Week 1 and 2 Update: We are up and running!
Business
We got some new sponsors! SendcutSend, an online laser cutting and waterjet cutting service was the latest company to support our program. We cold-emailed them about a potential offer regarding using their metal services this season and received this.
While on the topic of sponsors, here is our finalized list of sponsors (for now?) for the 2024 season. These are the list of companies that will be displayed on our website, t-shirts, and competition banners. We also described what the sponsor provided and how the money will be used.
InspireNC: Our parent organization, providing us with our tools and material resources
Argosy Foundation: Registration Sponsor, provided by FIRST North Carolina
GeneHaas Foundation: Money for FRC, FRC parts sponsor
Intuitive Foundation: Money for FRC, FRC parts sponsor
SMILE Camp: Shop Location, providing us with space to store our tools and meet regularly
Sheetz: Monetary Donation going toward general costs such as rent
IBM: Mentor-provided sponsor, going toward general costs
NordVPN: Non-Profit Discount, giving us free VPN and password manager applications
Limited Run Games: Transportation Sponsor, giving us their company van to take our robot and parts to in-state competitions.
Controls (Programming+Electrical)
The Controls team had 3 main objectives for the 23-24 Season:
- Use PhotonVision and AprilTags
- Educate new programming members on Command-Based Programming in C++
- Implement our Autonomous Mode using PathPlanner
Teaching New Members
One of the biggest challenges we had heading into this season was teaching interested rookies programming. With more than 10 new interested programmers, we started them off with the WPIlb documentation, walking them step-by-step through the basics of C++ and Electrical Hardware. Over the past two weeks, the rookies have worked on building a Kit of Parts chassis and programming it to move. While this chassis will not be used for actual competition, it was a hands-on way for them to experiment and learn.
One of the most significant objectives for our Controls team this year was to implement our code using PathPlanner correctly. This would be our first time implementing this software, and we started before using the software by going through our possible plans for autonomous in the upcoming season. Given that we spent over 4 hours on one day discussing, we got a bit hungry….and decided to name all our Autonomous Ideas based on the food we wanted at the moment 
Week 1 Ideas
Idea 1: Diagonal Amp+ Rotate+Pickup/Shoot Wingstop (2-7 Points)
- Mobility Achieved
- Amp 1 (working toward Amplification/Coopertition)
- Alignment on point for amp score
- Not enough time for shoot potentially
- Option for top Alliance
Idea 2: Center of speaker, 3 piece speaker (Taco Bell) (17 Points)
- Mobility Achieved
- Potentially not getting third piece scored
- Far from human player station
- Really good for week 1
Idea 3: Center of Speaker 2.5 Piece (Chicken Tender) (12 Points)
- Preloaded game piece
- close to human player station
- unlikely to collide with other robots
Over week 3 and week 4, we hope to establish 1 consistent autonomous and 2 somewhat reliable autonomous modes before testing on the robot for most of February. Given the relatively low level of independent score that is average in North Carolina in week 1 competitions, we focused on 1 high scoring autonomous mode in Taco Bell, one standard auton that maximizes cycle time in Chicken Tender, and an independent that is not the highest score but the best for ranking points and amplification in Wingstop.
A Quick Simulation
Mechanical
West-Coast Chassis
2024 is our second season of implementing a custom West Coast tank drive. In 2023, we learned a lot about the strength and endurance of rivets and gussets (specifically their bending due to stress), and this year, we tried implementing something new using REV MaxTube and REV Endcaps. While MaxTube and Endcaps are commonly used by teams who use Swerve, we took this as a sign of success regarding their long-term usage at the highest level.
Our finalized Chassis Dimensions are 28’’x30’’ without bumpers! We chose this chassis size so that any mechanisms we could build would be modular and transferred to the KitofParts Chassis in case of failure during build season or competition.
Design Talk
To get all of our members to collaborate and feel comfortable sharing their ideas, we decided to split up individually and make members share ideas on a slideshow. This would then be presented to mentors and other members the following Saturday meeting. We also encouraged members to post their thoughts from Ri3D designs. This led us to some interesting conclusions in terms of this approach.
Pros
- Gets Parents and Students involved in the game design process
- Keeps Ideas fresh and open to all
- Allows the visualization of possible ideas in drawing/CAD form
- Allows for the simplification of designs/elimination for overcomplicated ideas.
Cons
- Newer Members might be more nervous to share ideas in terms of criticism
- Short time span to think of a idea
- Heavily Ri3D-based designs (Good or bad, depending on how you look at it)
In terms of the actual design ideas that were proposed, the slideshow that our members made has been attached.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1lCmRZu3VaVj2D0DOQYOtcWh05hW0RKfSQQk0YZxjS4I/edit?usp=sharing
Feel free to ask questions about designs!
Favorite Ri3D Designs
These are some of our favorite robot in 3-days designs that influenced our thought process heading into the season.
During the past two weeks, while our design was being tested, we also prototyped different shooter options, including flywheels and stealth wheels, side-by-side and top-down.
We started by discussing possible ways to intake the game piece.
We then attached some motors and tried this version of the ground intake:
From this, we identified the main shortcomings: we needed to increase the intake angle between the top and bottom wheels. We also determined that compliance wheels were grippy enough to intake the game piece and keep it inside the mechanism to shoot.
We also tried several shooter concepts and determined that a top-down shooter was much better than a side-by-side shooter due to more area being covered over a more significant duration and the increased compression that it provided.
Our Robot Design will be released this weekend; until then, here’s a little teaser.
Awards
This was something that we didn’t mention in our previous open alliance update but 6908 is making steady progress towards our first ever FIRST Impact Award Submission. Our planning for this award starting way back as far as November. We initially started by working on the short answer questions, drawing heavy inspiration in terms of format from the Robolancer’s content from 2023. We also used FRC 1903’s award formatting content. After the Impact Award Submission deadline, we will send out a comprehensive list of resources that we used and drew inspiration from.
By the start of the season, we had finished most of our Impact Award Responses in terms of the supporting documentation, long essay, and short essay questions. We focused these on three main aspects regarding Infuzed.
-
Inspiration Initative
-
Umbrella Name for all of InspireNC (Our Parent Non-Profit) and Infuzed’s outreach focused on STEAM education
-
Diverse Outreach
-
As part of the Inspiration Initative, Infuzed focuses on a wide variety of outreach opportunities including our past experience at Artists Alley (Covered in the last off season post) and upcoming events at the NC STEM Expo in April, promoting the values of FIRST
-
Student-Led
-
Infuzed prides itself on being a student-led team in both good and bad times. This allows members to be involved outside of just the robotics team and into our parent non-profit. Ultimately, we (the teens) make all the decisions from what competitions we are going to, to what our finalized shirt design will be. (Possible Release next week???)
A few takeaways from our work so far on the Impact Award.
-
Good Way to let members read about team history
-
We gained a lot of new members with fresh ideas but not a lot of background knowledge regarding the team this year. The Impact Award turned out to be a really useful way for these rookies to learn about our vision and impact in the community!
-
Starting early is Key
Since the start of build season, we have had less time to work on background organizational activities and awards as well. Starting early (like wayyyyyyyyyyy early- we started planning in October) made the deadlines not seem nearly as threatening even though we are less then a month away.
-
Treat it as a way to learn about team shortcomings
-
We really learned a lot about ways Infuzed could improve in terms of our outreach and business activities this year. Given that this was our year working toward Impact with a fleshed out schedule, there was a lot of reflection in terms of goals for upcoming years and the types of opportunities we should target.
This week, we started working on the Impact Video and presentation.
General Stuff 
Starting from next week, we will be posting on a bi-weekly basis that lets us not only update more regularly but also lets our own team see progress.
Our goals for the next week are to:
- Finish Custom Chassis
- Set up note recognition using Limelight
- Run a basic autonomous mode on PathPlanner
- Order mid-build season parts list
Snack of the week:
- Basically the food that runs out the fastest at our workspace
- This will be logged throughout the season
| Date |
Snack |
Time to Empty |
| Week 1 |
Costco Cookies (24 Count) |
3 Hours |
| Week 2 |
Costco Hard Cookies (24 Count) |
1.5 Hours |
Also a quick timelapse to finish off the week!
