FRC971 Spartan Robotics 2016 Release Video

[AustinSchuh]

Originally Posted by Thardro

Could you expand some on closed loop driving? Also, what is the reasoning behind using two cameras?

We are using the gyro and encoders to do what essentially boils down to proportional velocity controller on top of feed-forwards. In a year where the tire dynamics play such a big part in how the robot responds, having a little bit of feedback to help the driver deal with the fast dynamics of a bouncing robot helps a lot.

We are currently just averaging the angles from the two cameras, but when we get a bit more time, we are going to work on using the pair of cameras to do stereo distance measurement. We have a proof of concept working on a laptop, but haven't made it work reliably yet on a robot.

[thatprogrammer]

Originally Posted by AustinSchuh

We are using the gyro and encoders to do what essentially boils down to proportional velocity controller on top of feed-forwards. In a year where the tire dynamics play such a big part in how the robot responds, having a little bit of feedback to help the driver deal with the fast dynamics of a bouncing robot helps a lot.

Are you using this controller to help drive straight on top of obstacles only, or whenever you drive?
Also, what RPM and ball compression are you running? You shoot the balls out like bullets!

[AustinSchuh]

Originally Posted by thatprogrammer

Are you using this controller to help drive straight on top of obstacles only, or whenever you drive?

We use that controller for all teleop control. We use a more complicated controller for autonomous trajectory following. There are many corner cases in teleop driving that are hard to design for. A simple velocity controller has proved to work really well without really having any corner cases.

Originally Posted by thatprogrammer

Also, what RPM and ball compression are you running? You shoot the balls out like bullets!

Sorry, you'll have to wait until after the season to get an answer on that one. We are happy to share, but some things took a lot of prototyping and design to figure out and are too easy to reproduce.

[nuclearnerd]

It looks like you have a 775 pro on the "elbow" gearbox, and maybe the shoulder too? No spring to balance the load either. If so, how are you holding position without burning out the motor? Is there a brake I can't see?

(It's my understanding that the 775 pros will melt in just a few seconds when stalled at more than 6V)

[AustinSchuh]

Originally Posted by nuclearnerd

It looks like you have a 775 pro on the "elbow" gearbox, and maybe the shoulder too? No spring to balance the load either. If so, how are you holding position without burning out the motor? Is there a brake I can't see?

We did some pretty extensive calculations on heat dissipation. The shoulder is designed to hold the entire weight of the arm for a couple minutes per Vex Pro's charts. We designed for somewhere around 4 volts. We also run a fan on the motor to pull heat away, though that helps with longer runs and only pushes the limit out a little ways.

We don't leave the arm up for long periods, and land it on the bellypan when we are done shooting. This helps keep it cooler.

The rest of the joints run cool and aren't a concern due to the low loads.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

This robot is so fun to watch. Great job!

[philso]

This is one of the most thoroughly engineered robots I have seen yet.

[Jus_McG-3193]

It appears to me every year that I see a new 971 robot it always impresses me tremendously. In particular there always seems to be a mechanism that blows me away. The pivoting of the shooter and arm assembly specifically this year, although I'm positive there's more to amaze.
Congratulations on your impressive win at Sacramento and best of luck to you all at SVR as well as Champs!

[rvgrossman]

Are you guys going to make the CAD available anytime soon? We're dying out here.

[markmcgary]

Originally Posted by rvgrossman

Are you guys going to make the CAD available anytime soon? We're dying out here.

And software would be nice as well. We are very inspired by your 'closed-loop driving' and would love to learn more.

[kevincrispie]

There are a number of resources in the works that the team plans on releasing. We need a bit of time to get everything together. However, we have released pictures from the 2016 build season. This includes competition photos, prototyping/fabrication photos, and close ups of the robot. Hopefully this can provide some guidance while the team works to get our software and mechanical documentation ready for public viewing.

The pictures can be viewed on the team Picasa page, in folders marked "2016".
https://picasaweb.google.com/117769834305511597729/

[Landonh12]

Originally Posted by kevincrispie

There are a number of resources in the works that the team plans on releasing. We need a bit of time to get everything together. However, we have released pictures from the 2016 build season. This includes competition photos, prototyping/fabrication photos, and close ups of the robot. Hopefully this can provide some guidance while the team works to get our software and mechanical documentation ready for public viewing.

The pictures can be viewed on the team Picasa page, in folders marked "2016".
https://picasaweb.google.com/117769834305511597729/

Is there a resource showing how you guys manage your code and how you deploy it to the robot? Also what editor do you use? I've been trying to learn how to code our robot in Java/C++ and don't like using Windows/Eclipse. IIRC I saw a page on your website saying you use Debian and SVN.

[frcguy]

Thank you guys for releasing everything! Hopefully we can take a look at all of it and learn from the amazing things you guys do.

Originally Posted by kevincrispie

The pictures can be viewed on the team Picasa page, in folders marked "2016".
https://picasaweb.google.com/117769834305511597729/

Also, happy to see you guys got some photos of when our team visited!

[AustinSchuh]

Originally Posted by markmcgary

And software would be nice as well. We are very inspired by your 'closed-loop driving' and would love to learn more.

Have fun! We are happy to answer questions. We've been going with a larger git repo and keeping old robots alive, so you'll see 2014, 2015 and 2016 code. All 3 should work, though there may be some small bits of code rot in the two older robots.

http://frc971.org/content/2016-software

[thatprogrammer]

It was awesome getting to see this robot in person and getting to talk to team members about it! Unfortunately you were all quite busy the few times I visited your pit, so I couldn't ask too many questions.

Originally Posted by AustinSchuh

Sorry, you'll have to wait until after the season to get an answer on that one. We are happy to share, but some things took a lot of prototyping and design to figure out and are too easy to reproduce.

Now that the season is over, would you be willing to provide some more details on your shooter?