FRC 869's 2012 Robot

[waitwhat?]

I know that it is pretty late in the season, but Team 869 wanted to share our 2012 bot (Better Late than never I guess)

Anyways, just a little bit of background on our design. Once our team watched the kickoff, a brain storming session was then conducted, by the end of which, not a design but a strategy was decided upon. In this case, the team unanimously agreed that a defensive robot with a specialty in playing the end game was the way to go.

Key Features of our Bot:

8 Wheel "Drop Center Dynamic Drive" : The 4 outer wheels start 1/8" higher then the 4 center wheels, when the driver holds a thumb button, all four outer wheels drop to level with the middle wheels, creating a level 8 wheel drive, and as a result, more traction.

Bridge Dropping "Fin" : The Fin is connected via a single pin joint to a car that rides on a lead screw, as the car is driven forward, the fin drops down, The curved "Beak" of the fin locks underneath the bumper, at this point, all the robot has to do is drive into the bridge, allowing for the bridge to drop.

Battery Shifter : The battery is housed in a cage that is also connected to a car on a lead screw, the lead screw shaft is connected to gyro allowing for auto balancing. However, we came to realize that the manual operation of this mechanism was better when trying to double balance, as our operator was able to mimic the CG and behaviors of the other robot better. This mechanism allows our robot to balance not eh bridge without moving our frame, as well as dynamically copying the CG of another robot so as to allow for a smoother double balancing process.

The second picture is a shot of our bot in the triple balance configuration we came up with. This strategy involves driving up the bridge and turning 90 degrees. Because of the tread we used, we are then easily able to be pushed by one if not two robots who are also trying to balance. At the same time, because of the fact that our wheels are perpendicular to the directions hat we are traveling up the ramp when being pushed, our bot acts as a damper, reducing the chances of over shooting the balance.

There are also some videos of our defensive play as well as some balancing.

The Bot was officially named MAC but has been lovingly referred to thought the season (by both team members and Emcees) as "NothingBOTTrouble" haha

869 would love to get some input and opinions, as our design is a little bit out of the ordinary (at least for the competitions we attended).

Thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7Es5a5jg1w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3sAW...feature=relmfu