FRC 2013 "Best Designs" Log

[NXTGeek]

Originally Posted by Negative 9

Is it necessary to have the intake push it into the roller? Wouldn't it also work just by driving into the frisbees?

See my prototype vid for an overview. Basically, I needed the roller to push the frisbee down, while pulling he opposite end toward the kicky roller. At that point the only place for the frisbee to go is up and into the robot's lifter. We have gotten frisbees with the DDI up, but by driving around trying to get the frisbee to catch. The DDI widens the intake to allow 2 frisbees at once as well as picking up from corners.

[KevinShi3]

Originally Posted by Procolsaurus

Who had that very thin, long FCS? I think I saw them on the MSC webcast. Wish I could remember more.

I think you're talking about team 326 (x-eagles / really long name). They were in Archimedes also.

[Procolsaurus]

YES that is them. Their dimensions seemed to make it hard to prevent them from reaching the feeding station and helped them align with the feeder station. Where there any major drawbacks? Did they have a tipping problem?

[KevinShi3]

Originally Posted by Procolsaurus

YES that is them. Their dimensions seemed to make it hard to prevent them from reaching the feeding station and helped them align with the feeder station. Where there any major drawbacks? Did they have a tipping problem?

While they were prone to tipping (as a design this thin would imply), they counteracted this for the most part with an auton that would fire 3 discs into the three, and then lineup with the wall so they couldn't be pushed over. Fun fact, they climb by essentially lining up with the corner of the pyramid and tipping over (or at least that's how I saw it as a distant observer).

[topgun]

Originally Posted by NXTGeek

See my prototype vid for an overview. Basically, I needed the roller to push the frisbee down, while pulling he opposite end toward the kicky roller. At that point the only place for the frisbee to go is up and into the robot's lifter. We have gotten frisbees with the DDI up, but by driving around trying to get the frisbee to catch. The DDI widens the intake to allow 2 frisbees at once as well as picking up from corners.

Was the roller on the DDI powered? What happened with frisbees that were upside down?

[MisterJ]

Two innovative robots from MAR with solid, unique designs were 225's FCS and 869's windsock/fan. Neither one made it too far into eliminations, but both required significant alterations to an alliance's strategy. They were both quality, well-designed machines!

[Sh1ine]

As far as floor pick up is concerned I think that 20 had an excellent design.

[Boe]

Originally Posted by runneals

- Most Innovative Shooter Design (were there any w/o wheels?)

i know of two without wheels

1503's catupult type fouor discs at once

and there was a fcs that used a belt to shoot the frisbees, it looked very nice, but i cant remember the team number. They were in galileo and had a yellow powder coated robot and thier pit was located very close to the practice field. My team also tried a belt shooter but it didnt pan out towards the ends of the season so we redesigned post build, id love to know more about how they got it to work

[Chris is me]

I think butterfly drive should get a mention. It was extremely well suited to this year's game. Firstly, seven-disc autonomous modes were much easier with one. Secondly, being able to switch to omni for ease of alignment, then traction to hold orientation was very useful, and IMO a big part of how 148 could start accurately FCSing so quickly. Add to that the offensive benefits of a butterfly drive (not vulnerable to t-bones, can push through defensive problems, etc) and 2013 seems like the best year for butterfly since its creation.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Boe

and there was a fcs that used a belt to shoot the frisbees, it looked very nice, but i cant remember the team number.

That was team 2485. They were finalists at San Diego (loosing to 987 and 254) and winners at Inland Empire. http://www.idleloop.com/frctracker/p.../2013/4131.jpg

[NXTGeek]

Originally Posted by topgun

Was the roller on the DDI powered? What happened with frisbees that were upside down?

Yes, it is powered by a AM-9015 and a VEXPro VersaPlanetary 15-1 Gearbox.
We originally had it design as a modified CD7 intake. It worked great and pickup from 90* corners, but we took the sideways wheels out and replaced it with polycarb to index two frisbees at once (making 7 disk auto possible). (See photo, it had belt connecting the so dart side sets and bevel gears for the primary)
On upside-down frisbees: tell you the truth, our original design had us climbing to 30, shooting full court 3s and pyramid goal, picking up and shooting upside-down disks.
Glad our strategy got streamlined. We lift the DDI if we get an upside-down disk, and drive backwards. I had some designs that would flip disks, and designs that would lift and shoot them, but they got outed. One time we got an upside-down disk through the feeder slot into our hopper, and our trigger pneumatic flipped it right side up!

[Teamcodeorange]

Originally Posted by NXTGeek

Yes, it is powered by a AM-550 and a VEXPro VersaPlanetary 15-1 Gearbox.

Actually the lifter and kicky roller are powered by one CIM motor. The drop-down intake is powered by an AndyMark 9015 motor in a 15:1 VEXPro VersaPlanetary.

[Jared Russell]

2145 had a very unique approach to scoring the pyramid discs.

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by JB987

How about effective utilization of a turret with target lock? A limited club for sure...

I am nominating 987 for these:

Shooter: An accurate turreted curved shooter that could target lock both the 3 point and 2 point goal. They also had a neat little piston the could eject an upside down disc into the 1 point goal. It could score many locations on the field including FCS.

Center Disc Autonomous: To me it was the best in the world. If they were bumped during auto or something went wrong, the robot could also target the 2 disk goal. I recall it also beat 469 to the center discs.

Ground Pickup: The system was very elegant and took up very little room. I was amazed, it moved a disc from horizontal to vertical and back to horizontal. I never saw it jam. They used a cool move where they picked up one disk at the loading station and loaded the remaining 3 via feeder. The system used a roller on a spring loaded arm to move it on a polycarbonate scoop, the a spring loaded belt would carry it up vertically to the hopper.

[Mike Marandola]

Originally Posted by MisterJ

Two innovative robots from MAR with solid, unique designs were 225's FCS and 869's windsock/fan. Neither one made it too far into eliminations, but both required significant alterations to an alliance's strategy. They were both quality, well-designed machines!

I can attest to the effectiveness of these two robots. When 869 played defense on us they would shut us down. Also, 225 was the best FCS in MAR. Once the got to the protected loading zone you knew there was a pretty good chance it was over.