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Unread 17-12-2016, 20:48
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AKA: Gus Michel II
FRC #3946 (Tiger Robotics)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Jan 2014
Rookie Year: 2013
Location: Slidell, LA
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Re: Does anyone have any tips to Cad and design your first FRC robot?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell View Post
Before you get to CAD, take some time to learn about all of the parts of an FRC robot and how they interact. Learn about how much power you want from your motors (so you know how many to put in) and then learn about gearing. Look through the different available gearboxes, figure out what type of frame you want to design (this is based on your team's resources) and then draw it out on paper.

If you have more specific questions that would be a good starting point.
^^ THIS. So much this. ^^

In addition to spending some time learning the craft of FRC, Don't think about designing the robot until you have defined what the robot is supposed to DO. Read the manual, and figure out which specific activities will be your highest priority. DON'T TRY TO DO EVERYTHING. The average FRC game involves about 5 to 10 activities. Most veteran teams will do best by optimizing on about 3 to 6 of these, and most rookie teams on 2 to 4 if you have a solid core of mentors or 1 to 2 if not. It is much better to be able to do two things consistently than six less than half the time.

Especially assuming that you do not have the funding and/or manpower and/or equipment to build two robots, DO NOT use all six weeks to build your robot. Plan to design and build it in about three or four weeks - that means, keep it simple! Then, when your schedule slips a week or two, you will still have a week or more to do driver practice. A fair robot with a good driver will compete much better than a good robot with a fair driver.

On the drivetrain, I suggest that your rookie year you build the kit chassis, and (if you have funding and capacity), pick one or at most two "standard" upgrades to buy from AndyMark -- AFTER you have read the game rules and figured out what you are going to do. Many teams have built regional-winning robots on kit chassis with only minor modifications. In the case of 3946, our fourth year was the year that our chassis most closely resembled an unmodified KoP, and was the year we went to championships - the only mod we made was to use omni wheels instead of solid.

Back to CAD -- think about your manufacturing capabilities. If you're working with a chop saw, drill press, and hand tools, you're probably better off prototyping in lumber and then transferring your most successful design to aluminum. Scale your CAD detail so that you are not CADding anything mut minor tweaks after about week 3, because if you're still pushing bits around on a CAD past that point, those changes will probably not end up on your robot anyway.

Finally, if you do not have a mechanical engineer or solid physicist or someone who builds custom things or at least makes inventive repairs on a regular basis as a mentor, try to find one or two or six, even if you have to borrow from a nearby team! Mentors are the secret sauce of FRC - with VERY few exceptions, high school students do not have a sufficiently broad and deep array of skills to effectively compete in FRC. Make your mentors earn your trust, but somehow come to trust them.

Wait, what - borrow a mentor? Even better - borrow a whole team as a mentor. FIRST, and particularly FRC, has the concept of Gracious Professionalism as our A#1 core value. The bottom line of it is that -- except during those two and a half minutes that we're competing against each other, teams help each other -- WITH EVERYTHING. Remember that scene in the Iron Man movie where Tony tells Whiplash how to make his whips work effectively, to his own later detriment? That's us. Find a nearby team; especially your rookie year, you should be able to find a team to take you on and mentor you. If that doesn't work out, let CD be your mentors. There are scores of team mentors on here (G2 included) who just can't get enough with our own teams, and help others through their issues. Just remember - the more detail you post, the better we can help. The better you monitor your post and provide responses, the better we can help.
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Last edited by GeeTwo : 17-12-2016 at 20:54.
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