2015 2nd Choice Robot

[sanddrag]

We thought one of those sideways sliding drivetrains using omni wheels would be really cool for this year, since there's no defense, but when we looked at space allocation in the middle of the robot, we decided against it.

[itzaklevi]

We had two team members heavily advocating for a robotics arm. A really big three axis arm. Just park in the middle of the field, and be able to reach anywhere. Then we did some torque calculations and figured out it would require ~45 ft-lbs of torque just to keep from collapsing, let alone having a tote at the end. It was nixed.

[Jacob Bendicksen]

Our second choice was nicknamed the 'Captain Hook Combo' during our brainstorming, and we were amazed to see that 842 built pretty much exactly what we had been thinking about. We like our actual design better, but it was cool to see the other one executed really well.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

We thought one of those sideways sliding drivetrains using omni wheels would be really cool for this year, since there's no defense, but when we looked at space allocation in the middle of the robot, we decided against it.

That was a huge challenge, we decided to mount electronics vertically to make room for the Omni H pattern... figuring out how to mount middle was a tough challenge and also getting the robot level afterwards ... we then figured the middle needed a suspension to stay in contact with other four corners. It took us 4 weeks just to get the drive train working. Rest of robot assembled in two weeks.

I do believe Omni's will prove to be the best for this game. The results were totally worth the effort. Far exceeded what we envisioned.

As for what we were thinking originally .... we spent a long time looking at a robot that could load from the back and in place rotate totes to the front hopefully scoring.... that was nixed in favor of a simpler more robust design tht did not require placement to work.