Drive Systems... ...The FIRST Arms Race?

[Gdeaver]

The Tim Allen mentality is what I think Joe is referring to. " More Power". During the off season it seams that most teams that were doing off season projects focused on drive trains. How many teams worked on manipulator development, sensor integration, or autonomous navigation? First could control the drive train arms race with a very simple rule. Limit the energy, Make it precious and expensive. ( like what is happening in the real world). Each team is allowed 2 batteries at the competition. On practice day each team submits 2 batteries at inspection and their serial number is recorded and a permanent label is affixed. Those are the only 2 batteries allowed for the entire competition. Teams can do what ever they what with the motors and mechanisms, but the energy budget is limited. If a team gets to the finals and is forced to compete with dead batteries then they pay the price for poor energy management. This generation of kids will have to face the looming energy challenges in their life time. First can help focus them on this social issue. The other way to take the focus away from the arms race is to make the autonomous period longer and more important.

[meaubry]

Just a couple of thoughts -
I believe that some parts of the robot are designed to meet the specifics of the game or the playing field. The reality is, that the drive systems can almost always be re-used from year to year, while end effectors almost always cannot.

Therefore, many of the off season and season2season improvements are focused on the drive system. With an unlimited supply of motors and alot of time - it is natural for this to happen. I'm actually surprised that nobody has developed a drive system using every motor in the kit.

I like some of the suggestions that Joe has made. Yet, I also like the increased variety and number of motors to choose from.

I think encouraging the management of power could be as much a challenge as managing size and weight. Learning to understand and deal with all of the challenges, could be very Inspirational (it simply depends on it is approached).

Alot depends on where you want to focus your attention on, and where you can save time and energy by re-using what has been proven out already.

My favorite suggestion to rebalance the reuse and elevated effort for more and more powerful drive systems, is to change the playing field such that the drive system contact surface is either slippery or moves under load. Do they make portable flooring for ice covered surfaces!

Great discussion

[Pavan Dave]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

The Tim Allen mentality is what I think Joe is referring to. " More Power". During the off season it seams that most teams that were doing off season projects focused on drive trains. How many teams worked on manipulator development, sensor integration, or autonomous navigation? First could control the drive train arms race with a very simple rule. Limit the energy, Make it precious and expensive. ( like what is happening in the real world). Each team is allowed 2 batteries at the competition. On practice day each team submits 2 batteries at inspection and their serial number is recorded and a permanent label is affixed. Those are the only 2 batteries allowed for the entire competition. Teams can do what ever they what with the motors and mechanisms, but the energy budget is limited. If a team gets to the finals and is forced to compete with dead batteries then they pay the price for poor energy management. This generation of kids will have to face the looming energy challenges in their life time. First can help focus them on this social issue. The other way to take the focus away from the arms race is to make the autonomous period longer and more important.

I understand exactly what you are saying with this and how much work is done off season (if any at all) on the base, but the thing everyone is missing out on is the fact that the manipulator and autonomous modes and other things change EVERY year and that certain subgroups on your team have a "static" position, meaning they have to think and come up with something completely new, while others just innovate older designs et cetera. That is why the BASE or DRIVE SYSTEM of teams is becoming more and more interesting every year from what I have seen on the forums (including archives) because the base usually stays constant or at least the framework or principles of it does.

I think the energy rule is limiting just as how you choose your motors because if you are limiting energy than you are saying you have to cut power from "A" and add it to "B" and that is similar to saying you can only use "N" amount of motors out of the number given for a certain operation (drive train, manipulation, et cetera).

Pavan.

[Danny Diaz]

Yeah, I completely agree - it's difficult to do some of the work with Autonomous robots and sensor manipulation because it does change so rapidly from season to season, and it also depends upon the game as to whether it makes sense to invest the time in the technology. Take this year's game for instance, there is very little need for an accelerometer and/or a gyroscope - while some teams may take advantage of them to help them with some of their autonomous actions, the green light and the camera are all you really need to create an effective autonomous (some would argue that gear tooth sensors are all you need, but I digress). This year's game also didn't really need those sensors for in-game use, so for the most part they were played with and then set aside.

A lot of the responsibility for getting teams involved with the more advanced control system design is in the Game Design Committee. If they came up with a game that relied heavily on a particular type of sensor (or sensor fusion) then teams would embrace it. For instance the camera was a huge part of last year's game, the accelerometers were huge the year they had teeter-totters, and this year you've got ... nothing, really. I mean, you have 2 light sources which allows you to play with tracking/identifying multiple lights, but it isn't even mildly critical to the success of a robot. As far as I'm concerned the only "cool thing" they brought out this year was the lifting of the robots, and that doesn't even impact my controls team... though I must admit we did use the extra time this year to have a little bit more fun with our control system!

-Danny

[Lil' Lavery]

Danny, I couldn't disagree with you more. Sensors will be vital during all phases of the game this year. Especially when trying to acquire and place tubes on the far side of the rack, sensor aided systems are going to be a huge advantage. 116 is using more sensors on our robot, particularly our maniuplator, than we ever have (at least to my knowledge). A total of 10 sensors may see use during our matches this year, and most will still be used during teleoperated mode. At one point we may even have automatic alignment software fully functional, so that we can align directly with a spider foot on the far side of the rack.
Sensor integration and navigation software are aspects that can be worked with over the summer to a certain degree, but not nearly to the extent as drivetrains. Because we don't know if we're going to have the camera, or an IR beacon, or any other kind of "target" next year, certain sensor specifics are really a risk to spend a lot of time developing during the off-season. Same with certain navigation frameworks (this year having a field element that changes placement between matches made navigation software harder).