Thread: Team 1540 Presents...Quasar!
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Unread 15-04-2015, 11:53
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Dale Dale is offline
Head Coach & Mentor
AKA: Dale Yocum
FRC #1540 (Flaming Chickens)
Team Role: Coach
  
Join Date: Feb 2005
Rookie Year: 2005
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 504
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Re: Team 1540 Presents...Quasar!
The Octocanum uses 1" stroke 3/4 diameter pancake cylinders to switch back and forth between traction and Mecanum. When it's in Mecanum the cylinders act as suspension. We started out with a fancy variable pressure system which would vary the suspension pressure depending on how many totes we were carrying. Over the course of the season the Octocanum has been slowly defeatured as we needed weight for other things. Now we just stay in Mecanum for the match with the traction wheels being helpful for getting over the scoring platforms. It was a good engineerng project, though.

These days we have a can grabber, fancier /faster tote collection, and a better forklift that can handle kicked over cans. Those aren't shown in the video but will be in action in St. Louis.

Having suspension on Mecanum does indeed make it strafe better. For this game, though, we found it didn't make enough difference to be worth the weight compared to other features we could add. Our software and heading sensor can compensate for Mecanum drift over short distances which, as it turns out is all we typically need in a match.
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2016 PNW Championship Chairman's; 2016 Winner Oregon City District, 2015 PNW Championship Chairman's; 2015 PNW District Engineering Inspiration; 2015 PNW District Finalist; 2014 PNW Championship Chairman's; 2014 Championship Innovation in Controls; 2013 Chairman's (Oregon); 2013 Finalist (OKC); 2012 Winner (OKC); 2012 Chairman's (OKC); 2012 Woody Flowers (Oregon); 2011 Volunteer of the Year (Oregon); 2011 Finalist & Captain (San Diego); 2011 Innovation in Control (San Diego); 2010 & 2007 Chairman's (Oregon); 2010 Regional Champions (Colorado); 2010 Innovation in Control (Colorado); 2009 & 2008 Engineering Inspiration (Oregon); 2008 Regional Champions (Oregon); 2007 Regional Finalist (Oregon); 2005 Rookie Inspiration (PNW)
Last edited by Dale : 15-04-2015 at 11:55.