our extra components such as the NXT brick and motor controllers. With these components gone, we now have adequate space for the tube mount. However, we encountered a problem as we found that the mount's base was a...
Placing the lift tube for elevating the balls By Jayesh
Task:Place lift tube
Now that our rolling goal clamp system is working, we have the task of placing the lift tube to elevate the balls to the correct position. First we have to reconstruct the back end of the robot to accommodate for the extra size and girth of the tube. With our rearranging, we also now have to connect the rolling goals to the tube and complete our scoring mechanism. As soon as we complete this, we are...
Today I started building the model of the Robot in an assembly in Creo. As I only had some experience with parts, which is not the proper tool for this job, I decided to watch some videos on the basics of assemblies. After that I downloaded the models of the Tetrix parts off of the FTC website. So far, I have built one half of the right drive train.
Task: Code the servo for the toggle + finalize remote settings
While our scoring tube mechanism for the balls to be placed in the rolling goals is being finalized, our simple task of capturing the rolling goals has finally been coded and physically placed on the robot. Through the use of a simple if/else statement within a while loop, we toggle the open/closed positions of the servo controlling the capture mechanism and now we can easily maneuver the rolling goals into position...
Task: Test the controller connection with Samantha
With the scoring mechanism gradually coming together, today was devoted to the testing of the sync between Samantha and our robot. The drive control system has given us a weird bug, where on startup, the robot starts moving only one side of the wheels without any input from our side. While the other programmed code still works, such as the drive control and simple toggle, the constant turning of the left wheels makes it difficult for the other methods...
Our main mechanism for capturing the balls for scoring are now in place. A simple 3D printing of two triangle-shaped items are nailed opposite each other, allowing for a perfect diameter to contain both the balls and a snug fit for the rolling goals. We now also have the mechanical design for the servo toggle. A simple little push-based method allows for the tubes to pop up in a very small space of time. This allows...
The ideas we have come up with for scoring the balls in the rolling goals have undergone many changes throughout the year. The basic plan was to somehow stack adjacent tubes on top of one another and raise the balls to maximum height and score in the highest tube. Today, we came up with the actual design:springs. Utilyzing springs, one will be attached to each tube and a simple servo with a toggle will push each attached...
Task: Build a mechanism to hold a rolling goal so we can drive with it
Since we've already cut away part of the beams making up the robot's base to accommodate a rolling goal's shape, we now have to put down a hook to hold it as we drive.
Reflections:
We experimented with rotating down flat pieces, but found that when we applied any force the part was just pulled up and didn't do much in holding anything. The holes cut into the base...
For a long time now, one of our problems has been to figure out how to mount the tubes that will function as the lift system onto the robot, and where to mount them. Today, we tackled this question with the highest possible efficiency. We used a small piece of tube that was serving as an example to get an idea of how big the mechanism should be. After trying a few things, we decided...
Today we visited the Dallas Makerspace. They have moved their building though, and now have much more space. Their facility has great tools for us to use in future endeavours. Also, they are very capable people here who listen to our ideas and contribute as well. They have helped us so much, we are going to start considering them to be sponsors. One of our tasks today is to 3D print the spools...
Task: Showcase robot to possible future engineers and scientists
On Tuesday we presented our Team's accomplishments, future goals, and basic robotics knowledge in a room full of kids and parents thinking of attending a school of Science and Engineering. We talked about engineering, the benefits of participating in FTC, and the overall affect robotics has had on our lives. The crowd was very responsive and seemed to get excited over how high school sophomores are accomplishing...
Spool Joint By Max Fig1 : Actual Image TBD - let's fix this
Task: Leverage synergies as a team so as to look towards the horizon in the new tomorrow by implementing binomial+ access
Today we 3D-printed a new version of the tube joint made to hold a spool (which we also made and printed) to put on the very ends of the SVAU (Spheroid Vertical Acceleration Unit) that are not connected to other segments by the normal joint. The piece that attaches directly to...
While looking around on the internet, we found that some teams were trying to grab the bottom of the Rolling Goal to pull it around. This, however, is not what we plan to do right now. What our idea is is to create a sort of socket to put the rolling goal into to facilitate travel even further, then, using this, we will grab the base of the rolling goal with a couple of sticks or something. The back of...
William B. Travis High School Night By Omar Most of our team went to a middle school named William B. Travis, so when we heard that we had the opportunity to visit our old school again, we jumped on the chance. The school placed us in our 4th grade math teacher's, Mrs. B's, classroom. Our current math teacher, Mr. Newton, was also with us to talk about SEM and why kids would want to go there. The first group of children and parents came in around 7 PM. Mr. Newton introduced himself...
This week we finished updating the ball collector. This is a major accomplishment, since this is a very important part of the machine, and is the first step towards the ability to score. Our finishing the collector now allows us to concentrate on the tube joint and figure out how to finish the entire scoring mechanism to have it ready for the competition. We are thinking about making a whole new robot that is...
Today we came up with a new attack angle for the beater bar. This new angle allows for greater accuracy for picking up the the large balls but missing the small ones. We also added a temporary mounting area for our NXT and wired up the beater bar motor so it would not get snared when the ramp deploys.
Reflections:
We have also finalized our plan to not pick up the smaller balls and have a large amount of...
The ball intake mechanism of the robot has finally been given a mostly working design. The plastic ramp and the dual-row system of twist ties has been pretty effective with moderate power driving both rows. Reoccurring tests were created to observe what would function best; higher power in the first +lower in the second, lower in first+ higher in the second, or equal power for both. So far it is hard to tell which combination...
Today we attempted to fit our tubes into our newly-printed Tube Joints. The tube joints, however, were at least 2 mm too small in the inside diameter, so we had to spend quite a bit of time sanding them down. We decided that this would be a good time to use the drum sanding attachment on our new Dremel. This helped speed up the process quite a bit.
Today we set out to build an upgraded version of the beater bar. We used square dowels from home depot to prevent the twist-ties from changing their orientation on the bar. We down the twist-ties and made a design that intakes the balls with 100% efficiency
Reflections:
With the 100% efficiency we can now move onto the tube mechanism to finally finish our scoring system. Our robot is approaching completition and with...
Last night we went to the Dallas Makerspace to build our ramp for our capture and intake system. Lin had already done the mockup in cardboard and the rest of the team had tested it with the beater bar assembly, but that was too fragile to test on a moving robot. So I took the mockup to the Makerspace to reproduce it in Lexan.
Last night we went to the Makerspace to 3D print our second version of the Tube Joint (link in the related articles section). We arrived with a Sketchup file on a flashdrive, but needed to export it as an STL file so that the slicing program (we used Kisslicer) could convert it to g-code, which the 3D printer uses. There were a few issues that we found and fixed in the...
Today we published our first 3D printable part on Thingiverse. This part is meant to create a joint in our lift tube so that it can be folded into the 18" sizing cube. The lift tube is responsible for bringing the balls up to the deposit height. The part was designed so that if you took two and flipped one over, you could put them together and the hinge tabs would interlock....
The cool thing...
When placed on the robot,...
Today we were charged with the task of building the FTC field. There was one problem. The tent we were setting it up in was in a state of decay. We cleaned out the area to make space while others put together the field. It was changed comletely from when it started. When cleaning we discovered many cool things like cassettes and floppy disks. The mat of the field was a little old but...
Since the robot game for this year came out about a week ago, we were thinking about which kind of drive system would work best for the challenge, which mostly involves climbing. Some of the concept we came up with were rocker bogies, rubber-banded tires and a tank drive with treads. Since we already had the preliminary design started for a tank drive, I started modeling that. 
