20-02-2003 17:50

Aaron Lussier

Simple yet effective
Complicated yet beautiful in its own right
Great job guys I hope you have replacement covers for those box bashers!!!

20-02-2003 18:47

Tyler 178

Wow, looks like another king of the hill bot. Do you guys plan to just sit on the ramp during the competition, or actually do stuff like push boxes. And your strategy probably depends on getting to the top of the ramp first, how long does it take you. And what all do you have under those side "tents". I bet you have some sort of traction or drive system to prevent getting spun around. Should be interesting to see how it does in competition.

20-02-2003 19:59

sevisehda

Its looks like it modular because of the comment from the first pic. Did anyone else notice the "tents" aren't flat and are more of a bow?

21-02-2003 08:28

Andy Baker

sweet wings

Those wings are very, very nice. They will be hard to push against due to the angle. Once a team starts pushing, then they would just drive up on the wing.

Also... this is excellence in marketing. I've never seen such big billboards!

Way to go, 229!

Andy B.

21-02-2003 08:48

Ken Leung

Yeah, those wings are awesome! Just wait till they upload pictures of how they manufacture the wings.

21-02-2003 15:00

Amy Lynn

The more i look at the wings the more i love them! Alright 229!! I'm excited to see them in action in a match.

Amy Lynn
Team # 229

21-02-2003 16:58

JVN

Our bot purpose and nature revealed:

Tyler178-
You can bet we have some anti-spin traction. The underside of those wings will be covered in it. We can rest the entire weight of the bot on those wings by torquing down on our them (FP motor with a 1:1550 worm reduction).
We also are looking into another system utilizing suction cups. We have it designed and half built but we weren't sure if we'd need it. Our scouts at BAE will be the determining factor in if we put it on at UTC.
Our drivetrain itself isn't a slouch. As posted before we have a fairly nice transmission which is a 2-speed Drill and Chip combiner. After 2 weeks of tweaking it shifts on the fly like a champ. We have "Team60 Tread" on our front wheels (coeff of friction ~1.2), and a harder plastic timing belt for the rear wheels (which gives us a theoretically infinite coeff on the mesh)...
We're still tweaking our Autonomous mode to include an inclinometer (2 axis level) and IR wheels to help with robot positioning. With just a crude dead-reckoning system (yeah I admit it, the MechE's spent too much time fiddiling with our first year tranny's and the SparkE's didn't get enough bot-time) we got on top in 6 seconds. Our programmer assures me we can do it in 3.5 - 4 seconds without any significant difficulty. However, we know getting to the ramp first is the key... so we simply won't use our wings if we know we are going to get beat by one of our opponents... (I guess I'll be watching a lot of matches with a stop watch in my hand). But hey... think of it this way... if our partner is faster than us, they can just clear a path, and we'll do the rest.

sevisehda-
The wings are indeed modular.
We have 5 seperate modular configurations. We felt this year's game lent itself to a modular robot. One of our robot nicknames is WBS or wanna-be-stang in homage to the Wildstang 2001/2002 robots. Basically this robot is a do-all, though it's primary configuration is ramp-dominator. You are correct about the "tents"!

Andy-
Thanks!
The wings are designed for a special purpose. We decided that holding the ramp with brute force is not practical. (although you guys are certainly making us think twice with that monster your fielding this year) We first tried to use one design feature of almost every bot (note: I said ALMOST, everyone doesnt have to post and tell me how their bot magically will be able to beat us). Most teams design their robot to go up a 14 degree incline (the ramp!) so we simply designed our curve so that it starts at 14 degrees. Most (again note: MOST) robots will climb right up onto our ramps. The curve itself is designed such that it deflects all lateral force placed against it. This means that the robot will ride up on the ramp, and it's forward force/velocity will be transmitted upward. This means that MOST robots apply little or no lateral force against us, let alone enough to push our anchored robot off the ramp. While some robots will be able to climb over the top of us, we don't believe it will be much of a problem. (I'll buy a Dew for anyone that does!) These ramps are not to be taken lightly. They came out more amazingly than I imagined. We used all 3 bots we have on hand, and none of them were capable of pushing the wing. Even with no traction material on the bottom, the wing itself stayed put on the ramp with no help whatsoever. The wing also has the nasty tendency of reorienting the CG of robots that climb onto us. Woe to the team with a high CG that tries to climb our curve. It goes from 14 degrees to 60 degrees rather quickly. Other low CG bots will simply bottom out and stall on us.

As for the marketing... You gotta please the sponsor right? The best part is, if we do our strategy right, our opponent drivers will have to stare at CLARKSON UNIVERSITY for 2 minutes. (Our HS's are listed on the back).

Ken-
We already posted the manufacturing pictures?
What! No one saw them?
That teaser I released around week 3 was a picture of our wing... or more accurately, the inside of our wing. Our wings consist of aluminum framing surrounded with foam injection. So basically, each wing is one solid chunk of foam! The foam itself is amazing... it is 30:1 expansion foam, which hardens into a rock hard substance which is resistant to all but the most forcused of forces (punctures). SO..... we coated it with 1/32" lexan. Each wing is ALMOST (note: ALMOST) indestructable. I had a HSer from our team go at one of them with a crowbar, and all he managed to do was to scuff up the lexan a little. So unless someone has a icepick on their robot (which I think... is illegal) they aren't going to puncture/damage the wing itself.


We've also got some other worthy stuff on the bot, but I think I'll just focus on the wing-mode for now. Drop by our pits at UTC and Houston, or come say hello at BAE (I'll be wearing the Black and White Stripes )

So...
What do you guys think?
I'm extremely happy with the result, but then again, I'm not exactly impartial...
I can't wait to see how it actually works at competition...

I'm looking for more honest feedback...

21-02-2003 19:35

Rook

Better close those gaps inbetween the bot and it's wings or we're gonna pick you up by the armpits.

22-02-2003 14:20

JVN

I'd like to see you try!
If your bot can really do that (and I HIGHLY doubt it can) you deserve to beat us.

24-02-2003 22:21

JVN

New Images!

We just updated our website with some Robot pictures, and a few movies.

You can find a photo gallery here:
http://www.clarkson.edu/projects/usf...03/2003_Build/

This Movie is a tour of our robot (without wings on):
http://www.clarkson.edu/~usfirst/our.../RobotTour.avi

This shows our basic automode:
http://www.clarkson.edu/~usfirst/our...icAutoMode.MPG

This demonstrates a crude wing moving up and down:
http://www.clarkson.edu/~usfirst/our...ingGearbox.avi

THIS demonstrates our best feature:
http://www.clarkson.edu/~usfirst/our...d/WingTest.avi

Hope you enjoy them.
Please leave any comments/feedback you might have.

Thanks,

24-02-2003 22:37

Tom Schindler

Wow John...

i love the wedge shape of your wings..... very nice idea.... hit that at any kind of speed and we may see bots airborn....

It should be interesting if we see two of the same kind of 'bots faced against eachother.... the first match i'm gonna be looking for is a 45/229 matchup that should be an edge of your seat thriller....

Great job on the 'bot to all of 229... very nicely put together.

Tom Schindler
Team 190

24-02-2003 23:15

Jeremy_Mc

hey! we have that same yellow drill!

(sorry i notice little things...)

nice bot btw

*jeremy

24-02-2003 23:20

Ken Leung

I like the automode. You guys go up the ramp really fast. Nice tight angle of turning.

I also love the wings... robots just drive up it wihtout needing the robot. You don't even have to push back, the wing itself do all the work. Excellent! Just sit there and watch opponent robot tip over.

I don't know if its just because its the first vidoes I've seen of wing robots, but, you guys have a really cool robot!

25-02-2003 06:33

sevisehda

The fact that the wings work without the help of a bot keeping them in place is amazing.

Even if for some act of god the bot never moves those are probobly the largest team name/number areas in FIRST histroy.

15-04-2003 22:52

Darek905

We actually drove on top pf one of these wings. Only problem was we didn't hit em strait on so we fell off to the side. i really liked this design though. It was very nice. I don't know how well they did at Nats but they were good people.

15-04-2003 23:40

JVN

At nats we did not do as well as we had hoped.
Plagued by mechanical problems of various kinds, we seeded somewhere in the middle of the Curie division, and were NOT chosen for the finals.

C'est la Vie.

Thank you for your compliment.
You guys built a great bot too!

08-08-2003 13:46

Tytus Gerrish

What is that material?

08-08-2003 15:21

Mike Schroeder

Tytus: i think the wings were made out of a cyanide foam.

08-08-2003 15:49

JVN

The wings are made from a 30:1 expansion foam. This is a binary compound, i.e. you mix the two chemicals, and it expands out, really fast.

And yes... the foam is cyanide based.
This means it releases a form of cyanide gas as it expands, and the foam itself remains.... mildy toxic.

We made the wings by building a wooden frame in the shape we wanted. We then poured the foam around a metal frame which would serve as the interior of the wing.

After the pour, we sanded/cut the wing down to shape. We then covered the wing in 1/32" lexan. This lexan protected the foam from most damage. By the time we were finished, the wings were pretty much indestructable. (ask anyone who saw them... we demonstrated their robustness by hitting them with a hammer).

The foam is good stuff.

08-08-2003 16:17

Tytus Gerrish

where would i get some?