|
Re: Off-season Prodjects
1 Attachment(s)
Here's a render of my current project. I got bored last night and began modeling a new crab, combining a couple of team's designs. Feedback welcome. (and if anyone has the resources/interest to actually build the thing as a prototype, I'll be glad to share the CAD...)
|
Re: Off-season Prodjects
A black box.
Research on PCBs. GPS project (Hopefully). Pavan. |
Re: Off-season Prodjects
Building a mecanum driven arm chair, to learn how to build and code macanum drive trains.
|
Re: Off-season Prodjects
building and playing around with swerve drive
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
I split this into a new thread, as the original thread was created to focus upon 3D animation projects.
Just an FYI. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
I'm currently working with a couple teammates in taking apart and rebuilding the Aim High robot and turning it into a prototype/base frame.
Essentially I'm stripping it down to a drive train and pneumatics system, and an overbuilt electrical layout so that I can plug anything and everything into it. When we have new sensors, motors, arms, or whatever else that needs to be tested out, just snap them into the terminal strips and go. Next step; get the camera, gear tooth sensors, and gyro/accelerometer working flawlessly on this chassis, so it's just a quick change over to next year's bot instead of frantic troubleshooting when the robot gets handed over to the controls team in the last few build days next year. :rolleyes: |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Sensors. Lots of them.
Our team has a problem... that didn't really become apparent to me until late this year. We have no experience with them. This is our 8th year as a team, and our advisor didn't want us to buy sensors for our lift, which I had planned out in the beginning of the year. He didn't allow us to buy them, and said "limit switches will be easy to install at the end of the six weeks, after we get it working." Well... to say the least they didn't get working. So now we rely on the drivers, which isn't so bad. But with some sensors it could be ten times better and faster. So in the off season I plan to buy some pots, install some gyros, and get that camera aligning our robot, and then do some sweet stuff with the press of a button... then hopefully next year will be ten times better. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Several other club members and I are going to rebuild our promotional mecanum t-shirt cannon. I'm planning on adding suspension to the kit frame for the chassis and making the cannon semi-automatic. I haven't done any Inventor models yet, but I'll post some when I get them done. We also plan on participating in NURC.
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
-Some sort of Combat Robot (probably working with Near Chaos Robotics members)
-Studying Swerve & Crab drives, plus Mecanums & Omnidrives. -Try and buy materials for a chassis & BaneBots CIM's and 56mm Transmissions (to make a non-FIRST bot for whatever tasks I feel like) |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
-9:00 a.m. - bought a breast drill at garage sale for $3
-10:00 a.m. - oiled every moving part to try to release rusted parts (not expected to work.) -10:30 a.m. - cut and built a spit for outdoor barbecue for dinner tonight (made dad happy) -3:00 p.m.- begin working on dissasembly of drill (oil worked), and discover many cool things about it: - two speeds (1:1 and 3:1) - spirit level - push-button release for gears - 3 handle settings - ball bearings with nuts to take up wear An excellent tool that will serve for many more years in my garage. Very good deal for what I paid originally! |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Prototyping a drivetrain in the offseason paid off enormously for us this year.
If next years game requires us to climb things I'd like to be ready. I'd also like to see our robot perfected for CAL Games. Only difference is that I'm going to try and get our Freshmen and Sophomores to do all the mechanics. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Another ex team member and I plan on returning for the summer to force our team to work. :cool: She was going to teach fundraising abilities, while I was hoping to stimulate some cool projects. We have an excellent drivebase this year that can have it's arm/ramps easily removed, so our programmers should have something to play with over the summer as well.
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Personally, I will be working on perfecting my Inventor skills and playing around with some ideas I have in Vex.
I'm not too sure if 108 can get together and do anything, but I would love to get the '06 bot back together, in it's original form, or as something else. -No L |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
This is my off season project, been drawing it for the last few days and started ordering parts today. It's a 2 speed ball lock shifting transmission for 2 cims. The inspiration was some pictures of team 222's tigerdrive from 2006.
Picture |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Probably do some understudy work at my dad's work (hopefully), and maybe learn more about drive systems from someone I idolize (again, hopefully.)
Oh, and work more on web sites and getting podcasts out. :) |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Building on the robochair idea that I saw at Davis, I would like to build a robotic couch. It would be large, unwieldy, and very impractical, but my school has some groaty old couches that would do the job well.
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
1. Redesign our arm for PARC X
2. CMU camera autonomous that works 3. Convert our '07 chassis to mecanums (original design was for mecanum wheels, never went through with it) Thats all for now, the list will probably get bigger. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Team 191 will be moving our whole 7700 ft^2 site to a new location this May_June Time frame so that will be our summer project. We will have a fresh start to modernize and organize a more efficient team layout.
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
I am starting out my mentoring career by leading a team of underclassmen to rebuild our completely gutted 2004 chassis/drive system, and then design a 4 bar linkage arm with some sort of cool grabber.
Next year is the first year we will be using EasyC so we are going to program it with that, and then give our electrician a chance to wire it. It will be her first time doing it herself next year. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
I will also be creating a chair like the one at davis.
Our school has an educational rally this friday and our robot is somewhere between here and atlanta so we hope to have a driving chair by friday. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
build a chassis out of stock materials with removable/replaceable drive modules. (inspired by team 192)
TKO does nothing but machine machine machine! .... when we only have one machine shop working for us for free. I want a driving chassis at least before week four next year. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Quote:
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
after seeing the homemade segway at champs, we decided to make one during this summer. It'll hopefully help us with our programming skills and the gyro and also help get the new people practice building
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
179 is gonna start on a real nice cart for next year. Either mecanums or one of those weird drive systems. we got sick fo having to puch that cart so far. And now its gonna be even worse, with our super regional
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
We're going to swap out the drivetrain on either our practice or competition bot for a mechanum drive. Then, to control it, we're going to use a DDR pad for the eight directions and a Guitar Hero controller for speed and the manipulator. Details still need to be worked out, but I think it will be fun to make and a unique driving experience.
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
We might work to improve the drive design that we used this year. Though it was much better than it has ever been in years past, our drive can always be improved.
One of our graduating seniors is also working on an electronics notebook to pass on all the information she has learned to current/future members. We'll also be building a second robot for another team to compete with at the IRI. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Not for First, but im planing to build a stirling Sun collector power generator. and a gun that shoots glow sticks into the night sky
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
I'm already CADing a crab drive in inventor, so I may steal some ideas from the concept from 114ManualLabor. lol I need to learn autodesk anyways so its a good thing. Once that is done, our team plans on building a crab drive and an omniwheel drive to see which one we like better and possibly have rather crappy arms put on them to compete with our '07 bot to see whether drive train or function if more important. (our '07 bot has a really good arm :D)
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Quote:
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Quote:
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Quote:
And back the main point of the thread, 294 is building a revised prototype base with integrated shifters. Our base was the only part that never had a single failure this year, and it'll be even better after two more iterations for next season. I doubt it will be able to compete with the top dogs, but we'll be able to hold our own. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Over this summer, I plan on working with 3ds Max, Inventor, and learning a little bit of everything else on how to fully build a robot. A few guys and I are planning on making a segway. I will hopefully soon have some pictures of the Inventor file, in about a month. All I do in school now is design it.:D
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Quote:
And as for the crab as an off season project, I doubt my team will fund me to make it... It wouldn't be cheap. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
our team split up into small groups and we are having a small competition.
were making a robot that is a square foot. we took both extra cims hehe:D . u think cims will be overkill for the drivetrain for a 30 lb robot, or is more power better. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Quote:
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Quote:
I hope you're not direct driving those. CIMs spin at an unloaded speed of about 5400 rpm. Direct drive would be uncontrollable. If anything, running them through a banebot, which would have a 4 inch wheel mounted on it, that would give you a calculated unloaded speed of about 6 fps... So I suggest using the banebots. They're actually really nice transmissions, they just get a lot of bad rep. I'd suggest using two globes direct driven to some skyways. We use those in our offseason competition a lot, and they work great. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
We are going to build an arm robot, something that we didn't try this year, but as a team we are really looking forward to working on it. Our mentors wanted a week off so were all sitting around with ants in our pants because we have some crazy ideas (hacking a wii mote??? )
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
my team participates in the local "pumpkin fling" each year we build a trebuchet (a mideivil weapon kinda simalar to a catapult) to throw a five pound pumpkin as far as possible. we compete with other local groups, this past year we threw 808 feet!
pics are in pictures section of our website: http://www.westisliprobotics.com http://www.westisliprobotics.com/med...bcomp/mov1.MOV http://www.westisliprobotics.com/med...bcomp/mov2.MOV |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
I personally will be working with one of our old robots or my VEX robot to get more fun sensor and autonomous stuff working, just because I can. We know how to use pretty much every sensor we can want, we just have to figure out why they weren't co-operating on our robot this year, since we never got time to actually test with it.
I also have plans for some cool VEX things. I belive I've come up with an idea for an FVC legal 2-speed transmission that will be ridiculously tiny for something that complex. Even though I was my teams programmer I have alot of fun designing transmissions for whatever reason. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
work on my combat bot and build a lazy Susan that go's up 6 feet and can be drivin around. its for 1 of our mentors he donated our robot cart and crate so this is the trade off he want this for burning man.
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Looks as though our crab drive cart idea was shot down tonight, although my brother is now working diligently to cut costs. Maybe we should instead redesign our cart and make it so that the cart itself powers upward instead of using a drill manually. It also needs a new paint job, really bad. It's been painted flames since 2003 when it was made and it's gotten scratched up. I say we chrome it out... drop some spinners (our logo machined) on the tires... and add some orange and blue cold cathodes to the bottom.
EDIT: How could I forget?! We're building yet another cardboard boat to compete at the Rock Island and Galesburg races. We've won three of four events we've been to and have gotten the Spirit award at all events. We also have two second place and one third place award. I hope maybe this year we will make a fun boat since we have a proven winner (speed record at both events). We've entertained a crabbing boat... yes, I said crabbing BOAT. I don't think it would be too hard. We certainly wouldn't win, but it would be SUPER FREAKY AWESOME! Personally I'm starting, at least, two Vex Challenge teams, possibly more. I'm helping with a DARPA vehicle, and I'll be promoting FIRST throughout the Quad Cities and surrounding areas on a personal tour of schools, hopefully. The first date is sometime soon at United Township with James, an electrical engineer. Quote:
*Happens to be one of the schools that our team is made up of. :ahh: |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Well, as a team we are going to repaint the crate (it seems white and black paint is REAL susceptible to scratches) and along with that, add plenty of things to it that will make it easier on whoever is in the pits (a fold out bench perhaps.......) Another team project is building a new cart...Going to keep that under wraps for now.
Personal projects are: 1) I am going to attempt to build a Gauss Cannon 2) Work out the designs for a swerve drive (this might be with the team but it has been a personal project sense I first saw it in action) 3) Work alot more with Photoshop (co-graphic designer for my team) 4) Help the webmaster (who happens to be the other graphics designer) construct the website for next year 5) Lastly I want to begin learning the electrical systems so that in case of electrical failure (happened in Vegas, a speed controller blew and we lost the drive systems...) there are more then 2 people that know what they are doing. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Quote:
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Several things, all at once. I have more involvement in some than other:
1 (My pet project): Lead my 4-man (actually 3-man and 1-lady) team in designing and constructing a pair of tandem recumbent bicycles from the ground up. 2: Finish hovercraft prototypes and make 4 people's worth of rideable hovercrafts 3: Redesign and mount air cannons onto aforementioned vehicles. The tandem bicycle idea is the one that's gonna really get off the ground (hopefully it'll stay on the ground once its built:p ). I've been studying many designs of both tandem and recumbent bicycles, as well as a few existing designs. Me and my electron-cough-design team are all convinently learning how to TIG weld right now too....:rolleyes: |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Well...
I plan on learning all about Inventor and 3Ds MAX, since we no longer have a subteam dedicated to animation. I already can use Inventor, but I know that there are a lot of things you can do with it, that I just haven't figured out yet. I'm also planning on learning how to use Excel inside and out. One of my teammates and I were amazed at the program that Brian (one of our co-captains) made for scouting. I don't know that much about it, and definitely can't write my own programs for it, so that's what I plan on learning. Oh yeah, and help build that second robot for the IRI. ;) |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Quote:
|
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
I mentioned in another thread last year that I was working on ideas for a recumbent bike, and I would post my plans when I got around to building one.
Well its taken almost a year, but I finally did get around to it. I dont have specific plans drawn up because the way I put the bike together it more of less depends on the existing bike frames that you start with, and how tall you are to figure out where to put the pedals, seat back... So I have not drawn up detailed plans but I think the description and photos is enough of a starting point that anyone with a bunch of bike parts laying around and access to a flux wire welder could do something similar. So here is the link: http://members.aol.com/wittlief/HMLAT/HMLAT.htm |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
That is freakin' beautiful.
We're planning on using aluminum tubing and building it from the ground up. Right now, we're still in the CAD phase of the design though. And by CAD, I mean "Crap, Another Dud" phase. The problem with a recumbent tandem is that it'll practically have the wheelbase of an 18-wheeler. Theres a few out there, but they all seem to cost in the 4000 range, and some cheat and have 3 wheels! Also, since we wanna do this right, and in one shot (expensive, and hopefully only once), we're taking our grand ol' time. Besides, we don't have much else to do before build season anyways. Alternatively, it looks like the budget for the bike's aluminum tubing might be deferred over to aluminum tubing for a hovercraft and 3-5 shopvacs instead. We'll see. Either one will carry 2 people. The hovercraft is still in sketch phase right now. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
I've been doing a little web research on bicycle frames and I now think that alum may not be the best choice for a bike that will see a lot of use and mileage. From what I have read, steel tubing has a threshold of stress (bending and twisting), below which you can literally stress it repeatedly forever and it will bend back (spring-like) and will never fail. Aluminum is not like that. Even a small bit of stress on an alum frame causes stress fatigue, and eventually it will simply break - and break completely with out warning.
Im not sure how correct that assesment is, because the mast and frame on my Hobiecat are aluminum, and the boat is 23 years old, and the mast bends noticably (intentionally) when you sail it. Maybe it will snap in half someday. But I do know from working on FIRST robots that if you bend aluminum enough to deform it, you usually can only bend it back once, and the next time it bends it will fail. So Im thinking maybe chrome-moly steel tubing would be best for a custom recumbent frame. I would hate to put a lot of time and money into a custom frame and have something as simple as the wind blowing it off the kickstand causing possibly catastrophic damage. It has also occurred to me there is another easy way to make a long frame recumbent bike frame. I made the one I have now, the way I did, because I wasnt sure where the pedals and seat would end up, but now I could build something similar by extending a standard diamond frame by about two feet. If you cut the top tube and extend it with a straight steel tube, and miter cut the tube from the pedals to the fork head, and extend it to match the new angle, you would have a frame with the same dimensions of the bike I have now. All you need to do then is weld the pedal cluster up in the new location, and add the underseat handlebars, and seatback. I photoshopped this to see what it will look like. Check in the HMLAT directory on my aol ftp site for bridgestone.jpg and bridgestoneA.jpg to get an idea of what Im talking about. If I were to build a second bike like the one I have now, I think that is the way I would go (if I didnt build a whole frame from scratch). One thing I have not found a good solution for: making a long frame recumbent adjustable for differnet size people. If you move the seat forward and back you need to move the understeat steering too. The other option would be to make the pedal cluster position adjustable, but then you need to take up the chain slack somehow. I dont have a solution in mind for either approach. So far my bike plans led you to a bike specifically designed for one person. Anyone else who is not the same height would have a difficult time riding it. |
Re: Mechanical/Electrical Off-Season Projects
Building a drive system for our cart, put a chair on it for the driver and thinking of making a trailer for personnel transport :D
|
| All times are GMT -5. The time now is 06:27. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © Chief Delphi