pic: Team 340
 

Re: pic: Team 340
 

I'm guessing it works kinda like HOT's '05 robot. starts leaning on the wall, then falls down for a longer, lower CG. But what happens when oyu have alliance partners that want the sides, do you lean properly on the center goal? Or maybe it doesn't lean...

Re: pic: Team 340
 

That's exactly what I was thinking!

Re: pic: Team 340
 

It sits on the floor fine. It doesn't actually lean on the wall nor does it touch the wall on the way down.

Matt

Re: pic: Team 340
 

very nice looking, do you guys have lexan over the long (you could call it the hypotenuse) side of the bot? It's hard to see, I'm guessing you don't so you can scoop tetras up, but it sure looks like it would be easy for robots to get stuck inside that part of your body..


and how about that machining on the telescoping arm! can anyone say pretty?

Re: pic: Team 340
 

I think they learned some stuff from being around HOT so much. Decided to go light strips with supports instead of the classic solid aluminum tubing...

Re: pic: Team 340
 

Too bad we didn't get to see it work at the exhibition but it was definately an intriguing design. I can't wait to see it in action on the 3rd of March.

Re: pic: Team 340
 

I've been waiting to see this robot for a very long time. One of our alumnus at RIT (Greg) kept telling me you guys had a great robot... and an even more impressive autonomous mode. I'm dying to find out what it does :)

Great job on that huge base. Our team considered doing what HOT did too during the design week but you guys have really pulled it off, along with a very delicately machined arm. Can't wait to see this thing in real life next week!

Re: pic: Team 340
 

The lower arm and the extended section of the upper arm are aluminum tube. We looked at C channel and switched to tube for strength.

Original design had belts and pulleys. I made the mistake of not checking tensile strength of the belt we ordered. So Friday night was a little tough, completely switching from belt to chain, not knowing if we had weight.

Things are looking good now. And other than 2, 1 hr naps I've been up since 7am yesterday. coming up on 40 hrs. Time to turn in.

Thanks for the positive feedback!

Re: pic: Team 340
 

The radio issues at the exhibition were disappointing. But you won't have to wait too long!

Re: pic: Team 340
 

thats spiffy! see ya in a bit!

Re: pic: Team 340
 

I'm a huge fan of the "template tetra" that you use to store the tetras on the front of your bot. Great innovative thinking.

Congratulations on building such a nice looking and well designed robot.

-Andrew

Re: pic: Team 340
 

that thing actually fits in the length limit? crazy

Re: pic: Team 340
 

As someone said before I think its a falling robot...This means that it starts standing up at the beginning of the match (most likely that arm is folded in the front) then it falls down to start the match...


Great job guys I love the concept (is that tetra in the front there just a normal tetra or do u use it to stack other tetras?)

Re: pic: Team 340
 

That looks awfully familiar. Two pivots, a telescope, passive claw, tetra stand on the front, and side shields. Glad to see that someone else is thinking outside of the A-shaped box. :)

Re: pic: Team 340
 

how many tetras do you think it can hold at once??? or how many has it held???

Looks great!!!

Re: pic: Team 340
 

We can fit 4 tetras from the auto loading stations. The tetra frame is welded aluminum.

And I just realized Matt never stated it. Out team is much larger than those shown. Those are just the crazy amoung us who spent Monday night fine tuning her.

Re: pic: Team 340
 

That looks awesome, the arm looks great, how high dose it go? I love it when teams make bots that start in different positions other then all wheel's/treads touching the ground.

And your team shirts are really cool to.

Good luck this year.

Re: pic: Team 340
 

Just to add what Kate added to what Matt started.
1 - the robot is like HOT's. The kids liked thier robot so much last year they wanted to see if they could rebuild it for this years game. I think they did & then some.

2 - If you look out into the hall to the left you will see the guys from 1405 who spent the entire weekend camped out in our hall. They also pulled an all-nighter to get thier robot in working order. I would really like to thank Guy, one of our mentors (the one in the blue-ish shirt) for giving up his weekend to work with them & skipping work on Tuesday to help them out.

3 - I would also like to thank Kate for spending the night with our team & helping our kids finish. She also skipped work Tuesday to help out. While I'm at it, I would like to thank Matt for spend so much time with us helping to mentor the programming guys. He had a final exam on Tuesday and was there most of the night Monday & as soon as his test wast over Tuesday. Oh yeah & thanks to the moms who brought us food & kept up going all those long hours.

I could do this all day so, Thanks to all who helped my kids build something they can all be proud of.

Re: pic: Team 340
 

Per Team Update 13:

For you to be in an autoloading zone, some part of the robot from the original 28"x38" footprint must be touching it. However, that part of your footprint, I assume, is quite far back because you fall over at the beginning of the match. Does this pose any problems?

Re: pic: Team 340
 

According to that ruling, yes it does. I doubt FIRST had thought of our case when they made that ruling so we're betting that they'll let us get away with out base being the other parts of our robot. It will be very clear that our robot is in the loading zone when it is so we didn't feel there'd be a problem.

Matt

Re: pic: Team 340
 

i think that rule is meant for keeping people from having arm that hang down and touch the oading zone while grabbing a tetra. in this case, i hope there aren't problems.

Re: pic: Team 340
 

whats the details for your drives for this year?

Re: pic: Team 340
 

You're awfully inquisitive for someone that doesn't show full pictures of your own robot!

Re: pic: Team 340
 

haha, i was going to show a video of our robot but we rejected by the mentors...

Re: pic: Team 340
 

What's with all the secrecy? It's not like anyone is going to steal your design now.

Re: pic: Team 340
 

they can get a strategy on how to defend us.

Re: pic: Team 340
 

Yeah, but wouldn't teams figure that out on Thursday? :confused:

Re: pic: Team 340
 

That looks almost exactly like what I envisioned.

Once a GRR always a GRR?

Re: pic: Team 340
 

Looks amazing... very elegant design.

Have you had any issues with the tetras sliding down the arm when the arm is raised at an angle? Or is there a way that they are held in place?
Out of curiousity, what motors are you using to control the arm joint angles?
And I am also wondering... what is your drive train setup? I see that it is 4wd, but not much else.
And the telescoping... how is that done? (I think I am seeing telescoping sections on the secondary arm)

Hopefully I will be able to see this in action.
Great job!!

Re: pic: Team 340
 

We did have issues with the tetras sliding down but if you notice there's a cross piece on the end of the arm which holds the tetras out at the end of the arm. The arm is being controller by the CIM motor for the lower arm and the van door motor for the upper arm. There's a variety of gearing in there that you really can't see in the picture.

The drive is three-speed four wheel drive. The front wheels are modified wheel chair wheels and the rear are custom wheels.

The telescoping only happens once at a beginning of a match and then locks in place.

Matt

Re: pic: Team 340
 

how do you lower yourself? Is the drive train/robot in general doing well with the bumps it may take while lowering itself?

Re: pic: Team 340
 

It's lowered simply by driving backwards. The robot does quite fine with the bumps it receives. We've run it enough times not to be worried about it.

Matt

Re: pic: Team 340
 

As Matt has written, we do keep the tetras from sliding with a cross bar. The final design didn't come until 3AM tuesday. It actually enables us to tilt the tetra as we raise it.
Aslo as Matt wrote, we drive the lower section of the arm with a CIM attached to a dewalt transmission in low gear (Thank you Dr, Joe). The upper section is a geared down van door motor.
We are running a 3 speed 4 wheel drive system using 2 CIM's run again through the dewalt transmissions, (thanks again Dr. Joe). the back wheels are custom machined & the front are modified wheelchair wheels.
The last part is the telescoping section at the end of the upper arm. It is gravity fed. It is held in place until it clears the body of the robot & then opens to release.

I hope this info helps.

Re: pic: Team 340
 

Thanks to everyone on this thread for your compliments. Truely shows that FIRST is not about just building robots :)