Canburglar Mechanisms

[zsm150]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

This an excellent view, you can see from here that 548 had grabbed the RC before 503 had even started to move.

Can't wait to see how much faster both teams can get in the next two weeks to face off at States

[cjl2625]

During elims, we had a dual can grabber. Two hooks actuated by pistons.
The consistency and speed need work, but we ended up with grabbing at least one can in each of our playoff matches.

[AndrewPospeshil]

One interesting thing to note is that at the Livonia district (where the 503/548 "Battle of the Baseline Bins" occurred) the first three picks were all bin stealers - 548, 27, 503. Granted Robotstangs were seeded 2nd and had been 1st for most of the previous day, but neither 27 or 503 were in the top 8 during alliance selections - 10th and 12th iirc. This goes to show how control of the center bins becomes much more important during high levels of play. Even in a district playoff, alliances can exceed the 3 standard cans and will need extras. Especially in finals where games are win/loss, controlling these center game pieces is crucial. I'm excited to see how the FRC meta progresses. Last year's was really fun to see how the game gradually evolved into passing the ball as fast as possible without using the actual floor, but this year's bin stealing meta will be just as exciting I predict. I think the FRC community is gonna go wild when tug-of-wars become really common.

[choprane]

Originally Posted by Paul Boehringer

Do those arms extend at all? Do you drive forward at all?

The arms do not extend at all, and are made of carbon fiber with custom water jet hooks clamped on the top. (I believe Alex hinted at this in the FIM Livonia thread). We use PID to get the arms to a position in which the hooks are just inside the hole of the RC. As soon as we are in position, we drive forward pulling the cans off the step and turn while retracting the arms back to their original upright position.

[Bennett548]

Do you have to fire the pneumatics for the power takeoff, or do they start in burglar mode?

[zsm150]

Originally Posted by Bennett548

Do you have to fire the pneumatics for the power takeoff, or do they start in burglar mode?

We always shift into them before the match but some how there is still a delay in our start.

[Bryce Paputa]

Originally Posted by Bennett548

Do you have to fire the pneumatics for the power takeoff, or do they start in burglar mode?

We fire them in queue before the match, however in the past we shifted at the beginning of autonomous. Its possible we forgot to take the wait out here but I don't think that's the case. At least our lord and savior (and programmer) Suhas says he took it out.

[Anthony Galea]

Team 2851 had one at Center Line, and AFAIK it was the only one there.

[Bryce2471]

Team mean machine has been developing some burglars in the gaps between events. Unfortunately, we had literally no weight to spare, (after factoring in other planned changes) so the whole thing had to be less than the weight lost by switching to mini cims (2.5 lbs).

Our current iteration has two modular mechanisms that can grab one RC each in about 0.5 sec. They attach with two bolts each, so they are easy to cheesecake. Each one weighs 1 lb and 2.3 oz!

I'll try to post a picture when I get a chance. Otherwise, they will hopefully be seen at pnw this weekend.

[Boltman]

We now have "fast" Dual-RC ability (we can be official "CanS burglar" in auto) woo hoo!!!.. thanks! GB via MK!

Cheese-caking in crunch time is a great experience for us as a second year team!

Already a regional was won with those very arms we borrowed.... via other bot (let you guess which fantastic team). Hope to do the same and repeat with hopefully a win in SD this week to make it back to STL...just missed in Ventura by 2 average points getting it to work to finals knocking eventual winners out. Was not ready in time for semi #1. Was for #2 and #3. Oh well we (with can burgling arms that work) live on...with that new found can burgling capability and bringing it to our second regional in SD this week should be fun.

We were most "modifiable" lost weight over 13 lbs and ..great for us we hope to put those arms to great use in SD...and hope to make it to STL with our bot!

Amazing add on in crunch time! just shows how one "bad over 100" trying to get it working (we got a foul with arms extended out of field) ... match knocks you out of finals by only 2 average points... I feel particularly bad for teams 696 and 1836...they both tried extra hard to get it working in time for first semi. Thanks for all your efforts teams ! Good luck rest of way!

We love the new can-burgling arms when needed. Thank you! You made us a better/stronger alliance partner.

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by Rachel Lim

2848 got 3 out of 4 (and knocked the 4th over onto their side) here

We removed our successful 4 can grabber (which went 35/40 in Quals at Dallas) for Hub City for a 2 can grabber based on the same design. While it was successful at the event, we will be swapping the mechanism out at the championship for something much faster.

[JesseK]

Our design is a bit clumsy - it requires re-alignment every match and is only good for 1 firing before the inaccuracies add up. We only ever used it on the practice field because it wasn't advantageous at the time to use it on the field given our alliance strategies. We'll have something better for Champs.

[Bryce Paputa]

Alright I think I may have found the problem. Take a look at these logs:
Finals 1


Finals 2


Except for one frame, the robot auto tracker doesn't come on until .3 seconds into the match (exact same as what our video says the delay is). Is this normal? What could cause it? I've attached the logs here too. Haven't had a chance to test it on the practice robot yet.

[Bryce Paputa]

And we found the issue, we make all of our subsystems static objects in our code and while debugging something we got rid of the code that initialized them during the robo rio booting. This made it initialize everything in the beginning of autonomous and created the .3 second delay. It's fixed now and we can't wait for a rematch at states.

[orangelight]

Originally Posted by Bryce Paputa

And we found the issue, we make all of our subsystems static objects in our code and while debugging something we got rid of the code that initialized them during the robo rio booting. This made it initialize everything in the beginning of autonomous and created the .3 second delay. It's fixed now and we can't wait for a rematch at states.

Yeah! The Northville vs. Novi rivalry is real