JVN Build Tip: Prototyping

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by JVN

So let's talk about that really successful robot. You know the one I'm talking about -- that one at the regional that seems like it can do know wrong. It just glides around the field almost twice as fast as our robots, picking up tubes without stopping and placing them on the rack almost effortlessly... what the heck! How did those guys do that?

The secret is simple... prototyping & continuous improvement.

On the most successful robots each mechanism is prototyped, thoroughly tested, and improved before it goes into the final design. Try it.

After you figure out WHAT your robot is going to do, and you come up with some ideas on HOW the robot is going to do it, you need to prototype your ideas.

John,

From the pictures you post, it seems like 148 moves directly from cardboard and Vex into sheet metal and the production robot. Is this the case? For the robots I've worked on, we typically went from cardboard to plywood to plywood & shafts powered by drills to rough cut aluminum then to the final robot part. It seems like you skip by that rough aluminum step. I know you use a lot more CAD than we did, but do you just trust that your Vex and cardboard dimensions are "good enough"? Or do you end up rebuilding some manipulators if you find that your dimensions don't work as well as you anticipated?

[Aren_Hill]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

John,

From the pictures you post, it seems like 148 moves directly from cardboard and Vex into sheet metal and the production robot. Is this the case? For the robots I've worked on, we typically went from cardboard to plywood to plywood & shafts powered by drills to rough cut aluminum then to the final robot part. It seems like you skip by that rough aluminum step. I know you use a lot more CAD than we did, but do you just trust that your Vex and cardboard dimensions are "good enough"? Or do you end up rebuilding some manipulators if you find that your dimensions don't work as well as you anticipated?

I know they plan in adjustable features by adding extra sets of holes and such, we may have copied this attribute when we stole their entire 2007 arm effectively....

[Creator Mat]

Originally Posted by Aren_Hill

I know they plan in adjustable features by adding extra sets of holes and such, we may have copied this attribute when we stole their entire 2007 arm effectively....

Good point. Having flexibility with mounting points on a final piece can help out later down the road if something changes. Plus extra holes = less weight

[JVN]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

John,

From the pictures you post, it seems like 148 moves directly from cardboard and Vex into sheet metal and the production robot. Is this the case? For the robots I've worked on, we typically went from cardboard to plywood to plywood & shafts powered by drills to rough cut aluminum then to the final robot part. It seems like you skip by that rough aluminum step. I know you use a lot more CAD than we did, but do you just trust that your Vex and cardboard dimensions are "good enough"? Or do you end up rebuilding some manipulators if you find that your dimensions don't work as well as you anticipated?

We prototype until we get the critical dimensions. The prototypes that merit it, get more detailed work. Last year we did a 1:1 fully functional version of the entire intake + kicker out of old robot parts and sheet metal. You can see this in our 2010 video.

Some stuff goes right from cardboard into CAD into sheetmetal...

-John