After Season Projects

[JakeGallagher]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

I'm doing a gyro and software balanced fakeway and will be done by mid-May. At the start of the LA regional, we started designing a robot that will show people around a museum in India, that has to ship in a couple weeks. And a few days ago I started next year's shifting transmission design (which is almost done in Inventor) which we will be implementing for an off-season event like IRI. 12.5" Omniwheels may be a possibility as well.

Shifting transmission, eh? o.O that's really cool. If it weren't something that might be a team secret, I'd ask how you're doing it. Know what would be really cool though? Send us the specs of your fakeway whenever you're done with it. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there (like myself) who would love to build one of their own, and that's what Recycled FIRST is going to be about--sharing ingenius ideas that aren't completely competition oriented.

[Ryan F.]

I was wondering if anyone had any good pneumatics projects for someone wanting to learn. That's something I've really wanted to learn, but I've had no oppurtunity. We have this giant stack of Pneumatics equiptment in the back of our room. I'm also building a knockoff of Swampthings hovering robot (thanks for the great design idea).

Our team seems to disappear during the off-season, and then restart a little after school starts. something I'm hoping will change this year.

[Bcahn836]

Does any one have some events that they are running. We all have fun at off season competitions. This gives a chance to recruit new menbers by taking them to a competioion and show them what FIRST is all about.

[Wacko324]

My team is going to hopefully be making a motorized cart if we have the funds. Also we want to try to get a make a small pit. Since this year we just had a few unorganized crates and it was impossible to find the right tool. Lastly if all goes well we will be looking for some sponsors.

[JakeGallagher]

A motorized cart would be really cool to see. This year our team made a cart that had a toolbox, lights, a horn, and a compressor build right in. It was really cool.

[Rosiebotboss]

How about a concurrent season project?

Team 839, Rosie Robotics is also a Lemelson/MIT InvenTeam. What is an InvenTeam you ask? A group of High School students that have come up with an idea for an invention, applied to Lemelson/MIT for an up to $10,000 grant, has been selected as 1 of 10 teams throughout the country (of the over 100 that applied) and are currently in crunch time to prototype our pothole detection apparatus. We are working with 2 companies, who are providing technical assistance, one of which may even buy licensing rights when we finish prove out of the system.

Follow the link to the InvenTeam website.
http://web.mit.edu/invent/www/InvenTeam/

[JakeGallagher]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

How about a concurrent season project?

Team 839, Rosie Robotics is also a Lemelson/MIT InvenTeam. What is an InvenTeam you ask? A group of High School students that have come up with an idea for an invention, applied to Lemelson/MIT for an up to $10,000 grant, has been selected as 1 of 10 teams throughout the country (of the over 100 that applied) and are currently in crunch time to prototype our pothole detection apparatus. We are working with 2 companies, who are providing technical assistance, one of which may even buy licensing rights when we finish prove out of the system.

Follow the link to the InvenTeam website.
http://web.mit.edu/invent/www/InvenTeam/

Perfect! This is the kind of stuff we're looking for! Thanks!

[Matthew_H]

Team 1028 is going to try and build a simple and effective robot to show local police video of the inside of a house or building. We will also be working heavily on recruiting and fundraising.

[Pat Roche]

[quote=rforystek]I was wondering if anyone had any good pneumatics projects for someone wanting to learn. That's something I've really wanted to learn, but I've had no oppurtunity. We have this giant stack of Pneumatics equiptment in the back of our room. I'm also building a knockoff of Swampthings hovering robot (thanks for the great design idea).

Our team seems to disappear during the off-season, and then restart a little after school starts. something I'm hoping will change this year.[/QUOTE


Not to limit people but i think what we are trying to get out of this post is some ideas like swampthings hovering robot. I know this year our team made our pit from all the PVC we had left over from 2001 and 2002. I know in the past ive heard ideas like a team building a pnuematic machine that crushes soda cans and they gave it to a local recyling center. Thats more along the lines of what we are looking for.....all ideas are still welcome. Please dont hold back criticism on the idea of the site either....this is sorta like the whole CD and FIRST community responding to this idea.

-Thanks

Pat

[Combat Chuck]

In the off season, we compete in the BEST Robotics competition. This is a fun competition for or team and a good way to introduce team members to robotics. We are also currently building miniature robotic submarines that grab washers off the bottom of a tank of water and then place them in a bucket.

[Rick Vogl]

Originally Posted by JakeGallagher

You may remember at Kickoff they showed a team that designed a contraption to help a guy in a wheelchair play Bocce so he could join the school Bocce team.

Just for the record Team 230 was responsible for the Bocce ball mechanism. A couple of our Engineers, Teachers, and Students made it off season last year. I really admire teams that manage to keep momentum in the off season. For the most part we tend to crash following the Championship and by the time FIRST withdrawal hits us we are scattered doing various other summer activities, including work, and do not tend to regroup until the fall. For all of the teams that manage to keep going ... keep up the good work.

http://www.shsrobotics.org

[JakeGallagher]

Originally Posted by Rick Vogl

Just for the record Team 230 was responsible for the Bocce ball mechanism. A couple of our Engineers, Teachers, and Students made it off season last year. I really admire teams that manage to keep momentum in the off season. For the most part we tend to crash following the Championship and by the time FIRST withdrawal hits us we are scattered doing various other summer activities, including work, and do not tend to regroup until the fall. For all of the teams that manage to keep going ... keep up the good work.

http://www.shsrobotics.org

Thanks for the clarification...I'm horrible with remembering the team numbers. Do you think you guys could send us some pictures and/or the system specs for your bocce mechanism?

[ally479]

We use our old robot parts for our ROV(s) (remotly operated vehicle), it's an underwater robot. And we hook our old robot up for demonstrations and stuff. But we don't just work on "robotics". We work on electric cars, trebuchets, and hosting FLL.

[dw2364]

Originally Posted by JakeGallagher

Thanks for the clarification...I'm horrible with remembering the team numbers. Do you think you guys could send us some pictures and/or the system specs for your bocce mechanism?

I have posted pictures of the bocce shooter and they can be found at:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...gle&picid=7467
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...gle&picid=7466
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...gle&picid=7465

More information will also be posted on the teams website shortly.If anyone wants more information please let me know.


The Bocce shooter
It consists of 3 wooden channels, one for the ball which is 5” wide and two smaller 3” channels in either side to hold the 4 bungees. And a metal block that rides along the inner channel that pushes the ball. It started off as just one wooden block that pushed the ball, with no motors. This was used to first see if it could launch the ball, and after a successful trial, it was then worked on to incorporate motors and switches. It was complicated, to first figure out how to pull the block back, and figured out that a lead screw would work the best. It is locked into the motor and on one end, and to the block at the other. As it turns, it slowly uses the torque from the motor to pull back the block. The lead screw works best, in that it takes a lot of force off of the motor and is thus able to pull the block back. The next problem to figure out was how to release the block from the screw and motor so that the bungees could take over and shoot the ball. This was accomplished by using 2 separate blocks, one that pushes the ball, and one that is attached to the screw. By putting a motor on the one that is attached to the screw, and putting a hook attached to the motor shaft that hooks into the other block, someone could hit a button to release the two blocks. 2 square tubes are attached to the shooter and special mounts that go onto the wheel chair. Tubes attach these two pieces thus allowing for a shock mechanism. Four casters were mounted on the bottom of the shooter for mobility.

-Two switches are used to control the bocce shooter. One moves it back and forth and the other is used to move the hook which releases the two blocks.

[Pat Roche]

Thanks everybody for sharing your ideas. This is great. With a few more responses/ideas we can take this to our schools computer tech people and our web team to get things rolling to make the webpage.

-Pat