'Snow Problem 2015 - Stronghold
 

'Snow Problem and GOFIRST are happy to participate in Robot in 3 Days for our second year! We have some new faces and some returning ones, and have been working over the last few months to make our build even more useful to teams.

We'll be releasing updates on Twitter and Facebook again, in addition, we'll be releasing short videos on Vine and SnapChat- SnowProblemz. We'll also be streaming on YouTube

'Snow Problem would like to thank our sponsors for the 2016 build:
University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering Expo
AndyMark
REV Robotics
Stratasys

We'd also like to recognize the generosity of Modulus, Competition Robot Parts, and iR3 Creative in their continued support of Robot in 3 Days. Also take a look at the official Ri3D announcement here.

We'll be releasing white papers and other content updates here and on the Ri3D blog, so subscribe to the thread for updates!

Re: 'Snow Problem 2015 - Stronghold
 

We're back up today-- you can find our stream at z.umn.edu/snowproblemstream

If you have any questions about our process or design decisions, feel free to post them here, and we'll do our best to answer them in a timely manner.

We have a couple of videos incoming today, along with some scans from our notebooks explaining some key parts of our design decisions and strategy.

Re: 'Snow Problem 2015 - Stronghold
 

Stream is back up, and you can check out our Day 1 video here.

We had some difficulties, mostly around half of our shop not having power for around 24 hours, which has held up some of our documentation efforts. We're planning to release our CAD by around Thursday along with a white paper on the process we used to make our robot and information on all the subsystems.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to post them here or on the stream!

Re: 'Snow Problem 2015 - Stronghold
 

'Snow Problem is proud to present our 2016 FIRST Robotics Competition robot, Perses.

Reveal Video


Please make sure to check out our daily videos showcasing our progress throughout the three days!
Day 3 Video
Day 2 Video
Day 1 Video

We'll be releasing a more detailed video describing our robot at a later date.

Re: 'Snow Problem 2015 - Stronghold
 

That is a sick little bot you made! Two questions; I take it this captures a tower by parking on the Batter, and any chance of there being more videos of it interacting with the Cheval? There was a brief clip of it in the video but I'm interested in which mechanism you actually lowered the "ramps" with.

Re: 'Snow Problem 2015 - Stronghold
 

We capture by parking, correct. We faced both time and space constraint issues with attempting to climb while still fitting under the low bar, which was deemed our number one priority.

We have an `L` mounted to a motor on the back of the robot which pins down one of the pieces of the Cheval.

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I'm planning on throwing together a more detailed video with descriptions. I'll make sure to throw in more footage of the Cheval.

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The device to lower the cheval de frise is a bag motor mounted to a versa planetary at 81:1. We didn't have a chance to tune the shooter for that range, but I suspect that we could shoot from the outer works. It currently is set up for shooting from the alignment line.

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In addition to the forthcoming explanation video, also look forward to our CAD model release, which will happen before the time it happened last year (week 5), and after I get a chance to clean up some parts of the model and get all critical subsystems updated to what you see in the reveal video.

We'll also be releasing a complete breakdown of our strategic and decision making process here and on our website, which should be up tomorrow, and a written version of the explanatory video. As always, feel free to post in this thread, PM us, or hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or any of our video pages.

Best of luck to all teams in FIRST Stronghold!

Re: 'Snow Problem 2015 - Stronghold
 

Great work guys.

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Talk about driving it like you stole it, man, that was awesome! Totally jumped it! I love this game already. I thought you would have named it the General Lee. I think IRI should have "the biggest air" contest.

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That is Peter's driving style :)

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Awesome video! You guys did a great job, and my team has been thinking along the same lines that you have. Are you able to breach the portcullis or Category C defense from the neutral zone, or are you planning to rely on alliance members to assist?

Re: 'Snow Problem 2015 - Stronghold
 

Great design and video !

Definitely my favorite of the Ri3D designs.

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We prioritized the B, D, and low bar defenses in our strategy and initial planning. While we did build the sally port, we never had a chance to test it to my knowledge.

We may try it on a practice field in the area at a later date, but we don't have any definite plans currently.

Re: 'Snow Problem 2015 - Stronghold
 

Love it. That is a pretty incredible robot. I wouldn't expect anything less from you guys!

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Wow! It's so compact, I love it. Easily my favorite so far. I love the motion of the intake when it retracts/extends. Very well done.

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Thanks! We really like it too.

Like Ryan said, we didn't get a chance to test these items but there would be enough room to modify our manipulator on the back to do all of these. Theoretically it should be able to lift the portcullis and possibly open the sally port. Currently, I can assure you it would not do the drawbridge, but there are some simple designs we could do to solve that.

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Excellent work. Loved watching the live stream, and the robot is great.

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Awesome job guys! I'm very impressed with your robot. I'd love to see it in person at some point! Hopefully we can demo them at the Duluth and/or Minneapolis regionals.

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Clever, subtle adjusting intake. Nice!

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It originally didn't actuate and we intended to extend our frame perimeter beneath it, but realized that we would have trouble breaching some defenses with both the extended perimeter and bumpers. Linear actuation seemed to be the easiest method to work around that :)

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And it works to hold the ball on the catapult I imagine

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Any thoughts of signing up for the Eagan week 0 event and bringing it down there? #hinthint

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How big is your intake? How large is the gap in your bumpers? We're talking about building something similar, but there's some discussion about whether maximizing roller size is worth doing (in which case we'd have to come over the bumper). Thanks:)

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We had pretty much the same discussion, and given the time restrictions went with this design. The gap in the frame is somewhere around 11-12 in.

Yep, it helps to retain the ball when traversing the defenses.

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With this exact design, Perses actually cannot fit legal bumpers on the intake side. This is easily remedied by making the robot a few inches wider-- we used the square kitbot configuration, which comes out to about 112" of perimeter, which is enough for you to add a few inches of width and have both a wider intake and a legal robot, both of which are great side effects :)

Edit: I just thought I'd add on some more relevant information. Jimmy is right-- the gap is about 12".

Re: 'Snow Problem 2015 - Stronghold
 

Will a 3x3 8" pneumatic wheel drive train fit on the square chassis, or will the outer wheels interfere with the outer plate?

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Lol.

Cool actuation on the intake, serves many purposes.

Can it do the low goal?

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It can, provided that the ball has not been sucked all the way up into the claw. It would be trivial to add a cylinder or servo which pushed the ball back out of the claw and into the intake, but 72 hours is only time for so much.

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10/10 Would compete in.

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Think Perses could hurtle the low bar?

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Yes. Using the AM square chassis length, the AM pneumatic wheels will fit without any additional cuts.

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A small update: Still working on a nice writeup of all the stuff that went into Perses, but with school starting that's slow going. For now, here is a link to our 2016 (woefully incomplete) CAD model (you can also find it in my signature). It might see some updates, but it's enough to give you a good look at what we used CAD for over the course of our build.

Another fun thing: For our build, we asked all the people involved to contribute to a collaborative playlist on Spotify for us to listen to over the build. Now, I know it isn't anything substantial, but if you're interested, you can find that playlist here. I'll warn you, we are college students, so there are some not so family friendly songs and song titles in there. You click through at your own peril.

I realize it's coming a little late, but thank you to everyone who supported this endeavor, from our monetary and parts sponsors to the families who brought us meals. We do this for you guys, so if you have any further questions or you're in Minnesota and would like to arrange a visit, let me or any of the other 'Snow Problem members in this thread know. Good luck and keep strong to everyone as we pass halfway through build season!