FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

After a lengthy build season and strenuous nights after build at shop, the Greybots are proud to present their new addition to the family. As I speak for 973, we are all ready to have an Encore performance from our 2011 season. Right now, this is only what we had going into week one. Some current fixes and additions to make Encore superior are being added today and will be added until we feel they are not needed.

Reveal Video Link: http://bit.ly/wObGYx

On a personal note, I would like to thank the students, mentors, and parents that welcomed me into the 973 family this year. You all really know what it means to outwork the competition and all of you should be proud of what we have and will accomplish this year (I sure am!).

Check us out this weekend as we take it to the court in Long Beach, California for the LA Regional!

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Very nice robot. Love the creative collector and it's re-direction of the balls to the center! good luck!

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Looks fantastic, very cool to see Emperor Swerve making its official event debut. I will definitely have to stop by your pit at Champs and check this out.

Best of luck at LA and CVR

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Beautiful robot Greybots! Excellent machine! I can't wait to compete with Emperor Swerve/Encore at Central Valley!

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

The "GoPro on a stick" footage gave a unique viewpoint and the video came together well, nice job Cory. Good luck this weekend, tell Adam he'll have to do w/o the commentary of his favorite inspector this year. :D

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Nice work with the video Cory, glad you went with that song, it fits well!

The robot is definitely as cool as you described, and I'm sure there's features yet to be unveiled. Is the competition bot all black?

Quick questions: With all the different methods of fabrication mixed into this bot, what went where? For example, the brackets that Tonthat made, what did those get used for? What parts are tube and what is sheetmetal?

What motors/ custom gearbox are running in that shooter?

Is the intake going to double as a bridge manipulator/balance bar or will you have dedicated mechanism for that? (I'm guessing this is what some of your additions today will be).

Very cool bot, I look forward to seeing it at the Championships :)

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Fantastic! I really love your ball intake system. We'll be seeing you at Champs!

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Amazing intake. Definitely is a perfect complement to using Emporer Swerve. Awesome machining as well. You guys are gonna do great this weekend.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Great looking robot! I wonder why it is called "Encore"? ;)

Anything special with the vision system? Best of luck this year!

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Truly amazing! I love the progression of 973 robots from 2008 to 2012! Good luck this weekend!

One question, can he cross the bump?

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Possibly the best intake I have seen yet.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

First thing I did after watching this video:
Texted my friend: "973 is a beast o_o"

I'd say that's a pretty accurate statement. The robot looks absolutely amazing. Between the swerve, the intake and the shooter, I wonder what it's going to take to stop this marvel from running rough shod all over their FRC events.

I look forward to seeing this thing in action. Good luck!

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Very nice robot. Wishing you luck this season!

Question:

How robust is your ball collector? 177, Bobcats has an intake much like yours, but they busted it on the fender at WPI and broke the outer roller system.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Guys, thank you for all the replies. The team was hard at work today finishing up the bot and getting as much done as possible for us to do damage tomorrow. A technically specific response will be posted by Adam sooner or later since this is his baby. :p

EJ: I honestly thought the video would have been much better if the bot was powder coated and I didn't feel like an idiot running around with the "GoPro on a stick" for hours on end. Regardless, it came out decent.

Akash: There are a few different fabrication processes that went into Encore. There were sheet contributions from 1477 that ended up in our a-frame for member anchoring and support while 1647 gave us sheet pieces that went into supporting our tower. The shooter is two RS-550s driven by belt which we can actually replace the motor mounted pulleys to ranger our rpm from 0-5000 or 0-9000/10000. The actual reduction Adam knows off of the top of his head. I'm fairly certain that Encore will be running the 0-9000/10000 rpm set. The picture below should show you the current modifications we have going into Friday without our Stinger (Dingus) that should be added sometime during the day tomorrow or early in the morning.

Knauss: When it comes to the vision system, I am still fairly certain our setup is pretty much an exact copy of what 971 is doing with the FitPC. I'm sure I or Adam can update tomorrow with the exact status of our vision system.

Brendan: Our initial system did cross the bump but struggled to do so. However, our new addition (Mantis Arms), as you can see on the picture below, will allow us to do it much quicker and without the struggle we had earlier on.

Victor: Adam actually was kicking and hammering down on the intake a few weeks ago and it held up perfectly fine.

Below is the update going into tomorrow! Encore will be ready to roll!

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

"WOW"


It looks like you have great control of your drive, something many teams with crab/swerve often struggle with. I really like the speed on the intake system too. I bet if you can keep that shooter working reliably you will find yourself looking at a lot of robots your could pick come the elimination rounds.

Good luck and great looking robot guys!

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Cool! Lots of unique parts on your robot this year, each one is fantastic and they make a great combination. Love the turret support. The collector was one of my favorite concepts from build season, looks like it works better than we thought it would. Overall a very solid and standout design, I like it!

Hex bore bevel gears! :)

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Cory:

Awesome work. This machine will go far.
Good Luck from your friends at 341.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

That collector is beautiful. All you have to do is touch it from any orientation and it comes flying right up the middle. Wow.

Can I have one?

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Mr. Ostrow,

The Greybots and Adam Heard deserve a good amount of the credit here. I'm really the new guy in town and it was actually a huge learning experience for me. However, the Greybots and Adam have always been striving for this level of quality and perfection over the past 5 years. So even though you are congratulating me, I wanted to include the entire team because without them and their efforts Encore would not be the robot we have going into the 2012 season.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Cory:
Got it! But you are just the only one I know there. :) It does make me laugh sometimes, when people try to pin all the credit for our team on me alone. As anyone in FIRST would know, it takes a massive team effort to produce a winning bot and an organized team. So congratulations to the entire team and have fun at the regional.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Incredible!!!! In my [rather uneducated] opinion, this is the best robot I've seen to date :O .
Also, that's a pretty amazing and inspirational video.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Very impressed! We are always proud to share the field with such an freindly team.

Looking forward to seeing you on the field in LA

Good luck! Can't wait for the Encore!

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Looks great, def. going to check it out tom.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

After being co-world champions for 2011 with 254 and 111 ....
what do you do for an ENCORE....

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Great looking robot! Love that swerve drive.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Joe Johnson likes this. ;)

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

TKM 368 has a very similar intake roller system that draws the balls toward the middle, then in, from their drop-down appendage.
Looks very very effective.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Wow, your ball collector is almost identical to ours. A good Chief Delphi 2002with the Rush 2006 full length roller.

It looks to work as well as ours too.

A word of warning. The only dammage we took that we didn't expect to was a robot flying off the coopertition bridge onto the collector.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

I love everything about this robot! The level of engineering detail is one few teams achieve in this competition, and I have a great deal of respect for those that can make something as awesome and effective as this.

A few quick questions:

What type of material did you use to make your intake rollers? I spent a lot of time looking through grainger catalogs trying to determine what type of plastic to use for my teams rollers, but in the end we used PVC for the sake of time and cost. What are the advantages of this material?


I noticed that in the video you had what looked like a different camera from what is on Encore in the picture you recently posted. Would you mind explaining this?


What is the material around your CIM motors being used for?

Lastly.
I've found it very interesting that a lot of teams with higher-end machining capabilities have made their turret rotation at the base of the robots "tower", instead of directly under the shooter itself. Are there specific advantages to this?

Again, I'm very impressed with the design and capabilities of your robot.
It is currently my favorite bot so far this year. Keep up the good work Greybots!

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Balls always enter the shooter from the exact same orientation.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Going off what Cory said, we've found that, depending on how far out rotated our turret shooter is, balls don't enter quite as easily. They still get in, but it may take a few tries from our storage-to-shooter system to get it. By having a rotating elevator turret, balls will almost always get into the storage system.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Because you have 4 wheel independent swerve, I was wondering the breakdown of the motors you use and what they are for.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Their swerve is very sophisticated, but the rotation is done with window motors and each wheel has its own CIM.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

First of all, we had a great time competing with 973 and 294 at LA. We couldn't have asked for better alliance partners, and we are so grateful for all the work you did to make our robot more consistent for elims.

I understand, but we are not allowed 4 window motors, which would be required for independent swerve with windows for rotation. Also, I was wondering what motors/ how many they used for the shooter/elevator/ground pickup/swerve modules.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

You are allowed 4. Rule [R48] part C specifies you may use 2 window motors of either of the listed model numbers, and part I specifies you may use 2 window/seat/door motors from ARA or a previous year's kit of parts. This means you can use up to 4 window motors.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Sorry, forgot about that.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Could you post a picture of the Emperor Swerve? I'm intrigued. I'll obviously ask more at the Champs.:]

Great robot, and love the rotation on the tower itself.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

They they CAD posted on CD.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

I can do one better! 973 has posted their CAD on FRC Designs! Check it out!

http://frc-designs.com/html/CAD_Offseason.html

Matt

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Thanks!

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

I'm mostly curious, but what are the limits of rotation on your turret? It would be really cool to have fully independent swerve with a fully independent turret with a fully automatic video tracking system.....:D :D :D

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

This is the biggest one, but you also get the weight from the turreting mechanism that much lower.

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

Great Robot guys! I really loved how you combined many great things into one package, like swerve, accurate turret shooter, intake, etc. Great Job. It would be amazing to team up with you at champs! Good luck! :D

Re: FRC Team 973 2012 Robot :: Encore
 

It's a bit heartbreaking to be sitting in California while the entire team is heading out to St. Louis this week to compete for a title yet again. However, college held me back and it is a priority.

With that said, I just wanted to wish the best of luck to the team this weekend. I know I will be watching as much as I can. Being an underdog in a stacked division could be difficult or a blessing in disguise.

This team has so much to be proud of and I can say from being with them the entire season, they have worked so hard and so much for this one week. With the upsets that came to us in Los Angeles and Central Valley, it is only fitting that winning here would suffice for all that hard work.

Regardless of the outcome, these students along side with my co-mentors should all be extremely proud and happy of their accomplishments.

Good luck this weekend guys! I'll try and be there every step of the way. (almost!)