Team 1538 Proudly Presents: Daisy Thunder

[kiettyyyy]

Team 1538 proudly presents, Daisy Thunder, it's 9th FRC robot submission.

We would like to thank our gracious sponsors for donating their time and materials in order to help us achieve our goal. We could not have done it without you.

Specifications:

Drivetrain Speeds: ~16 FPS(High Gear), 6 FPS(Low Gear) using WCProducts' Dual Speed gearbox
Weight: 105 lbs
4WD using AndyMark 4" Performance Wheels
2 wheel linear shooter using custom wheels, belt driven via two Mini-CIM motors
2 x RS550 powered conveyer intake
2 x RS550 powered shooter feeder
2 x CIM powered arm gearbox with an overall reduction of 252:1


http://kiet.us/1538/2013/thunder.jpg

http://kiet.us/1538/2013/doublebot.jpg

http://kiet.us/1538/2013/whitewheels.jpg

http://kiet.us/1538/2013/dsc.jpg


And finally, the video of our practice robot running during a systems verification test...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsuUcS2ucko

[Justin Montois]

Great functioning robot and beautiful as always. Good luck during the competition season!

[AllenGregoryIV]

Very nice.

Mind if I ask how the shooter feeder works?

Also does it hang?

[R.C.]

Kiet/Jon and Crew,

Great Job on the robot, this will be one of the top robots in California this year. Digging the powdercoat and innovative intake/shooter!

-RC

[kiettyyyy]

Very nice.

Mind if I ask how the shooter feeder works?

Also does it hang?

Yes, it does hang, just wasn't featured during the photoshoot and SVT.

It'll be a part of our 30 lb allowance.

As for the shooter feeder, it's a drum that has a surface speed of ~150" per second and a roller that assists the feeding process, which is placed on top of the frisbee. This allows us to "rapid fire" frisbees.

[SM987]

Looking great as always. Looking forward to seeing you guys in San Diego in a few weeks.

[AllenGregoryIV]

As for the shooter feeder, it's a drum that has a surface speed of ~150" per second and a roller that assists the feeding process, which is placed on top of the frisbee. This allows us to "rapid fire" frisbees.

That's awesome. My next question, what material is on the drum? We thought of something like this but never found a material sticky enough to pull a disc out of the stack while angled.

[dcarr]

Juice. Pure, 100% juice.

[Steven Sigley]

More gorgeous robots coming from California...
Love the powder-coat, the wheels, and especially the crisp electronics!
Keep on doing what you're doing because you make the west coast shine!

[Joe Ross]

Nice arm.

[sanddrag]

Yet another "why didn't we think of that?" and "wow, we really got this all wrong" moments. Very elegant.

[NXTGeek]

Woah boy San Diego's gonna be great! Can't wait to compete with THUNDER!

[iPenguin]

Holy Cow! I mean...Holy You! err...

Awesome job guys. Love the smooth arm.

[Steven Donow]

Very beautiful robot, I can't wait to watch it compete; really wish I could see this in person. Love the custom painted performance wheels :D


Also, any particular reason there are no fans on the Talons-as it seems like you are using all Talons.

[sdcantrell56]

Beautiful robot. Almost looks like our twin!

[Jon Jack]

Very beautiful robot, I can't wait to watch it compete; really wish I could see this in person. Love the custom painted performance wheels :D


Also, any particular reason there are no fans on the Talons-as it seems like you are using all Talons.

We have fans on the four talons used on the drivetrain because those are under the most continuous load. The 550 motors on the intake and loader draw very little current, even under load, so we felt no need to put fans on those 4 talons. The shooter motors only see brief spikes in current when a disc is being shot, otherwise they draw almost nothing. The arm is powered by 2 CIM motors, but it also does not see enough continuous load to justify putting fans on the talons. After 5 minutes of driving and shooting the talons on the arm barely start to warm up.

So far we've been thrilled with the Talons.

[Astrokid248]

Oh no, it doesn't look like a shopping cart!
I kid, Daisy looks pretty awesome.

[Hallry]

The name sounds like a collaboration between 341 and 217 ;). I like it. Looks beautiful, as always. Hopefully will see you at Champs.

[Michael Corsetto]

My favorite part about this robot is how built it is for the 7 disc autonomous mode. Can't wait to see it in action, beautiful robot! California definitely has style :)

-Mike

[Josh Goodman]

Incredible robot design. I absolutely love this. Props to all of you! Definitely a "why didn't I think of that" moment. :o

[Andrew Lawrence]

Once again another beautiful machine from the Holy Cows. Can't wait to see it in action this year.

[Lil' Lavery]

Great work guys. Sweet looking machine, and I can't wait to see it with the climbing mechanism on.
If you don't mind me asking, how did you solve your potential jamming issue with the disc hopper? Just opt for gravity to work it out?

[Steven Donow]

We have fans on the four talons used on the drivetrain because those are under the most continuous load. The 550 motors on the intake and loader draw very little current, even under load, so we felt no need to put fans on those 4 talons. The shooter motors only see brief spikes in current when a disc is being shot, otherwise they draw almost nothing. The arm is powered by 2 CIM motors, but it also does not see enough continuous load to justify putting fans on the talons. After 5 minutes of driving and shooting the talons on the arm barely start to warm up.

So far we've been thrilled with the Talons.

Ah, okay. I assumed I just didn't see the ones with the fans, and assumed that the fanless ones were used for other things.

[kiettyyyy]

Great work guys. Sweet looking machine, and I can't wait to see it with the climbing mechanism on.
If you don't mind me asking, how did you solve your potential jamming issue with the disc hopper? Just opt for gravity to work it out?

Thanks.

By design, the system should not jam as there should always be one disc staged up until the front roller. If that doesn't work, gravity should solve the problem :)

[connor.worley]

Kiet/Jon and Crew,

Great Job on the robot, this will be one of the top robots in California this year. Digging the powdercoat and innovative intake/shooter!

-RC

And the gearboxes work great too :D

[EricLeifermann]

You feel good about your robot after bagging it up at 11:59, then the next morning you see a team show something like this and you start to rethink your whole design/strategy... Thanks Cows really appreciate it :p

[EagleEngineer]

can't wait to see thunder at san diego. Amazing design.

[DaveCraig]

Simply amazing

[Basel A]

I always wait with great anticipation for that first elite robot reveal of the season. This is it. Looks brilliant. Good luck!

[ToddF]

I've been looking, and I still can't figure out how you get the disks off the floor. It's like magic. Very impressive. Good job.

[waialua359]

You feel good about your robot after bagging it up at 11:59, then the next morning you see a team show something like this and you start to rethink your whole design/strategy... Thanks Cows really appreciate it :p
You sure about that.
Someone sent me a pic of your robot as well. Looks good too!

Great job 1538!
Its a good thing Jon isnt going to be the HP. He's holding up your robot scoring with the feeder loading.:p

[ks_mumupsi]

kiet and crew..

great job with the machine. Now I want to tweak our machine a bit differently :P... haha

but really does look impressive, I am waiting to see the 30 pt. climber, thats the only reason i assume a 250 reduction on 2 CIMs.

[Jon Jack]

Kinsuk,

It's just a 10 point climber, but it should be pretty fast.

Glenn,
A lot of the kids had gone home for the day when we took the video, so I had to jump in as feeder. Not bad considering we had a washed up Einstein driver, a first time human player and a kid who barely knew how to operate?

I love hearing about how a robot came to be, I guess we'll let everyone in on the origin of the design...

The day of kick-off we came to the conclusion that:

1) a good auto mode could win most of our matches (at the regional level) before anyone touched the sticks.

2) floor loading was a requirement for a few reasons. First off, you needed to floor load to pick up more discs. Secondly, partners would inevitably miss shots and we being able to pick up their missed shots would cut down our cycle times and increase our throughput. Lastly, we noticed that it was very hard to shoot the colored discs in the pyramid or throw them from the loading station. We wanted to be able to take our opponents colored discs out of the game and reduce the number of possible points they could score in the pyramid goal.

3) A level 1 climb was required, however we felt we could mitigate the effects of a level 2 and 3 climb by being a strong disc scorer.

With this in mind we figured we were looking at a fairly complex robot. With lots of single purpose mechanisms. After our team meeting Kiet and I went down the street to a restaurant to discuss the game further. When we arrived, he came up to me and said "You know what we need? We need a 67 arm!". He was referring to 67's utility arm from 2012. At first I thought he was joking and then after a few minutes of talking about it, we realized it wasn't that bad of an idea. When we sat down we talked about how the arm could be used to pick up discs, tilt the shooter, hang, etc. Suddenly our list of mechanisms went from 8 or 9 to 5. Over the next few days we started working on individual parts of the arm (floor loader/funnel, magazine/feeder, shooter, etc). About mid way through week 2 all of these prototypes had been integrated together and worked pretty well together, so this design was given the green light.

[MasonMM]

Guys,
Simple, Elegant, and Clean - I am continuously in awe of ya'lls ability to build a beautiful machine. Don't settle for just a 7 disc auton or a lousy human player.

[OZ_341]

Great Robot! We also like the name. :)
Good luck to all of our friends on the Holy Cows!

[Akash Rastogi]

Kinsuk,

It's just a 10 point climber, but it should be pretty fast.

Glenn,
A lot of the kids had gone home for the day when we took the video, so I had to jump in as feeder. Not bad considering we had a washed up Einstein driver, a first time human player and a kid who barely knew how to operate?

I love hearing about how a robot came to be, I guess we'll let everyone in on the origin of the design...

The day of kick-off we came to the conclusion that:

1) a good auto mode could win most of our matches (at the regional level) before anyone touched the sticks.

2) floor loading was a requirement for a few reasons. First off, you needed to floor load to pick up more discs. Secondly, partners would inevitably miss shots and we being able to pick up their missed shots would cut down our cycle times and increase our throughput. Lastly, we noticed that it was very hard to shoot the colored discs in the pyramid or throw them from the loading station. We wanted to be able to take our opponents colored discs out of the game and reduce the number of possible points they could score in the pyramid goal.

3) A level 1 climb was required, however we felt we could mitigate the effects of a level 2 and 3 climb by being a strong disc scorer.

With this in mind we figured we were looking at a fairly complex robot. With lots of single purpose mechanisms. After our team meeting Kiet and I went down the street to a restaurant to discuss the game further. When we arrived, he came up to me and said "You know what we need? We need a 67 arm!". He was referring to 67's utility arm from 2012. At first I thought he was joking and then after a few minutes of talking about it, we realized it wasn't that bad of an idea. When we sat down we talked about how the arm could be used to pick up discs, tilt the shooter, hang, etc. Suddenly our list of mechanisms went from 8 or 9 to 5. Over the next few days we started working on individual parts of the arm (floor loader/funnel, magazine/feeder, shooter, etc). About mid way through week 2 all of these prototypes had been integrated together and worked pretty well together, so this design was given the green light.

This is literally the exact same set of requirements and conversation that went down on 2495. Feels good knowing the team did something similar to an FRC elite!

The robot is beautiful as always and I'm excited to see your autonomous modes. We'll be striving to deliver some 4+ disk autons as well, it'll just be harder with the single file intake.

Best of luck Jon, Kiet, and the crew!

[Lil' Lavery]

So, what happened to that 30-pt climber prototype? ;)

[Peragore]

Yes, it does hang, just wasn't featured during the photoshoot and SVT.

It'll be a part of our 30 lb allowance.

As for the shooter feeder, it's a drum that has a surface speed of ~150" per second and a roller that assists the feeding process, which is placed on top of the frisbee. This allows us to "rapid fire" frisbees.

Looking at that, how did you account for initial decelleration at shot time? We found we had to wait ~700 Milliseconds in order to get the wheels to ramp up to full power. I apologize if that was covered in the video, my internet currently cannot load it....

[kingbrandon14]

I am so jelly of that ground retrieval system! I really wish we had thought of that. It's simple, yet effective!

[THE DYNAMO]

I'm glad you guys got that issue with the feeder bending worked out! It was great to see you at Mission Bay, I always love your bots. We finally figured out that the key in our loader was gone, and now our loader/hopper doesn't have jamming issues. I can't wait for SD!

[savagecreature]

Truly impressive! You guys are amazing. You give our very rookie (even though we are second year) team something to aspire to. Good luck this year! :)

[mman1506]

I think your pictures are broken.