Quote:
Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday
Everyone should see 1111's control board this year; it's a 3D printed model of their robot and controls the real one like a voodoo doll.
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I'm the Controls sub team Captain for 1111 Powerhawks, and yes; our controls board does act like a voodoo doll. We call it "Voodoo bot", or machinula: little bot in Latin. The base and aesthetic wheels are ABS plastic printed in a 3-D printer. The structural parts are made of leftover bits of black 80-20, and miscellaneous scrap and FTC metal. Also, plexiglas (or equivalent) makes up the switchboard on the base, and the handle for the shooter arm controller is a piece of PVC.
The arm is on an axle that turns sprockets on a chain that are hooked up to a 16-bit rotary switch, to control the up and down movement of the robot's shooter assembly. There are "firing buttons" at the handle end of the controller to index frisbees into the shooter, and any other switches (shooter on/off, shooter speed, autonomous selector, frisbee indexer de-jamb, arm position indicators, and any other operator control.)
The innards house the wiring, cypress unit, battery for back lights (bright blue LEDs to light up switchboard) and any other breakaway mini-boards for any of the controls. The Voodoo bot works directly with the laptop and what it does, the robot mirrors. Real Steel style.