TEAM2980 Open Source Robot Thread

[eedoga]

Hey Chief Delphi Community,

We are going to post as much as we can about our ideas on this thread. Feel free to comment or use anything that you see here. We will also be posting CAD files and the like.

We start out by dividing our team up into 4 sub teams. Each sub team comes up with a different design for the robot which we then present to our community on the first Friday of build season. We then build the robot that the community votes on. We find that this eliminates a lot of problems down the road.

The other team members will be posting to this thread also.

Wow...another build season is here already.

Edoga
Lead Mentor
FIRST Team 2980
The Whidbey Island Wildcats.

[josephus]

Josephus2015 design group
The main function of our robot is to stack totes inside the frame perimeter. This is done using vertically moving latch mechanisms, nicknamed "chopsticks" to pick up a tote or recycling bin and hold it while another tote is collected underneath, at which point we can lower the "chopsticks", stacking the previously collected tote or bin (tote1/bin) on the newly collected tote (tote2). The process can be repeated as long as the vertical motion actuators can lift the weight of the collected game elements.
Totes are collected and piles ejected using a simple hooked arm mechanism. we will post a picture of this later.
Stacked totes can be set on the step because of their configuration, protruding out of the robot significantly, and the action of the collection/ejection arm.
we plan to use Mechanum wheels to maintain slope ability while maintaining significant maneuverability.
plans to collect bins while maintaining stability are in development.
We may include a simple mechanism to collect detritus litter for disposal in the landfill, this is awaiting discussion considering the noodle agreement, and various other aspects of the game. We plan to post more at a later date.

[Michael U]

Team M&M (Michael and Mallory) will be posting everything to a GitHub repository.

[Amar Shah]

Originally Posted by Michael U

Team M&M (Michael and Mallory) will be posting everything to a GitHub repository.

Have you considered using GrabCAD? It accomplishes a similar purpose, but natively supports CAD files.

[Michael U]

Originally Posted by Amar Shah

Have you considered using GrabCAD? It accomplishes a similar purpose, but natively supports CAD files.

We do use GrabCAD, we are just using GitHub since it can handle many different files and also because it makes team cooperation easier on things like presentations and LabView Code.

[Mecanum Wheel]

Originally Posted by josephus

Josephus2015 design group
The main function of our robot is to stack totes inside the frame perimeter. This is done using vertically moving latch mechanisms, nicknamed "chopsticks" to pick up a tote or recycling bin and hold it while another tote is collected underneath, at which point we can lower the "chopsticks", stacking the previously collected tote or bin (tote1/bin) on the newly collected tote (tote2). The process can be repeated as long as the vertical motion actuators can lift the weight of the collected game elements.
Totes are collected and piles ejected using a simple hooked arm mechanism. we will post a picture of this later.
Stacked totes can be set on the step because of their configuration, protruding out of the robot significantly, and the action of the collection/ejection arm.
we plan to use Mechanum wheels to maintain slope ability while maintaining significant maneuverability.
plans to collect bins while maintaining stability are in development.
We may include a simple mechanism to collect detritus litter for disposal in the landfill, this is awaiting discussion considering the noodle agreement, and various other aspects of the game. We plan to post more at a later date.

mecanum*

[CFTeam2980]

Josephus2015 design group
This is the initial CAD Inventor drawing of our robot. Still working in progress...

https://drive.google.com/folderview?...&usp=sha ring

[CFTeam2980]

We posted a render of our robot. It isn't 100 percent done, but it is pretty well along the way.

Here is a link to the pick.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/41199?

[eedoga]

So...a couple of things in response to questions that have been brought up about our team and robot.

Our design process is a bit abnormal...

Right after kick off we divide up into four separate teams. Each team designs a robot using a worksheet that our team uses.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

Each team then does a CADD mock up using autodesk inventor during week 1. On Friday night we invite the community. This year we had over 100 people show up for this event.

Each team presents their idea in a 10 minute presentation, and then the entire team leaves the room.

The community including some graduated team members then argue about which design the team should build. This year they chose two different designs and combined them. (We will post the video of this soon...We are waiting for our Video Productions class to finish editing it down.)

We then spend week 2 doing a final CADD of the entire robot. We also use some of this time to prototype things to see what works.

Then we get to work actually building a robot. Week 3 is for Fabrication, and week 4 is for final assembly. We are pretty well on schedule at this point having finished welding our base frame today, and cutting out most of the parts for both lifting mechanisms.

So...This years robot.

We are using 1 lift mechanism to try to do a 3 tote autonomous stack. The plan is to pick up 2 of the totes, and then push the third into position dropping the two we lifted down on top of it. We are planning 3 seconds per tote with a few seconds in between which we understand is ambitious.

We then have a multi-purpose lift mechanism which we plan to use for totes and recycle bins.

We are using a halonomic(sp?) drive base.

Earlier in the thread we linked to a Github which has all of our CADD files posted in it. We have also posted renders of our robot. We will post more in the next few days.

Currently our base is driving around. we will be adding to it tomorrow...

We will post more at the end of the day.

best of luck to all teams.

Edoga

[asid61]

Originally Posted by eedoga

So...a couple of things in response to questions that have been brought up about our team and robot.

Our design process is a bit abnormal...

Right after kick off we divide up into four separate teams. Each team designs a robot using a worksheet that our team uses.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

Each team then does a CADD mock up using autodesk inventor during week 1. On Friday night we invite the community. This year we had over 100 people show up for this event.

Each team presents their idea in a 10 minute presentation, and then the entire team leaves the room.

The community including some graduated team members then argue about which design the team should build. This year they chose two different designs and combined them. (We will post the video of this soon...We are waiting for our Video Productions class to finish editing it down.)

We then spend week 2 doing a final CADD of the entire robot. We also use some of this time to prototype things to see what works.

Then we get to work actually building a robot. Week 3 is for Fabrication, and week 4 is for final assembly. We are pretty well on schedule at this point having finished welding our base frame today, and cutting out most of the parts for both lifting mechanisms.

So...This years robot.

We are using 1 lift mechanism to try to do a 3 tote autonomous stack. The plan is to pick up 2 of the totes, and then push the third into position dropping the two we lifted down on top of it. We are planning 3 seconds per tote with a few seconds in between which we understand is ambitious.

We then have a multi-purpose lift mechanism which we plan to use for totes and recycle bins.

We are using a halonomic(sp?) drive base.

Earlier in the thread we linked to a Github which has all of our CADD files posted in it. We have also posted renders of our robot. We will post more in the next few days.

Currently our base is driving around. we will be adding to it tomorrow...

We will post more at the end of the day.

best of luck to all teams.

Edoga

That's holonomic BTW.
By "the community" do you mean FRC people or parents/ kids etc? Becuase every year we do get input from parents and such during design reviews, but many ideas suggested show a sever lack of experience doing this sort of mechanical stuff (we have plenty of electrical engineers, though).
It looks pretty sweet either way though, and pretty bulletproof. Your elevator is a little less strong that it could be IMO, but I really don't know if you will have any issues. We are using bearings on three sides of the walls of our elevator.
3 seconds/ tote might be tricky if you can't position the arm quickly. One side of your robot needs to pull a stack into it, and the other side needs to laign the tote properly. Either of these tasks can be difficult.

[josephus]

Originally Posted by asid61

By "the community" do you mean FRC people or parents/ kids etc? Because every year we do get input from parents and such during design reviews, but many ideas suggested show a sever lack of experience doing this sort of mechanical stuff (we have plenty of electrical engineers, though).

By "the community" we mean the community. That is, we send out invitations to public officials and specific people or organizations whom we want to come, and we publicize the event widely with an open invitation to anyone who wants to show up. We usually get parents, old engineers, representatives from local sponsors, old team members, naval technicians from our local naval base, possibly state legislatures, other public officials, and people from the general community. Experience combines with common sense in the discussion after the presentations, and there is a Q/A session immediately after the presentations that allows for dynamic input from the design groups.
Our first two years, we decided on robot design without the community and great ideas were passed over by either the mentors lack of faith in the design of the students (which appeared in many robots at competition) or the popularity of the people on one of the design groups. Presenting to the community allows for widespread discussion as well as removal from team biases. It is also a great way to involve the community with FIRST

[eedoga]

This weekend was really good for us. We had some real successes and are hopefully back on schedule. I was feeling like things were going too slowly and that too much was up in the air.

Going into this weekend it felt as though we hadn't accomplished anything real. Things were also going really slowly. So cutting out parts seemed to take forever...We would have a meeting and three parts would be made at the end with 1 of them cut out wrong and needing to be redone...Our welding mentor got stuck doing paperwork so we thought we might have to build the robot using rivets and brackets...So we furiously began cutting out brackets and bought out all the rivets the nearest harbor freight had in stock...

So...This weekend...

We drove...Just the base and electronics board, but we drove around using our holonomic drive train.

We got our base frame welded.

We got our battery moving mechanism mounted.

We built the frame of our rear lift mechanism.

We built our front gripper claw frame and mounted the dart linear actuator. (still needs a bit of work, mostly figuring out the bolt needed to connect the bracket we made to the end of it.

We decided things, like using square tube for our gripper rails instead of 80/20, and making an electronics cover using 1/16th polycarb...

We also got in some parts that our material sponsor, Bowman Manufacturing, laser cut for us. (they came in at 7 PM tonight.)

We welded up the practice frame.

Really this next week we can focus on finalizing fabrication and initial assembly, then the Guild, the art club on campus can have at it to make it pretty. :-) (The community stressed that they wanted little artistic flourishes throughout the robot.)

Did I mention that we learned how to anodize!? :-)

What a weekend. The really cool thing is that there is no school on Thursday because we are changing over semesters, so the team gets the whole day to work, though we may break early tomorrow so that people have time to study for their finals.

Honestly though I am feeling much better now than I did even on Friday.

Great work everyone!

Edoga

[asid61]

Wow, that's a lot of stuff! You guys are super industrious.
How are you anodizing?

[eedoga]

I am going to have the team member who figured it out post a tutorial video by tomorrow showing how to do this. I have him in my robotics class and I think this would be a good activity for him. :-)

Edoga

[eedoga]

Shot a video of our front lift mechanism today..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CicuLpABr54

This was testing with the lifter at about 90 degrees. We plan on tilting it back in the future. we are using a 30:1 shifting gear box that we originally got last year to use for winching our shooter...