05-02-2017 22:45

Lil' Lavery

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

Love the gear intake/delivery mechanism.

05-02-2017 22:49

D_Price

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

Looks good. Nice and low design. Any hopper going to be implemented later?

05-02-2017 22:53

Sperkowsky

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

looks like a solid gear robot.

05-02-2017 23:02

BotDesigner

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

I am having trouble understanding how the gear intake is supposed to work. I am really happy to see how teams are specializing this year. It should make things interesting.

05-02-2017 23:09

rcmolloy

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

EDIT: See billfred's post below.

05-02-2017 23:12

Billfred

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

I'm not them, but I imagine there's something underneath the chute to let them kick the gear up from the floor intake into that pocket for scoring.

I know of a few gear robots out there, but this is the first one I've seen in any assembled form. I like what I see!

05-02-2017 23:24

Lil' Lavery

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

That's not a floor intake, it's a climber.

05-02-2017 23:26

Jcarbon

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

The gear holder at the front actuates backward to line up with the bottom end of the ramp. The gear drops from the chute down the ramp and into the holder, which then actuates forward to place the gear. Once on the peg, the pilot lifts the gear out of the robot.

Our strategy this year was to build a simple, reliable, fast gear robot and get plenty of driver practice for speed. There is no floor intake, for mechanical simplicity and because we're betting we don't need one.

05-02-2017 23:29

TheNerdJedi

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

I can see this being a very successful robot, two weeks left for tons of practice for those drivers!

05-02-2017 23:36

Basel A

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

In a word, no.

05-02-2017 23:51

Helium_1s2

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

Hey! That's my shoe!

05-02-2017 23:58

Lil' Lavery

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

edit- delete.

06-02-2017 00:12

cbale2000

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

Is that roller legal? It looks like it extends outside the frame perimeter to me (which wouldn't be a problem after the match starts, but it has to start inside the frame before the match).

06-02-2017 00:18

HannahF

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

Looking good!! I am glad to see that we (433) are not the only team going with a "load from one side place from the other side" gear specialist strategy. Best of Luck at your competitions.

~Hannah

06-02-2017 00:20

Basel A

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

No way, which one??

Good eye. Yeah, it'll be rectified through some combination of moving the spool back a bit and removing some material from the spool such that in one position, it's within the frame perimeter (and we'll start each match with the spool in that position). Even as it is on the practise bot, I'd call it a minor protrusion no greater than 1/4 in, but I'm not sure how many inspectors would agree.

06-02-2017 00:20

JB987

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

Looks like pliable roller 'fingers' can be pulled into the frame perimeter before start of match so should be legal.

06-02-2017 04:04

GeeTwo

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

Nice - similar to our robot in general delivery, but we're not that far along, and we're leaving space for a floor pickup; our "gear holder" goes far enough back to accept a gear coming up from the floor, and tilts farther forward to push the gear onto the peg for a more secure position.

06-02-2017 09:41

Chris is me

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

I love this robot. It stays simple but should be very effective at what it's attempting to accomplish, and plus you finished super early so you have plenty of practice time. This is the robot a lot of FRC should have built, and they will be kicking themselves for not having gone in this direction.

06-02-2017 09:48

Hgree56

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

Team 4272 is also going with a similar design of Gear loading and Gear manipulator on the other side. It seems like the most simple, yet efficient method.

Good Luck!!

06-02-2017 10:41

Basel A

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

It's interesting strategically, and we had many discussions about it. One bonus is that you can tweak your gear receiver without affecting your gear placer. The bigger point is that we think it'll skim time off our cycles because of the driving path. If you're one-sided, the best choice is to do a stop-and-go near the lift, which is very susceptible to defense. In this case, you do a sharp turn to line up with the nearest lift, or not so sharp and go to an alternative lift (altogether, should hold up better under defense).

It's funny, I feel like up to this point last season, we accomplished a similar amount of work. But we tried to do too much, and so we were nowhere. I'm feeling good about this year. Don't get me wrong, we're not nearly finished, so many tweaks to make and still a whole comp bot to build, but I'm just happy to have time for tweaking, testing, and practising.

06-02-2017 12:21

snekiam

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

As a member of the controls team on 3322, I am extremely excited to have a bot to test with at this point in the season. Gives us plenty of time to test automating driver actions.

06-02-2017 12:59

messer5740

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

So why makes this design more efficient than a "cereal box" type of gear manipulator where the gear can be "stabbed" by the spring and barb and pulled up by the pilot?

Just playing devil's advocate here

06-02-2017 13:02

pmattin5459

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

You load from one side and drop off from the other side. As others have said in this thread, this makes you less susceptible to defense, as you don't have to stop and turn around to place your gear after running it across the field.

06-02-2017 13:02

Chris is me

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

You don't have to wait for the human player to finish fishing the gear out before your robot drives away. This shaves a few seconds per cycle, which really adds up.

The low angle of the human load collecting mechanism also makes the loading faster and more reliable than other mechanisms.

06-02-2017 13:09

PayneTrain

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

A lot of people still knee deep in their build are really mad at you/themselves.

Nice work.

06-02-2017 13:12

BotDesigner

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

...
I didn't realize how incredible of a design/strategy this is at first. You guys will have some of the most practiced drivers out there, which should do far more for you than any gear ground pickup, actuated peg drop, or moving gear placer that have been touted as "completely necessary" for a gear placing strategy here on CD. And... you skipped the fuel completely, which means (assuming better alliances will be able to get all 4 rotors going) you will likely be playing a little defense come eliminations, but your drivers will be up for the job.

06-02-2017 13:15

Basel A

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

Actually, we don't release the gear onto the peg. "A few seconds" is a gross exaggeration. Our testing suggested that, if your pilot is ready, you save a fraction of a second at most. And our pilot will be ready.

This is a big question. Given the depth/quality of district events, I don't anticipate any district elimination alliances consistently getting all four rotors going. Because if they can, opposing alliances will play just enough defense that they can't.

06-02-2017 13:34

HannahF

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

This was our line of thinking as well. Cycle time is going to be king in this game. We wanted the drivers to have to turn around as little as possible to shave time off our cycle and to make it harder to defend against. We also wanted our intake to be as robust as possible so that it would accept gears no matter how the human player puts it down the chute or what sits between us and the chute. So following the natural telemetry of the chute seemed like a no brainer when designing our mechanisms.

I completely agree about feeling like building within our means was the right choice to go with. Our practice robot is about 90% done and comp bot is about 40% done and I don't think we have ever been this on schedule before.

06-02-2017 13:42

IKE

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

Kudos for the foresight to recognize the potential power of extra drive time vs. going after other objectives. This solution probably has the most "Bang for the Buck", and finishing early to get the stick time will make it incredibly effective.

06-02-2017 15:11

Chris is me

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

That's of course assuming your pilot is the one in the airship. With just two people up there, you can't always guarantee that. But especially in Michigan where there are so many talented teams that's probably less of an issue.

06-02-2017 15:26

messer5740

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

Hmm that may be true, but I can't really see how this design allows for the robot to deposit the gear on the spring and drive away without the pilot fishing it out...am I missing something?

06-02-2017 15:57

Jcarbon

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

Yes, you're correct. The pilot has to lift the gear out of the robot before the robot can drive away. We're confident that whatever time you could save by dropping it off without the pilot isn't worth the additional complexity.

06-02-2017 17:40

messer5740

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

Ok our team designed a passive gear deliverer system too, we are testing in a few days at a practice field...hopefully you are right about the less hassle! Do you think having a drivetrain that allows linear strafing would also save time when depositing?

06-02-2017 17:45

pmattin5459

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

Depends. Have you done linear strafing in the past? Are your drivers familiar with it? It isn't going to help much if your drivers aren't used to it, especially considering that opposing robots can push you sideways much more easily.

Edit: Also, your drivetrain should probably have been decided upon and built by this point. If it has not, take your kitbot and build a tank drive. Week 4 is not the time to make these sorts of decisions. Source: my team did mecanum last year, and had no idea what we were doing. If you do decide to go this path, send me a PM, because there's a few things you'll need to know.

06-02-2017 19:43

Jcarbon

Re: pic: 3322 First Design Iteration / Practise Bot

I suppose it could. We've had good results with our tank drive by turning right before getting to the airship and approaching the peg head on. As far as drivetrain decision making, the cycles to and from the peg are probably more important than placing - you need to be very fast maneuverable, and ready to deal with pushing.