2016 HOTBOT

[Legator91]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

Mike / Ryan,

I assume there will be no tech notes posted (since I'm not there to make one ), but can you walk through the specifics of the design?

There looks to be a bike cable in there somewhere, not sure what crazy idea that is used for....

I really haven't talked to Jim in-depth about the design, so I'd love to know more about it and how you guys came up with it.

-Adam

Sure. The bike cable is used to actuate two bike disc brakes. We needed a way to ensure the robot would hang with the base parallel to the floor. We had several ideas, but then one of the mentors said "hey what about a disc brake". The brakes are mounted to the output shafts of the arm gear boxes. They are actuated by a pneumatic cylinder.

Mike already explained the shooter. It was really "cool", but as he said we had consistency issues with speed. We worked on improving gear mesh, wear, etc but no luck. So once we reveal the new design we can talk about it more.

Ball intake uses one 2 inch roller to bring the ball into the robot. We then have two conveyors that direct the ball towards center. One being powered, and the other driven by a cross over loop.

Other then that its just the usual HOTBOT chasis modified to fit the design for the game. We do use pneumatic wheels to aid in crossing defenses. We discussed tank treads, but after some research from past seasons we decided pneumatic wheels were better. They also were easier to package. We also use pneumatic shifting. So I guess we are starting to accept pneumatics into the design, when we never used to use them.

Full disclosure: Mike, Eric, and Jim were the leads this year on design. I was not able to commit as much time as I would have liked this season. I did help bounce ideas around, and aid in design and build where I could. Mike and Jim could go way more into detail.