Ri3D 'Snow Problem 2017

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

As gorgeous as that robot looks plastered all across my computer screen, this might help.

Beat you to it. Sometimes I forget to preview my posts...

[cd_ssb]

Originally Posted by cd_ssb

Awesome reveal video! Definetly my favorite from the 2017 season! I wish you guys would've shown your robot shooting a bunch of balls all at oncr, instead of just one or two at a time. Im curious to see how accurate your shooter really is. What percent of balls do you guys when you storage is "full"?

Pardon the spelling errors, im on mobile. That last sentance is supposed to say what percent of balls do you SCORE when your sotrage is "full"?

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by cd_ssb

Awesome reveal video! Definetly my favorite from the 2017 season! I wish you guys would've shown your robot shooting a bunch of balls all at oncr, instead of just one or two at a time. Im curious to see how accurate your shooter really is. What percent of balls do you guys when you storage is "full"?

Our hopper to shooter transition is very inconsistent. I would say that our shooter, by itself, is quite accurate (when testing hand fed, we had an extremely consistent shot), but unfortunately the shooter is only half of the battle. Loading is paramount, and we unfortunately neglected the design of our loading mechanism, having only three days.

I would say that we were probably 60% accurate, maybe more, when we were able to shoot. Unfortunately jams or mispositioned balls made that rarer than any of us would have liked. This also made it somewhat difficult to actually gauge how accurate our shot was.

[cd_ssb]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

Our hopper to shooter transition is very inconsistent. I would say that our shooter, by itself, is quite accurate (when testing hand fed, we had an extremely consistent shot), but unfortunately the shooter is only half of the battle. Loading is paramount, and we unfortunately neglected the design of our loading mechanism, having only three days.

I would say that we were probably 60% accurate, maybe more, when we were able to shoot. Unfortunately jams or mispositioned balls made that rarer than any of us would have liked. This also made it somewhat difficult to actually gauge how accurate our shot was.

Totally understandable, thanks for answering! Awesome robot!

[Torvando]

Great video and a great robot. I was wonder what gearbox, ratio and motor you were using on the intake/climber. The intake seemed fast for how much weight you had to pull up.

Thanks in advance.

[gorrilla]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

I would say that we were probably 60% accurate, maybe more, when we were able to shoot. Unfortunately jams or mispositioned balls made that rarer than any of us would have liked. This also made it somewhat difficult to actually gauge how accurate our shot was.

How many fuel balls can it hold at once?

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Torvando

Great video and a great robot. I was wonder what gearbox, ratio and motor you were using on the intake/climber. The intake seemed fast for how much weight you had to pull up.

Thanks in advance.

The gearbox powering our intake/climber is an AM Sonic Shifter with a 14.8:1 low gear and a 3.7:1 high gear. There are two CIM motors powering it. It's a little bit slow as an intake on high gear, but is quite sufficient in low gear for our climb.

Originally Posted by gorrilla

How many fuel balls can it hold at once?

Not nearly enough. We are planning to add some more polycarbonate to make it better at keeping balls inside and increasing capacity for future demonstration events. Right now I would estimate we're around 10-15 balls maximum "stay in the robot" amount.

[EricLeifermann]

What are you using for your shooter wheel?

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

What are you using for your shooter wheel?

We are using 4 of the 4" Andymark compliant wheels. They are powered by 2 775pro motors on a 3:1 VersaPlanetary.

[Sperkowsky]

How much did your powder coating setup cost as well as material costs? Do you have a link to what you used?

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

How much did your powder coating setup cost as well as material costs? Do you have a link to what you used?

I would direct you to our powder coating white paper. Alex did a pretty good job explaining our setup. To completely replicate our setup, you are looking at between $200 and $600, depending on what you have on hand.

[fr05ty27355]

Originally Posted by cd_ssb

Pardon the spelling errors, im on mobile. That last sentance is supposed to say what percent of balls do you SCORE when your sotrage is "full"?

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

Our hopper to shooter transition is very inconsistent. I would say that our shooter, by itself, is quite accurate (when testing hand fed, we had an extremely consistent shot), but unfortunately the shooter is only half of the battle. Loading is paramount, and we unfortunately neglected the design of our loading mechanism, having only three days.

I would say that we were probably 60% accurate, maybe more, when we were able to shoot. Unfortunately jams or mispositioned balls made that rarer than any of us would have liked. This also made it somewhat difficult to actually gauge how accurate our shot was.

To expand on what Nick stated, we currently don't have any feedback on the shooter. Adding a feedback mechanism (such as an optical encoder), and implementing a basic closed-loop control (PID loop anyone?) could vastly improve the accuracy. Given only 3 days and a limited budget, we typically don't worry about these nitty-gritty details.

The hopper could additionally use a "blending" mechanism to shuffle balls so that they find their way into the shooter (many of the other Ri3D teams implemented such mechanisms). Our hopper was finalized on the last day, and we did not have ample time to construct/install such a mechanism.

[D.Allred]

Interesting design and a great looking robot.

The intake climber is a very interesting idea. Do you believe it would actually work on the real field? You are using a small rope on a small roller. It looks like you would jam the roller against the davit channel before you could consistently move the pressure plate. I've noticed a lot of these Ri3D designs don't seem to consider the channel.

David

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by D.Allred

Interesting design and a great looking robot.

The intake climber is a very interesting idea. Do you believe it would actually work on the real field? You are using a small rope on a small roller. It looks like you would jam the roller against the davit channel before you could consistently move the pressure plate. I've noticed a lot of these Ri3D designs don't seem to consider the channel.

David

Correct, we designed our climber without knowledge of the channel.

I'm pretty confident that an enterprising team could modify the concept to be competition-ready. We did have a small amount of room to work with on the final robot that could feasibly fit the modifications necessary.

[Purpose]

Beautiful bot and extremely impressive all around. Thank you for all your time and dedication!

May I ask what motor and gear reduction you used for your intake/climber? You're using a CIM correct? I was really impressed with how fast the lift pulled your bot.