Team 254 Presents: Dropshot Technical Binder 2016

[Ashwin Adulla]

Originally Posted by apache8080

Thanks for the information. It is always great to see how elite teams iterate their designs.

On the subject of iterations, why did you guys go away from gas shocks in the hanger.

Initially, the idea of utilizing gas shocks as the means to scale the tower after time had ended seemed like a feasible idea in CAD. When it came to assembling them on the hanger however, we encountered the issue of both gas shocks releasing at different times as was evident in a test which consequently bent the hanger weldment. This problem could have either been attributed to a difference in the force exerted by each gas shock or a difference in force exerted by the pistons with a spring coiled around the rod that were used to compress the gas shocks. We knew that a winch gearbox was both a proven and feasible option, and thus we decided to implement it following SVR.

[thatprogrammer]

Based on your technical binder, it seems that you ran the neoprene wheels directly on hex shaft. How did you manage to do this?

[s5511]

Which solenoids/manifolds are you guys using on dropshot?

[Ashwin Adulla]

Originally Posted by thatprogrammer

Based on your technical binder, it seems that you ran the neoprene wheels directly on hex shaft. How did you manage to do this?

We machined custom delrin hubs for each wheel which were able to be pressed on a 1/2" hex shaft.

[waialua359]

Travis, I had heard that you are the lead on the technical binder. Is this true?
Kudos to the mentors and the students who worked on this.
The most impressive part besides the actual robot with its features, is that you have it really condensed yet very informative on the whole design process, decision making and explanation of each of the systems.
Cory, our former mentor who was with my alma mater Team 4158 cut a lot of gears with a jet sponsor. Our team needs to get on board with ours soon and I need to research more about different nozzle sizes and what they can cut. Skies the limit.

[Torrance]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Travis, I had heard that you are the lead on the technical binder. Is this true?
Kudos to the mentors and the students who worked on this.
The most impressive part besides the actual robot with its features, is that you have it really condensed yet very informative on the whole design process, decision making and explanation of each of the systems.

The technical binder has always been a student led and written project as the students who compose it use it as practice for their presentation in the pits to Technical Award Judges. I wrote the binder in 2014 and 2015 and Travis did some editing to keep it concise and relevant. In 2016, Technical Director Alex Cherry and Documentation and Submissions Director Matt McDonald wrote it with me (now 1st-year mentor) serving as the editor.

The binder also required a lot of work from our Media Director Peter Feghali to do the renders, layout, and aesthetics.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Torrance

The technical binder has always been a student led and written project as the students who compose it use it as practice for their presentation in the pits to Technical Award Judges. I wrote the binder in 2014 and 2015 and Travis did some editing to keep it concise and relevant. In 2016, Technical Director Alex Cherry and Documentation and Submissions Director Matt McDonald wrote it with me (now 1st-year mentor) serving as the editor.

The binder also required a lot of work from our Media Director Peter Feghali to do the renders, layout, and aesthetics.

Thank you to you and Travis for sharing. You mentioned some other mentors who helped who I never heard of or met.
Teams like yours are an inspiration to many, including us. As a follow up, it would be cool to hear about the team structure and the mentors that support both the robot (many who we know) and the non-robot technical support that you folks have.
I'm sure many others would like to have something similar, but cant do so because of lack of support/expertise or mentors who wear too many hats. Sounds like Team 254 has the right mix of mentors to do the other parts as well besides dedicated and highly intelligent students.

I hope this is a project you folks continue to do and share post-season annually.

[Torrance]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Thank you to you and Travis for sharing. You mentioned some other mentors who helped who I never heard of or met.
Teams like yours are an inspiration to many, including us. As a follow up, it would be cool to hear about the team structure and the mentors that support both the robot (many who we know) and the non-robot technical support that you folks have.

Of the people I mentioned, only Travis (and sorta me) are mentors. Alex, Matt, and Peter are Directors on our student leadership team.

The team leadership structure is divided amongst the mentors and student leadership team which consists of Directors that lead sub-teams of other students and Captains that serve as project managers on particularly large tasks.

The team certainly has a lot of mentors, but this is essential for managing the 100+ students working on multiple projects. Our mentorship is unofficially divided into technical and non-technical mentors.
Going off of our Mentor Page, the following are technical:
Travis Covington, Pat Fairbank, Cory McBridge, Tom Bottigleiri, Leigh Pauls, Kevin Sheridan, Paul Ventimiglia, Dan Judnick (mostly VEX), Kenneth Lloren, Jared Russel, Colin Wilson, Nick Eyre, Trevor Kearse. Also myself and fellow SCU student Mani Gnanasivam.

Nontechnical mentors include: Esteban Parker, David Wilson, Nick Hammes, and faculty Peng Yav and Brad Lindemann.

Not all of the mentors attend every build or every competition.


The student leadership team breakdown (recently updated for 2016-2017) is also on our website. As you can see, 1/2 of the positions are non-technical in nature.

The Directors closely collaborate on a lot of projects. For example, this technical binder was written by the FRC Technical Director with the help of a technical mentor (me or Travis). Then the Documentations and Submissions Director and a nontechnical mentor or 2 helped edit and clean up the bullets before giving it to the Media Director who's sub-team did the renders and formatted it using Word into the final document.

Originally Posted by waialua359

I hope this is a project you folks continue to do and share post-season annually.

We plan to! Creating the technical binder is a great learning experience for all the students involved, in addition to being a useful resource for judges or other teams.

[Michael Hill]

How do you guys do project management? Do you have design/concept reviews? What tools do you guys use to keep organized?

Also, somewhat off topic, we used a modified version of the 254 part management tool (cheesy parts) this year and it was fantastic. It really helped us especially get orders put together. Instead of writing orders down on a marker board or a piece of paper that can get lost, it was great to have everything organized the way it was.

[DinerKid]

Awesome write up.

I'm very intrigued by the safety wire that you used on the flywheel.
Would you mind elaborating on the reason you use it, process for installing it, and perhaps a picture?

Thanks
~DK

[Ashwin Adulla]

Originally Posted by DinerKid

Awesome write up.

I'm very intrigued by the safety wire that you used on the flywheel.
Would you mind elaborating on the reason you use it, process for installing it, and perhaps a picture?

Thanks
~DK

The main purpose of the safety wire, as suggested by Team 1678, was to prevent our fairlane flywheel from expanding a significant amount past 5000 rpm. During prototyping, the fairlane wheels expanded to the extent that we were fearful of testing them out. As a result, the safety wire constrained the expansion of the wheels to a certain diameter which allowed us to ramp up to around 6000 rpm at Champs for taking shots. As for the process of installing them, the safety wire was wrapped once around the wheel, cut to its length, and then two ends were twisted together and then stuck inside the neoprene so as to prevent it from contacting the boulder. I have attached a picture of the flywheel below.

[sanddrag]

Andrew, you say you had build days on MWF and Sat. Did the team still meet on the other three days of the week or did you really meet only 4 days per week?

[Cory]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Andrew, you say you had build days on MWF and Sat. Did the team still meet on the other three days of the week or did you really meet only 4 days per week?

We were very conscientious about only meeting those 4 days until week 6. We met more during the final week of build, went back to the 4 day schedule, and then did more like 5-6 as we got deeper into the season. We tried to make sure we left at 11 pm at the latest most nights, which we did a reasonably good job of during the build period and a less good job of as we got into competition season.

On the whole it was much better than previous years in which we worked 7 days a week the entire season, often until 2 am or later every Friday/Saturday.

[lnex1357]

Originally Posted by Ashwin Adulla

.... the safety wire was wrapped once around the wheel, cut to its length, and then two ends were twisted together and then stuck inside the neoprene so as to prevent it from contacting the boulder. I have attached a picture of the flywheel below.

We are throwing some fairlane wheels on our shooter for an offseason event in place of our colsons. Did you guys use round or flat safety wire and what was the rough OD or width respectively, as I would prefer not to guess and check through a series of McM orders. Thanks so much!

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

How do you guys do project management? Do you have design/concept reviews? What tools do you guys use to keep organized?

Also, somewhat off topic, we used a modified version of the 254 part management tool (cheesy parts) this year and it was fantastic. It really helped us especially get orders put together. Instead of writing orders down on a marker board or a piece of paper that can get lost, it was great to have everything organized the way it was.

I vaguely remember seeing this previously. Can you share the link?