1583 after 3 weeks
 

Here's a video of 1583's chassis and mechanism prototypes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC52tUnVAzk
The chassis prototype is a 27 inch octagon with CIMs powering Banebot gearboxes coupled to AndyMark 6 inch omnis. The mechanism prototype consists of a ball possesion device (we call it a dribbler) and a shooter. We've spent the last week improving and enhancing both prototypes. For example the competition chassis will have P80 Banebot gearboxes and dual AndyMark wheels on each axle. The competition mechanism will have a more powerful shooter. The prototype uses the window motor motor/gearbox. The competition mechanism will have a CIM/toughbox with a anti-backdrive device. The window motor setup shoots the ball about 8 feet. The new more powerful shooter will shoot it full court. Btw, we learned that back driving the ball with our dribbler doesn't make the ball roll very good on the ground. Hence the shooter is designed to loft the ball into the goal. We'll show more of details of the robot as we start building the competition model next week. In 2008 team 1625 Winnovation was in the pit next to ours at the Colorado regional. Their cocking and trigger concept from their 2008 robot is what we are using this year. Thanks guys.

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

nice shooter.
Might want to rework your video. Youtube didn't like you using copyrighted music and removed your audio. Try: http://www.jamendo.com/en/ It's a site full of tunes with a Creative Commons license.

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

That is the best dribbler/shooter/robot drive base I have seen yet this year. I am amazed that you can fit so much awesome in a small package. Are you doing a kicker on each side?

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

I noticed you guys were controlling that prototype with the VEX controller. I love it!

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

Hi Alex......We are only kicking from one side of the octagon. Our process for kicking in autonomous is to (1) drive to the ball (2) capture it with the dribbler (3) Acquire the vision target with the camera (4) rotate the robot to aim at the target while possesing the ball (4) kick when pointed at target. During teleoperated we also hope to have the camera and Crio aim the robot to kick the ball as well. As it stands now we have four CIMs driving the chassis, two FP spinning the dribbler and one CIM powering the kicker. That ends up being seven jaguars stashed in that octagon. There's not much wasted space to say the least

Paul.....We always drive our prototype chassis with Vex. Can't beat it for getting things up and running fast. It also gives the programers something to work with without waiting for the CRio

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

Looks sweet. Nice drive train.
I have only one critique. It looks like you are trying to score the balls by throwing them into the goal. There's a group of chains that will prevent that. Dean Kamen, at kick off, siad that rolling them into the goal was the way to score.

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

The vex controllers have been great for prototyping. They are so much less work that putting on everything needed to run either the current system or older IFI systems.

Our wheel testing prototype ran via Vex, our ball magnet prototype use a Vex controller, we slapped a Vex controller on an old frame to test our prototype winch and our t-shirt robot is controlled by Vex.

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

Hi,

What motor and gearbox are you using for the rollers?
It looks like the cim 12:1 gearbox and a fisherprice motor. But how were you able to connect both of them?

-Xavier

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

Looks like an FP through a Banebots P60 on each side. If my deciphering fuzzy number skills are good it's 20:1.

The Banebots P60 is designed to work with a motor with the same package as the FP. Some work must be done to change the FP pinion, but that is the only modification necessary to make the combo work if I remember correctly.

I'm sure somebody from 1583 will be around to chime in with the details.

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

Xavier...Kevin is right, our prototype has Banebot 36mm 20:1 gearboxes with 385 motors. The competition robot will have the same transmissions with FPs. We've already installed the motors on two other transmissions. It's an easy mod once you figure out how to remove the pinion from the FP and press on the 3.2 mm 15 tooth pinion from Banebot. The P60 20:1 gearboxes are just as easy to install the FPs on.

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

Thank you :)

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

Very nice indeed =)

Just a piece of advice, try using the Andymark planetary gearboxes instead of the Banebot's, the Banebot gears are unreliable and tend to breakdown in the middle of games (a la several of our games at the championship last year ;-) )

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

Hi Gal...sorry to hear about your experience with Banebot gearboxes. We've used them since 2007 with no problems. They have had their share of problems but the folks at Banebots have made all sorts of enhancements and improvements with input from FIRST teams. They are only fifty miles up the road from us (Loveland, CO) so we talk to them frequently. They are great folks to work with. So is AndyMark. This year's robot will be about 50/50 Banebot and AndyMark parts.

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

Oh, in that case no problem :) We were using the older gears from the KOP and they didn't preform very well

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

That's a really fast spinner. Have you considered moving to a 26:1 or possibly a 64:1 P60 gearbox with a FP?

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

Hi Andrew...the motors (FPs) are both on jaguars . What you see is max speed. We can dial in any speed we want. One of the things we've discovered from playing with the mechanism is that we can 'steal' a ball from another robot if our 'dribbler' spins faster than theirs.

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

Interesting concept but with 3" of intrusion into there frame plus "3 of bumpers then your 3" of bumpers this ball won't een intrude into yur frame perimiter. All that making stealing a 9" ball rather hard.

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

Corey....Good point. It will still work if the other robot doesn't have the ball 3 inches into the frame. Speaking of bumpers we are going to spend sometime this week seeing what effect that may have on our kicker trajectory. ::ouch::

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

Regarding an earlier post about the chains... we've got chains on our goal, and find that it actually takes some of the "heat" off airborne balls. Rather than rejecting the high hard shots, it seems to help keep them from bouncing out.

But I suggest you try it that way... the foam on the competition goals may have an effect, too.

Jason

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

That's what we are thinking Jason. In fact we are putting the chains on our goal this afternoon to collect data. We also want to see what effect the bumpers in the correct position may have on the kicker so we're installing some on our kicker prototype. One of the unexpected outcomes of testing of our integrated kicker/dribbler is that the ball actually goes further when its spun by the dribbler as oposed to a static kick. It's also kicking higher. This morning we've been getting 5 ft lofts on 15 ft kicks.

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

:ahh: When we put bumpers in the correct position and kicked this afternoon, we found out the ball hit the bumper and deflected noticeably. When you do the math you can see why. Our ball is 3 inches deep in the robot when kicked. That makes the top of the ball another 1 1/2 inches outside the perimeter. The bumper is a 2 1/2 pool noodle on a 3/4 piece of plywood. The bottom of the bumper could be as low as 10 inches above the ground or only one inch above the top of the ball. Doing the math a triangle with a base of 1 3/4 (3 1/4 - 1 1/2} with the other side of 1 inch has an angle of 30 deg. That means a ball leaving the robot at an angle of more than 30 deg is going to hit. If the top of the bumper is 16 inches above the ground then the triangle other side is 2 inches. That makes the angle a little over 45 deg. That means if you kicker is designed for max range (ie 45 deg) it's probably going to hit also. Bottom line is you really ought to try out your kicker with bumpers in place before you finalize your design. We're redesigning our kicking shoe for a flatter kick. I'm glad we found this out now rather that we tried to kick the first time we had the robot completely together.

Re: 1583 after 3 weeks
 

Thanks for the information, we are just now trying to get the kicker into our robot parameters in the front. Sounds like the work tonight to make some parts of the bumpers was an excellent idea. :)