08-01-2013 16:21

dodar

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

This is an amazing looking robot and seemed to function extremely well. I wonder, though, will teams look at teams who build a very similar robot to this ,as if they just recreated this robot, in a different view? Even though I do believe that this concept has been thought of by alot of teams and even i thought of something very similar to this before this was a finished product.

08-01-2013 16:24

Larry Lewis

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

Pretty amazing what the Robot in 3 Days people were able to accomplish. I know it inspired me to think about some things in a different light and to learn from their prototyping experiences. Awesome job!

08-01-2013 16:26

Leav

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

The ideas here are fairly common I would assume, and I don't think anyone will be able to tell that a team was inspired by this robot.

If a team was/is inspired by this robot, then this project has served a very useful goal.

The more I think of the "robot in 3 days" idea, the more I like it. good job guys!

08-01-2013 16:45

James1902

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

They might, in fact some people probably will, and that's their loss because then they missed the point of the whole project, or at least what I saw the point to be.

All ideas come from external sources, be it design concepts, gameplay ideas or even build materials every idea forms from at least the seed of another idea. Isn't that why we looked at match video from 2006 last year or video from 2007 two years ago?

The point now is to make it better. This group decided to do it in three days, but we have 6 more weeks! Imagine the leaps this design can take with all of that time! So now, anyone who has an idea like the ones used for this robot can take it and mold it, shape it, refine it, hone it untill it's perfect. They can practice with it and design programs for it to make their driving better, they can figure out potential fail points and learn how to fix them.

It's essentially an open source prototype that iR3 has graciously given back to the community, and what teams do with it from there is all up to them.

So we might see robots that look and act like this one, but it won't be the same, and I think the overall competition will be better because of it.

Robot turned out great guys, thanks for all the hard work.

08-01-2013 17:04

miketwalker

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

The unveiling video is now live!

08-01-2013 17:48

DonRotolo

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

Outstanding effort guys, thank you!

08-01-2013 17:50

Dinoyan

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

Nice robot

08-01-2013 20:38

ttldomination

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

A couple of questions/requests?

(1) Mind sharing the angle of your shooter?
(2) I know that an earlier video revealed that upside down shots were about the same distance landing wise. Did you guys see similar goal accuracy as well?

- Sunny G.

08-01-2013 22:20

ToddF

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

Does your 4 wheel drivetrain work on carpet?

08-01-2013 22:57

Alex Cormier

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

Looks awesome guys. It was a honor to sponsor and send you graphics, shirts and a bunch of other stuff. Thanks for the videos and all!

08-01-2013 23:14

Calvin Hartley

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

good job!! I've enjoyed watching you do this. I have a feeling that this could turn into an annual event... hmm?

09-01-2013 00:03

PayneTrain

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

A lot of robots in Rebound Rumble looked the same and all performed the same tasks, but there were certain characteristics robots had irrelevant to the surface of the primary objective. Sure, 341 had a hooded shooter like a lot of other teams, but they also had a ridiculous center of gravity, excellent programming, and a really efficient drop down intake. The only major exception would be Bomb Squad, who built a catapult when everyone was building a shooter and they also had a drive train that could embarrass teams like mine.

This is a robot that could be carbon copied and probably significantly boost what will otherwise be a low average alliance regional qualification round match score, but there's plenty of room for improvement for the drive train (I believe 16 says it's the first, second, and third most important thing involved in being successful in competition), vision targeting and automation of parts of the loader and launcher, iteration of the loader/launcher combination to build something more compact or faster, playing with the gears on the shooter, playing with the gap on the shooter, a more advanced climbing mechanism that can attain more endgame points, articulating the shooter, and of course, anodizing it black for better performance.

And that's what my woefully under-qualified midnight brain came up with on the spot.

For what it's worth (which is next to nothing), I encourage any team unsure of where to start to copy elements of this robot, but they should be pushing themselves to make the final product better than something built in 3 days.

Thank you for this community service, guys!

09-01-2013 13:18

lerikson

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

The games every year are starting to resemble past games, although the game and design committee is starting to be smart about it. Only using the past pieces of the games to help us enhance our engineering skills with the advancement of technology every year. For instance this year's climbing is similar to the part of the game "Breakaway" from the 2010 season. Only a select amount of students will remember or be around to notice that figuring FRC teams are made up of high school students who move on to college after 4 years. The ones who do remember or were around help the new kids with their designs in order to best fit the competition. I feel as if this is a very great idea. As soon as the game was revealed I had thought of two different shooting designs, one being the skeet shooter type release and the other being the exact shooter this robot here possess. This is a spectacular robot and I hope to get to see it in person very soon, however with these videos and designs going viral in the FRC community I believe teams will create designs in relation to this robot but will expand the ideas considering they have 6 weeks and didn't aim for 3 days. Good Luck, great bot, and hope everyone is having fun!

Have Questions, Comments, Video, or Pictures for the Blog?
Email them to USROBOTGURU@GMAIL.COM
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09-01-2013 18:25

Doug Leppard

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

Fantastic. A great robot in three days.

Now back in the 1902 days when we worked together, why didn't we have a robot in three days (a little jab here)? Man what the programming team and driving team could have done with 5 weeks.

Let this be a hint to the hardware teams. Deliver that robot early and give the software and driving team time with the robot. IR3 has proven it can be done.

Again fantastic job.

09-01-2013 20:26

Trez

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

Does Robot In Three Days actually compete? I wondering because the people working on this are not high schoolers and it's in the rules that a high school student must drive in the competition. If not then the point of Robot In Three Days is to just educate and entertain?

09-01-2013 20:35

Nuttyman54

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

It will not compete in any official competitions, and is in fact not fully FIRST legal (they used the Canipede for their controller instead of the FRC mandated cRIO, among other things). You are correct, their purpose was to educate (and entertain along the way), and help teams understand what is possible in this year's game, understand a bit about the design and strategy process and help inspire all teams. I highly recommend you check out the full complement of YouTube videos, they explain their purpose, and provide a lot of great information.

10-01-2013 00:30

miketwalker

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

We've gone ahead and written a recap post documenting the build, pictures of various components, lessons learned, and tips for you guys going forward in your build season. Good luck, everyone!

10-01-2013 02:12

DampRobot

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

Completing a robot in 3 days is amazing, for any group of people. But do keep in mind that these were highly experienced mentors, who have a lot of a better sense of "what works" than the average group of high schoolers. Also, they had a shop with all of the right tools, and all the time they wanted (well, for three days). And they didn't need to worry about cost, or some FRC rules (bumpers, etc.)

This was an amazing, inspiring, and eye-opening project. Just don't expect this to be done in a similar amount of time by a group of less knowledgeable or well equipped people. A week, maybe, but not three days.

Please don't turn this into a "student built vs. mentor built" thread...

Oh, yeah, and I think Corry's right. This robot could easily become an alliance captain, at least at some regionals.

10-01-2013 02:41

Dan Richardson

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

It will work, but a 6 wheel with a drop center may work better, the channel has this feature built in to allow for that configuration. The idea was to swap to mechanums and show the difference in performance. Along the way we ran into a few problems.

First we did not have all the hubs we needed to mount the mechanums or it would have needed spacers to use to the FlexHub Flanges. Second, on test day we found out our game pad was busted and we had to drive the robot missing the second Y axis. This took some remapping of our brains to get it oriented, Mechanum would have been even more difficult.

Another option would be the kit chasis or the kitbot on steroids. Both great setups.

Our advice? Get a reliable drive completed and out of the way and then focus on your gameplay.

10-01-2013 11:37

Teamcodeorange

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

Fantastic! Thanks for doing this, I am sure it has given hope to many teams.

10-01-2013 11:40

Jim Wilks

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

Great job!

An excellent resource to many teams.

10-01-2013 12:36

bradleyarg

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

well as long as it has motors attached and wired (which it does) yes... the carpet used is very thin (think school/industrial carpet) and its only real purpose it do keep the robot from scratching the floor

10-01-2013 13:26

Nuttyman54

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

By "work" I think he's referring more to the inability of a long wheelbase 4wd robot to turn on carpet. Any team that's ever had a 4wd robot drive great on their school's vinyl floors, only to get to competition and find that they can't turn well, if at all. A 6wd dropped center would fare much better, as Dan mentioned.

10-01-2013 14:59

splatter

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

Wow looks really good for 3 days !

11-01-2013 10:52

Nirnaeth

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

Quick question: Anyone know where to find the Modulox mounts for the Andymark PG71 motor? Or did you guys machine your own mount?

11-01-2013 18:11

Dan Richardson

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

The FlexHub Flanges and #25 Chain Sprocket are available on AndyMark now. The Modulox PG gearbox mounts should be available soon, they have stock so check back frequently for the product page is available.

The Modulox PG Mount will mount the entire PG series such as the PG 27 used on the Indexer, and PG 188 used on the winch.

16-01-2013 16:05

Dan Richardson

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

The PG Motor mounts are now available.

16-01-2013 17:09

jwallace15

Re: pic: Robot in 3 Days: Complete

Good job guys! It looks great!