Team 67's incredible shooter

[Adam Freeman]

Originally Posted by JamesTerm

I was talking to the team this morning about the importance of art hence (STEAM vs. STEM), and immediately thought about team 67's 2012 robot...

I know this is slightly off-topic but since compliments are going towards team 67. I just wanted to add this one in as well... here it is around a little more than a year later and that 2012 robot still sticks in my mind. There is something about it that was a beautiful work of art and so unique. A belayed kudos goes out to you guys... I just wonder how much of artistic influence went into the design.

James,

Thanks for the comments. I can't say the robot was designed specifically with art in mind. The most important deisgn criteria is always performance in any of the parts / systems we design. But we do try to abide by the saying -- if it doesn't look good (right), it probably isn't good (right).

So much of the time we continue to iterate our designs until they are as simple as possible, while maintaining functionality.

Any of the other things that we did to help increase the appearance of the machine (vinly on the arms, blacked out cover, *bumpers, etc...) were done after the fact to help with the aesthetics.

*I believe we had 3 sets of bumpers that elevated in appearance throughout the season. Ahh...the things you can do when the robot works well..

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

Any of the other things that we did to help increase the appearance of the machine (vinly on the arms, blacked out cover, *bumpers, etc...) were done after the fact to help with the aesthetics.

*I believe we had 3 sets of bumpers that elevated in appearance throughout the season. Ahh...the things you can do when the robot works well..

That is very true and not seen on a lot of robots. Excellent looking bumpers and graphics is a need. It shows the teams brand and shows off the robot's sponsors.

[coalhot]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

*I believe we had 3 sets of bumpers that elevated in appearance throughout the season.

We had the same thing this year. Sleek looking bumpers change the whole feel and look of the robot. Here are a few pics:

Before

After

I should mention that the original bumpers were also illegal, someone came up with the crazy idea to use denim for the blue side

[Jim Zondag]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

But we do try to abide by the saying -- if it doesn't look good (right), it probably isn't good (right).[/size]

"Aesthetics matter: attractive things work better." - Don Norman - Author
Not only do attractive things work better, but our experience has shown that students and mentors alike will work harder on things that look really cool. If you spend a little thought, time, and effort on aesthetics, it will pay back many times over in additional effort by your team.

[Ian Curtis]

"If it looks good it will fly good (is a myth that is sometimes true)." -John McMasters

In addition what Jim said, in order to look good you've really got to sweat the details. I have found that when you sweat the details, you end up with a much better product. Think about the difference between haphazard holes and precise bolt pattern.

[Jay O'Donnell]

I know this is an old thread but I have a couple more questions about team 67's shooter if they don't mind. What angles do you shoot at for autonomous and full court shooting? what do you do to get Frisbees from the bucket into the shooter? Do you happen to have any CAD models or drawings of your shooter?
Thanks in advance if anyone from 67 can help! -Jay

[MichaelBick]

I have a few pictures from CMP that will hopefully help you a bit. I didn't get very good documentation of 67's shooter, but it looks like they have an L bracket attached to a chain run that acts as a conveyor and pushes the front of the Frisbee:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?...&usp=sha ring

https://drive.google.com/folderview?...&usp=sha ring

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by MICHAELABICK

I have a few pictures from CMP that will hopefully help you a bit. I didn't get very good documentation of 67's shooter, but it looks like they have an L bracket attached to a chain run that acts as a conveyor and pushes the front of the Frisbee:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?...&usp=sha ring

https://drive.google.com/folderview?...&usp=sha ring

Yup it's a short run of chain with an L bracket on it.

You can see one end of the chain in this picture. http://i.imgur.com/UBS1NPG.jpg

[Adam Freeman]

Originally Posted by Jay Money 1058

I know this is an old thread but I have a couple more questions about team 67's shooter if they don't mind. What angles do you shoot at for autonomous and full court shooting? what do you do to get Frisbees from the bucket into the shooter? Do you happen to have any CAD models or drawings of your shooter?
Thanks in advance if anyone from 67 can help! -Jay

Jay,

The angle varied at the wheels worn in during the competition. We had to continuously adjust the shot positions throughout the competition to keep up with the changing wheels.

Our nominal pyramid and autonomous shot was around 20-21 degrees. Any time we lost our position of the potentiometer, we would use a digital inclinometer to adjust the autonomous shot back to 20 degrees, then make fine adjustments from there.

For full-court shots, the angle was a little bit lower. This usually changed a lot as the wheels wore in. Theoretically it was setup around 10-12 degrees. Not exactly sure what angle we shot at most of the time. Knowing the exact angle was a little less critical since our operator manually adjusted it during each match to keep the shots hitting in the middle of the goal.

As Akash and Michael pointed out, we used a piece of 1" AL angle riveted to a connecting link (7321K7 @ McMaster) with a platform on it. The chain ran under the hopper and grabbed the frisbee on the inside front lip and pulled it into the shooter wheels. I designed it to release and dip under just as the frisbee was contacting the wheels. We used bike chain and a VEXpro planetary that was geared to 100:1 (if I remember correctly) with a AM9015 motor.

Our drawings and CAD models are so crude, it would be pretty embarassing to show them to anyone. But, I'll see what I can find.

-Adam

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

Jay,

The angle varied at the wheels worn in during the competition. We had to continuously adjust the shot positions throughout the competition to keep up with the changing wheels.

Our nominal pyramid and autonomous shot was around 20-21 degrees. Any time we lost our position of the potentiometer, we would use a digital inclinometer to adjust the autonomous shot back to 20 degrees, then make fine adjustments from there.

For full-court shots, the angle was a little bit lower. This usually changed a lot as the wheels wore in. Theoretically it was setup around 10-12 degrees. Not exactly sure what angle we shot at most of the time. Knowing the exact angle was a little less critical since our operator manually adjusted it during each match to keep the shots hitting in the middle of the goal.

As Akash and Michael pointed out, we used a piece of 1" AL angle riveted to a connecting link (7321K7 @ McMaster) with a platform on it. The chain ran under the hopper and grabbed the frisbee on the inside front lip and pulled it into the shooter wheels. I designed it to release and dip under just as the frisbee was contacting the wheels. We used bike chain and a VEXpro planetary that was geared to 100:1 (if I remember correctly) with a AM9015 motor.

Our drawings and CAD models are so crude, it would be pretty embarassing to show them to anyone. But, I'll see what I can find.

-Adam

Thanks for the quick and thorough response!
-Jay

[whophil]

I just stumbled across this very informative thread. Adam, have you guys experienced any problems with side loading of the 550 motors? I'm looking to set up some Banebots RS-775 motors in a similar belt drive configuration with the pulley cantilevered on the shaft, but had some doubts about how the motor's internal bearings would hold up over time. (The 775 motor only has a 7.6 mm long shaft, which is another problem in itself...)

Cheers,
Phil

[Adam Freeman]

Originally Posted by whophil

I just stumbled across this very informative thread. Adam, have you guys experienced any problems with side loading of the 550 motors? I'm looking to set up some Banebots RS-775 motors in a similar belt drive configuration with the pulley cantilevered on the shaft, but had some doubts about how the motor's internal bearings would hold up over time. (The 775 motor only has a 7.6 long shaft, which is another problem in itself...)

Cheers,
Phil

No problems to date with any of the motors we used on either the practice bot or the competition bot. We tried to take special care to not over load the motors with excessive tension on the belts.

I would guess that a 775 would be even more robust to a setup similar to ours.

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

Our drawings and CAD models are so crude, it would be pretty embarassing to show them to anyone. But, I'll see what I can find.

-Adam

That's very interesting to me. I've always seen detailed CAD as the mainstay of every highly competitive team, and I'm interested in how a multiple time Einstien winner can perform extremely well and not do a detailed robot CAD.

For instance, how did you know that your climber could grab levels correctly, that nothing would break under stress, that screws would clear other parts, that there would be enough room for electronics or other mechanisms, or that you'd be under weight? Frankly, I don't think I could design a robot without detailed CAD. Things are so many times different sizes than we think them to be that simply fitting everything together would be a huge challenge, at least for me.

Can you shed a little light on your design process?

[Adam Freeman]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

That's very interesting to me. I've always seen detailed CAD as the mainstay of every highly competitive team, and I'm interested in how a multiple time Einstien winner can perform extremely well and not do a detailed robot CAD.

I would say that a detailed CAD process is the rule to follow, but there are always exceptions. When it comes to our design process, we are not the model that should be emulated. The designs that come from our process...maybe. But, the actual process...no!

We have two main designers, myself and Jim Meyer. Our robot is designed 99% in 2D AutoCAD. I sometimes use Solidwork to model already designed parts, but almost never for the design process itself.

Our 2D drawings are very much like very detailed sketches. Almost all the components are sketched out in an assembly view, but the very fine details are usually put in the print sent to the machine shop, and not in the assembly view. So our CAD files are almost impossible to decifer unless you are the designer currently working in the sketch.

Since we have full access to a water-jet machine, we try to design the majority of our parts to be manufactured that way. Since we only need a 2D file to export to the water-jet, it works out that we do all of our design in AutoCAD.

From a strength or weight analysis, our process is very experience oriented. We are confident in our abilities to estimate how small or large a part needs to be to survive in a FIRST environment. Along the same lines, we try to re-use similar designs for the frame, wheels, etc... so we usually know if a part or assembly is going to put us over for weight.

This style of design relys heavily on the designers to be completely involved in the manufacturing and assembly of the parts. Since they are really the only ones that know exactly how the parts are designed to work together.

As I said above, it's not a process that should be copied by anyone. We have made attempts to streamline the process...or add in aspects of other peoples design process (148, 1114, 254, etc...). But, every time when things start getting tight for time during the build season, the process reverts right back to where it has always been.

At this point, we have pretty much accepted that, like it or not, this is who we are...and how we operate.

The time we have to work on our designs seems to be getting less and less each year (between family and work responsibilities), so we don't do much more than is required to get the parts machined and assembled.

We are in the process of adding some more mechanical/design mentors that hopefully will help improve our process and provide more time to further enhance our designs and be able to teach more students/mentors how we create our parts.

-Adam

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

I would say that a detailed CAD process is the rule to follow, but there are always exceptions. When it comes to our design process, we are not the model that should be emulated. The designs that come from our process...maybe. But, the actual process...no!

We have two main designers, myself and Jim Meyer. Our robot is designed 99% in 2D AutoCAD. I sometimes use Solidwork to model already designed parts, but almost never for the design process itself.

Our 2D drawings are very much like very detailed sketches. Almost all the components are sketched out in an assembly view, but the very fine details are usually put in the print sent to the machine shop, and not in the assembly view. So our CAD files are almost impossible to decifer unless you are the designer currently working in the sketch.

Since we have full access to a water-jet machine, we try to design the majority of our parts to be manufactured that way. Since we only need a 2D file to export to the water-jet, it works out that we do all of our design in AutoCAD.

From a strength or weight analysis, our process is very experience oriented. We are confident in our abilities to estimate how small or large a part needs to be to survive in a FIRST environment. Along the same lines, we try to re-use similar designs for the frame, wheels, etc... so we usually know if a part or assembly is going to put us over for weight.

This style of design relys heavily on the designers to be completely involved in the manufacturing and assembly of the parts. Since they are really the only ones that know exactly how the parts are designed to work together.

As I said above, it's not a process that should be copied by anyone. We have made attempts to streamline the process...or add in aspects of other peoples design process (148, 1114, 254, etc...). But, every time when things start getting tight for time during the build season, the process reverts right back to where it has always been.

At this point, we have pretty much accepted that, like it or not, this is who we are...and how we operate.

The time we have to work on our designs seems to be getting less and less each year (between family and work responsibilities), so we don't do much more than is required to get the parts machined and assembled.

We are in the process of adding some more mechanical/design mentors that hopefully will help improve our process and provide more time to further enhance our designs and be able to teach more students/mentors how we create our parts.

-Adam

In a way, this is one of the coolest posts I've read on CD.

I definitely agree that detailed 2D design work can be used to figure out the geometry of a design (I always think back to the 2D drawings of Simbot SS) but doesn't it get difficult to make iterations, even with a practice bot and the district model?

Thanks for the insight!