FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Hello once again Chief Delphi!

Now that the 2013 FIRST Championships have passed, I'm going to try and continue the chronicling of what people think are the best robot designs for the given year. Here is a link to the first edition of what I hope to become a long standing tradition: 2012 Edition.

I'm a little shaky on some details for how this log will turn out, so I'm hoping a lot of interaction from the CD community will help round out the edges! In addition to designs, I'm also looking to see if anyone has any categories they think should be added!

And without further adieu, the FRC 2013 "Best Designs Log"
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Drives:
Honestly, I have no clue what to start with here. Open to suggestions from the community on where to start!

Ball Acquiring System:
Vacuum Style Floor Pickup, as seen by 33,1538,2054, 2056 and others
-This floor pick-up variant consisted of a series of rollers around an opening in the robot's mechanism that would suck in discs as soon as they came in contact with it.
-Floor pick-ups are always advantageous in FRC; however, the apparent difficulty of picking up discs had most teams opting out of it, in lout of a solely feeder fed robot. The Vacuum Floor pick up was a fast system that allowed teams to reduce their shooting cycle time by acquiring discs from around the pyramid. And, most importantly, gave a team access to impressive 5-disc autonomous, and the even more dominant, 7-disc autonomous.

Disc Scoring System:
Circular Shooter, as seen by 610, 118, 180 and others
-This variation of the wheeled shooter consists of a single wheel surrounded by a curved path. The disc enter the path, and is swing around by wheel, giving it greater contact time with the wheel as opposed to a linear shooter. This allowed the disc to build up greater speed before being shot.
-Because the Circular Shooter design only required a single wheel to power (whereas most linear shooters use 2+), the design was just as effective when shooting, but required relatively fewer resources.

Linear Path Shooter, as seen by 2791, 399 and many, many others
-The linear shooter is similar to the curved path shooter, except its path is straightened out. Commonly using 2 wheels (though 1 wheel, 3 wheel, and belt driven variations have been seen) in a linear path, using the first one to accelerate the disc before the second one brings it up to top speed and fires it out.
-The linear path shooter is somewhat simpler in nature, being just a straight path for the disc to follow.

Climbing Mechanism:

Passive Slid Hangers, as seen by 2587, 1716, 868 and many others
-A very simple design, these slanted slides sat at the height of the 1st bar, allowing a robot to simply drive into the bar for a quick 10pts. No power, no mechanism. As long as the drive system worked, the robot could be good for 10pts.
-The best solution is the simplest one that works, right? Well, let's be honest. Climbing for 30 points is hard. Many teams had plans to do it. Only a few succeeded. So, some chose (some were forced) to implement this simple design, as a fallback. Simple, reliable, effective. Does it get much better?

THE BIG CLAW, as seen by 67, 1114 and others
-The big claw was used by several teams this year, with 67 and 1114 standing out among them. The big claw is as it is named; a big claw that shoots out from the robots body, grabs hold of a rung, and lifts it up to the 20, then the 30 point mark. An impressive engineering feat to be sure.
Info on 1114's Robot: Simbot B.A. Baracus
-The claw was such an effective design because, when engineered properly, as 1114 and 67 often do, it offered an amazing fast climb and, just as important, put the robot in an optimal position to dump 4 alliance disks into the pyramid goal for an extra 20 points.
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The rules are simple! If you feel a design that is not up here should be up here, say so! Tell us what design it us, what teams did it (if you have video or pictures, that would be fantastic) and explain why you think it deserves to be on the list!

Enjoy,
Leeland

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Team 254: The Cheesy Poofs for their 30-point climb.

While it isn't as reliable and consistent as say 1114's climber, it was wicked fast and looked really, really cool at the same time.

While most of you have seen it before, it's basically a ladder-type climber. Here's a video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-IrVbsl_K8

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

118's shooter at championship actually used two "wheels" made of packing foam.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

And was more linear that it was curved

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

What about 254s level 3 climber? It could reach the 3rd level in 6.4 seconds. I was talking to one of their students in St. Louis and he told me that all the robot motion all the way to the 2nd rung was completely autonomous. After that drivers manually reached the 3rd rung and pulled themselves up. It was a very common design, however the level of engineering, innovation, and skill really demonstrated why 254 can year after year crank out amazing robots. They really perfected the most generic level 3 climbing style!

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Couple of things
- 10-pt "passive" hangs still had to manage c.g. and ground clearance. Plenty of passive hangers couldn't hang reliably because their c.g was too far towards the back, or the rear of the robot was too close to the ground for the minor tipping action. So I'm not sure this one merits a specific section. I think we'd be better off seeing motor vs pneumatic 10-pt hangs.
- 1538's linear shooter had 2 wheels in the "standard" fashion. It also had a horizontal roller that spanned the width of the shooter that gave it LOTS of oomph and made it very consistent. Probably worth putting them in the linear shooter category as well.

- Many robots had large rotary arms this year (like 1538 & 842). A section fully devoted to how these machines were able to maintain great accuracy under high torque situations would be great. I know 1538 used a pancake cylinder that shot into an early-stage steel gear to act as a brake. Not sure of the particulars of the design, though.

- Unique actuators for slot feeding could be very useful in the future. Any active intakes, or redirect-style intakes (like 118) would be awesome.

- There were also GREAT designs for overall game strategy. Like 1425. It's one of the most ingenious & strategic overall designs I've seen employed in recent years. You need to see a video to believe it. They were 60" tall, were a FCS-only type of bot, and strafed when someone tried to block them. It looked like they could shoot THROUGH the opponent's pyramid and still make shots. A few times they strafed all the way over to the unprotected feeder and resumed FCS from there.

- There should also probably be a section on compactness of design. I know I learned a lot this year simply by enforcing the "go under the pyramid" design while also attempting a floor pickup & slot feeder. I'd love to see how other robots were able to efficiently save space.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

I didn't see many teams picking up balls this year...

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

I don't know what this would fall under category wise but 1718 had an elevator system that lifted our entire shooter up to decrease the distance and angle we had to shoot from. It also had to double as a blocker in couple matches. I saw another team with something similar but I don't remember the number.
a video of our robot that shows the lift system can be found here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_57oeV79EA

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Additionally, I thought 1503s shotgun style shooter was very innovative and effective.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Spatula-style floor pickup, as seen by 1986:
-This floor pickup system is designed to ram under disk(s) and lift them up over the robot to a hopper.
-Could be extended to robots like 1918, though they qualify as a hybrid vacuum/spatula

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Both 1114 and 254 had climbing some issues at Championships. 1114 climber stopped working during eliminations. 254 had issues with their arms extending during a few matches. So I think that they had equally good climbers.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Just out of curiosity, did any other team use a clamshell-like design for combining their shooter/climber like us? While we used a radial shooter like many teams and a 'big claw' telescoping corner climber similar to a few others, I think we were the only team to combine the two in such a unique way. Personally, I thought that made us pretty unique and distinctive, but I just might not be aware of another team that used a similar idea/concept. Anyone know?

Here's video for anyone unfamiliar with our design: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtoXDBQhvXI

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

I can't really picture this in my head. Could you share some photos or videos?

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

FRC 2468 had a curved path shooter with a custom made flywheel. We were put in the category of full court shooter most of the year but we could shoot from anywhere on the court with our lead screw lift system and custom made string potentiometer for reading deck angle of the shooter.

We also fall in the category of passive hanger that required an accurate center of gravity on the robot for the hanging.

http://youtu.be/UNd2MKsQUWw

Our hopper mechanism of delivery for the frisbees did not jam all year long in any of the matches. It is very simple but effective in delivery of the disks to the shooter wheel.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Just edited the above post with video. Sorry, just forgot it in the original post.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

118 actually has a foam wheel linear shooter, with a small back wheel and a large front wheel:

We (3476) used a curved single-wheel shooter. Shooting speed, accuracy, and distance for the frisbees are a boon with its design.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

My eyes must not be what they used to be :o Standing next to 118 in queue their shooter looked rather curved to me. It must just've been everything around it that made it look different to me.

The to-do list right now is:
-Add the ladder climbing design, like 254 and 1986 (ish) have. Anyone else want to submit a team for this category?
-The robot superstructure used by the likes of 33, 1538 and 469 (a large, wide rotating arm that acted as intake and shooter) doesn't really have a specific category. I guess it'll get it's own little section.
-A little bit on feeder station loaders. Any teams you see have a notable feeder station loader? Most teams just had a long chute that the discs dropped to.
-Changing the embarrassing mistake of a section called "Ball Acquisition System" :o
-Still looking for suggestions for drive systems. Anybody?

I'm short on time now but I will be able to update this, hopefully tomorrow.

Regards,
Leeland

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Kicky roller:
3476 and 696 used this design to acquire frisbees.
As opposed to the spatula (1986) or polycarb/roller (987, 1538), this design doesn't have anything dragging on the ground in order to pickup disks. We have a small belt-driven roller wrapped in silicon tape that "kicks" the frisbee from the ground, while rollers on the other end of the frisbee pull it onto the roller while keeping just the tip of the frisbee pressed against the floor. Here is a video of a prototype I made of this design: http://youtu.be/bhP0oiJWbI8
And a CAD screenshot:

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

I want to second 1503's slingshot cannon as a "Best design" for its uniqueness and surprising effectiveness of use.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

For the drive, how about 254's 6 CIM shifting with power take off for the climber?

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

I think my team and several others had what I would call a hybrid shooter design, not quite curve not quite linear I will attach 2 pics that showcase what I am talking about. It allowed for the increase contact time and single motor of curved shooters and the small packaging of the linear shooters. I think it served us well.

How has the awesome circle bot from 3574 not been brought up yet, getting a close up look at it as an alliance partner on Newton was awesome.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

254 had this too

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

20 had a similar design, but we always categorized it in the category of circular shooter, just with a different angle.

In addition, to add to the climbing- the basic pneumatic pullup. The advantages of it were that it could pull up even after the match ended, and it was often faster than the passive, requiring no speed when coming into the bar, and it never got caught on a bumper like some passive hangers did. 20 had this, as well as many other teams. I know that 228, GUS did, but I can't recall others off the top of my head.

In addition, teams like 2791 and 33 that used their adjustable shooter angle to hang as well deserve a mention in that category.

Possibly an "other" category for innovative shooters like 1503's catapult and 2337's double-barreled shooter.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

As far as shooters go, I feel as if ours is possibly worth discussion. At 40% power we could make it across the field at the right shooting angle. We have not done a pure distance test yet. We were also able to shoot with fairly high accuracy at the 3pt goal. Our 7 lb flywheel was the most unique part of it.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

I'd like to nominate our team's, 1448, robot for our 30pt corner climbing mechanism. Our rack and pinion system for extended our climbing arms is the only I know of for any robot this year, definitely at championships. In addition our climbing mechanism never failed once it began, since it was completely autonomous.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Is it necessary to have the intake push it into the roller? Wouldn't it also work just by driving into the frisbees?

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Drive
- Most Innovative Designs (designs such as our butterfly drive)
- Best use of (tank, mecanum, swerve, slide, holonomic, omni, traction)
Also, check here for additional comments on drives: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=116559

Shooters
- Best Full Court Shooter
- Most Innovative Shooter Design (were there any w/o wheels?)

Climbing
- Best Climber using Stored Energy (Gas Shocks, etc)
We attempted this once, twice, and still couldn't safely get it on our third try.

Pickup
- Best Vacum Pickup System
- Best "Spatula" Pickup System (such as 2175's & ours)
- Most Innovative Pickup System

Auton
- Best Auton (Those teams in the 7 disk auton club?) & maybe recognize 5 & 6 disk auton shooters as well.

Robot
- Most Innovative Design (kinda like the engineering excellence award, but a robot that would fall in/ be considered for the most categories?)
- Most Creative Robot Design (Anvil's anyone? :)

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Best full court shooter i say has to go to 303, we competed with them and against them in MAR, they were great to have as an alliance partner! I was so happy to see them go to Einstein! Although we defended them with a single pool noodle....

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

How about effective utilization of a turret with target lock? A limited club for sure...

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Who had that very thin, long FCS? I think I saw them on the MSC webcast. Wish I could remember more.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

See my prototype vid for an overview. Basically, I needed the roller to push the frisbee down, while pulling he opposite end toward the kicky roller. At that point the only place for the frisbee to go is up and into the robot's lifter. We have gotten frisbees with the DDI up, but by driving around trying to get the frisbee to catch. The DDI widens the intake to allow 2 frisbees at once as well as picking up from corners.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

I think you're talking about team 326 (x-eagles / really long name). They were in Archimedes also.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

YES that is them. Their dimensions seemed to make it hard to prevent them from reaching the feeding station and helped them align with the feeder station. Where there any major drawbacks? Did they have a tipping problem?

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

While they were prone to tipping (as a design this thin would imply), they counteracted this for the most part with an auton that would fire 3 discs into the three, and then lineup with the wall so they couldn't be pushed over. Fun fact, they climb by essentially lining up with the corner of the pyramid and tipping over (or at least that's how I saw it as a distant observer).

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Was the roller on the DDI powered? What happened with frisbees that were upside down?

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Two innovative robots from MAR with solid, unique designs were 225's FCS and 869's windsock/fan. Neither one made it too far into eliminations, but both required significant alterations to an alliance's strategy. They were both quality, well-designed machines!

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

As far as floor pick up is concerned I think that 20 had an excellent design.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

i know of two without wheels

1503's catupult type fouor discs at once

and there was a fcs that used a belt to shoot the frisbees, it looked very nice, but i cant remember the team number. They were in galileo and had a yellow powder coated robot and thier pit was located very close to the practice field. My team also tried a belt shooter but it didnt pan out towards the ends of the season so we redesigned post build, id love to know more about how they got it to work

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

I think butterfly drive should get a mention. It was extremely well suited to this year's game. Firstly, seven-disc autonomous modes were much easier with one. Secondly, being able to switch to omni for ease of alignment, then traction to hold orientation was very useful, and IMO a big part of how 148 could start accurately FCSing so quickly. Add to that the offensive benefits of a butterfly drive (not vulnerable to t-bones, can push through defensive problems, etc) and 2013 seems like the best year for butterfly since its creation.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

That was team 2485. They were finalists at San Diego (loosing to 987 and 254) and winners at Inland Empire. http://www.idleloop.com/frctracker/p.../2013/4131.jpg

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Yes, it is powered by a AM-9015 and a VEXPro VersaPlanetary 15-1 Gearbox.
We originally had it design as a modified CD7 intake. It worked great and pickup from 90* corners, but we took the sideways wheels out and replaced it with polycarb to index two frisbees at once (making 7 disk auto possible). (See photo, it had belt connecting the so dart side sets and bevel gears for the primary)
On upside-down frisbees: tell you the truth, our original design had us climbing to 30, shooting full court 3s and pyramid goal, picking up and shooting upside-down disks.
Glad our strategy got streamlined. We lift the DDI if we get an upside-down disk, and drive backwards. I had some designs that would flip disks, and designs that would lift and shoot them, but they got outed. One time we got an upside-down disk through the feeder slot into our hopper, and our trigger pneumatic flipped it right side up!

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Actually the lifter and kicky roller are powered by one CIM motor. The drop-down intake is powered by an AndyMark 9015 motor in a 15:1 VEXPro VersaPlanetary.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

2145 had a very unique approach to scoring the pyramid discs.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

I am nominating 987 for these:

Shooter: An accurate turreted curved shooter that could target lock both the 3 point and 2 point goal. They also had a neat little piston the could eject an upside down disc into the 1 point goal. It could score many locations on the field including FCS.

Center Disc Autonomous: To me it was the best in the world. If they were bumped during auto or something went wrong, the robot could also target the 2 disk goal. I recall it also beat 469 to the center discs.

Ground Pickup: The system was very elegant and took up very little room. I was amazed, it moved a disc from horizontal to vertical and back to horizontal. I never saw it jam. They used a cool move where they picked up one disk at the loading station and loaded the remaining 3 via feeder. The system used a roller on a spring loaded arm to move it on a polycarbonate scoop, the a spring loaded belt would carry it up vertically to the hopper.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

I can attest to the effectiveness of these two robots. When 869 played defense on us they would shut us down. Also, 225 was the best FCS in MAR. Once the got to the protected loading zone you knew there was a pretty good chance it was over.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

A possible category or mention could go to robots who could score colored discs.
Teams like 639, 558, 51, and us (20) could score colored discs from the ground, without having to climb. Doing it ACCURATELY and CONSISTENTLY is more difficult, but it can help teams score and win matches as either a primary or secondary shooting option.
If you want to lump in teams who dump with their climb as well, that could work.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Another team that could do this well is 2145 the HAZMATs

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Neutrino LOVES Butterfly Drive!

Yah, 525 had a "flinger".

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

A video to show our shooter can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWGYaSL-YE0

And a video of one of our matches with our strafing technique can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr7AQm-zfYU

That also brings me to a very cool concept a saw throughout the season: 2046 using a flyswatter-type device for blocking. Was very amusing to watch, as well as the many other robots who used very unique blockers (610's giant pink one is a top contender as well).

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Okay, before I release a full update, I'm gonna have to have someone explain this "Butterfly Drive" to me. It seems very similar to what I know as Octocanum, but I presume that since no one has used that name to term it, there is a notable difference between the two. Can someone please elaborate for me?

3928 has a nice page dedicated to their implementation:

http://www.teamneutrino.org/seasons/...bot/butterfly/

I assume 148 has a great blog or two about theirs, as well.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

This is actually part of what confused me. By reading this, I gathered that it was pretty much the same as Octocanum. Aside from some features on the technical side that 3928 implemented, is it correct to say that Butterfly Drive and Octocanum are more or less the same, or is this overgeneralizing?

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Octocanum uses mecanum wheels, Butterfly Drive uses omni wheels.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Okay, so after a rather long, humorous and somewhat vulgar conversation with Gregor on the subject, I guess I understand this whole "Butterfly Drive" thing now. Appropriate changes will begin being made to my working copy of the log.

P.S. I really don't think we need a new name for this thing. Half the conversation was me ranting about how it doesn't make any sense to name it something totally different just because it uses different wheels on a virtually identical system.

1625 calls theirs "Monarch Drive"...! But AFAIK it's the butterfly dive, with chain instead of belt, and since the team colors are "orange and black", well... :)

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Is this thread for "coolest" or "most effective" designs? They are often quite different.

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Both? a unique solution that works is praised comparably to a run of the mill concept that is iterated to work effectively.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

They are, in fact, very different. Octocanum is an omnidirectional drivetrain. Butterfly is not... unless you add a 9th "slide" wheel - in which case it becomes Nonadrive, which is yet a third flavor.

Now, that being said - you could lump all three of these into "articulating drivetrains", which is how we categorize them on 148. We have done all three styles (Nonadrive in 2010, Butterfly in 2011/13, Octocanum for an offseason project before 2011). The Nonadrive is the original, created by a couple 148 students in fall 2009, and that inspired all the subsequent variations.

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Can you explain why 7 disc auton was easier with a butterfly drive?

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

i believe he is reffering to when the traction wheels are down the robot is a four wheel drive with a long drive base causing the robot to barely (if at all) be able to turn which makes driving strait in auton easier

Re: FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log
 

Correct. While skid steers basically require a gyro and closed loop control to drive straight enough to get all seven discs, a butterfly drive just needs to deploy four pistons and drive. The anti-spinning properties of the drive (long high traction wheelbase) will allow the robot to easily go straight.