pic: Our New Robot Frame

[comwiz7]

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[bloodknight2077]

Nice robot design, but what if a ball lands on your electronics board??
I assume that there is more to this robot that isn't shown.

[Mr MOE]

Nice frame / Design.

I love the color!

[comwiz7]

Well, the arm isn't on there yet (obviously), but it will protect the electronics. Plus, since we are about 15 pounds underweight, we'll probably add a lexan cover to the electronics.

[Matt H.]

Wow I like the time your spent painting your robot--this year looks to be very competative in the area of nice looking robots.
How's your center of gravity?

[comwiz7]

Well we didn't want to lose two days to powder coating, but they were doing it for free and now our robot is awesome looking so it was worth it. We spent countless hours designing this thing and trying to avoid making the same errors as last year. We drew up our robot in AutoCAD for the technical parts, and 3DS Max to show everybody ideas and center of gravity was our biggest problem. We moved things around until it worked. The only problem we have now is that if you accelerate too fast without the ball, it will pop a fatal wheely but I plan to code a limit to how fast it can accelerate. Still working out the method of doing that though.

The worst problem we had (and that is pictured) is that parts of the frame were warped while our newer welder was welding it. The front wheels are 1/4" off the ground. That's fixed now though.

[MrForbes]

That's a very common problem with welding structures, the welded area shrinks as it cools and warps the whole thing. Try welding auto body sheet metal some time if you want a real challenge

[Matt H.]

well if you put encoders on the wheels you can determine velocity by using a timer function and dividing the number of encoder ticks by the time. You can determine acceleration by dividing that number by time again. (this is getting very nasty in terms of math)
Perhaps the easiest way is to use the kit enclosed gyro or an accelerometer.

[Aren_Hill]

i love the powder coat, i don't like the COG at the moment but i'm pretty sure your battery and transmission are going down under that which will remedy that problem.

Our electrical guys would like that amount of accessibility lol

[comwiz7]

The battery does remedy the problem. Plus the way the frame is set up, swapping the battery takes just a few seconds, as opposed to last year.

[team1203 4life]

Originally Posted by bloodknight2077

Nice robot design, but what if a ball lands on your electronics board??
:

yeah that could end badly
love the design way to thinck out of the book