7576 FMWill | 2024 Build Thread

[Yigit]

7576 FMWill | 2024 Build Thread

Welcome to FMWill’s First Ever Build Thread! We are very excited to be sharing our progress on Chiefdelphi this year.
I am Yigit, the Programming Lead of the team. This thread will be managed by me and Kaan @kbeldag this year. He’s the Captain of the Mechanical and CAD subteams of the team. (also the driver)

Team Info

We are a school-based FRC Team located in Istanbul, Turkey. Our team was founded in March 2018 by three pioneers and has grown a lot since then. Crescendo is going to be our 6th official season.
We’ll try to share as much as we can as we go through this season with its ups and downs.

We should mention that we are not exactly a very experienced team and we consist almost entirely of students. Which is why you might know a lot better than we do on how we do some stuff. In that case, you should know that we appreciate all kinds of feedback! (Which is mainly why we’re doing this, anyway)

Our Links:

• Instagram
• YouTube
• GitHub
• TBA
• Spotify Podcast

Competitions

This season we will be participating in 2 regional events(hopefully).

• Bosphorus Regional - Week 2
• Marmara Regional - Week 4

Season Goals

• We hope to qualify for champs this year
• We want all team members to be more involved during the build season this year

[Yigit]

Kick-Off

We attended the kick-off event held by Team 5993, IRS. It was a fun and productive event, consisting of many workshops for everyone to learn the basics. We’d like to thank them for their hospitality and organization.

Our First-Thoughts

We believe this is going to be a very competitive season, and definitely a season we’re going to enjoy participating in! We were rather surprised to see the human players having a bigger impact on scoring–as everyone else was-- (everyone in the event started cheering and gasping when that section of the game animation came up)

It was around midnight when we all reached our homes, but we quickly gathered in our discord server to discuss the game and come up with basic strategies. Nothing big came out of it, as it was very late.

Game Rules

As there were many changes to the game rules this year, we quickly started reading through the game manual and finding out what had changed. We then discovered Team 1678’s game rule test and made sure we knew every rule in it before moving on to discussing any strategy. We’d like to thank them for sharing it publicly, as we’re also going to use it to test the rest of our members with it at our next meeting.

Design and Strategy Ideas

After a day of scouting other teams (lots of scrolling on chiefdelphi) ,watching Ri3d content, and reading the Game Manual to the point of memorizing it, we came up with some requirements for our robot design.

• Our robot should be shorter than 72 cm, to be able to go under the chains
• The chassis should be smaller than 70x70cm, preferably around 65x65 for harmony points and mobility.
• Scoring in the AMP is harder than expected
• TRAP is a trap, no point in going for it for us, as it doesn’t even guarantee a RP if none of our alliance partners can climb
• Buddy Climb would be very difficult but definitely very worth it this year due to the ENSEMBLE RP threshold being 10 ONSTAGE points and 2 ONSTAGE robots. We presume it’s going to be very difficult to get the Ensemble RP in Turkish regional events, as many teams are coming to the competitions with not much experience and often with smaller robots. A Buddy Climb would be a HUGE advantage with that extra rp, and easier to achieve. ( I couldn’t convince Kaan yet though BUDDY CLIMB PLSPLSPLSPLS @Kbeldag )

[Yigit]

Week 1 Recap

Prototyping (?)

Due to unfortunate circumstances ( we don’t have any wheels) we couldn’t prototype much, except for uhh, this thing?

Which is why we pretty much rely on other teams’ prototypes and tests, so a huge thanks to everyone providing valuable resources here on CD!

CAD

So first off, we are aiming to finish CAD by this weekend because manufacturing is likely going to be a problematic process and take a long time for us.

We decided we wanted a simple system that could score in the amp reliably, and shoot in the speaker accurately from the podium.

Climb

As we don’t have access to any COTS telescoping climbing parts (like the TTB Tube Kit) and we don’t have much experience manufacturing it ourselves, we decided to have a separate climbing mechanism, probably with hooks attached to the top of an elevator.

Intake

We were discussing the pros and cons of UTB and OTB intakes, but the moment we saw 95’s UTB intake, we loved it, mainly because it solved the problem of a UTB intake not being wide enough while being protected thanks to the bumpers. We then started CADding the drivetrain. We decided on a 63x76.8 cm chassis (24.8" x 30.2") with the SDS MK4 swerve modules being 63x63, and the intake adding an extra 13.8 cm (5.5") to the front.

Shooter

We kept scouting what other teams came up with on CD, and we really liked these 2 designs from 3847 Spectrum and 1155 the Sciborgs.

1155’s design

• UTB intake, shooter mounted on a single joint arm, with an added fixed angle (around 15 degrees) for AMP scoring

3847’s design

• Separate mechanism to score into the amp, mounted on an elevator. Feeder/shooter on a pivot to shoot into the speaker and to the amp mechanism.

we then took inspiration from 4481’s Attribute weighted scoring and rated these 2 mechanisms in 5 categories, with weightings based on our team’s capabilities. The 1155 design was a clear winner, so we decided on it and started CADing it.

What we have so far

Amp scoring

Shooting into the speaker

That’s it for week one!

[Kbeldag]

Intake Update

This is the first Cad update for the intake.

@Yigit

We were discussing the pros and cons of UTB and OTB intakes, but the moment we saw 95’s UTB intake, we loved it, mainly because it solved the problem of a UTB intake not being wide enough while being protected thanks to the bumpers.

Side View

Front View

[Yigit]

Cad Update (Final) (Sort of)

After an 8-day break, we’re updating this post to let you know that we have almost finished our CAD! We are already 3 days behind schedule, but hopefully, we’ll build it in time.
Let’s start by breaking down each mechanism.

Intake

We have finalized on a Team 95 Style UTB Intake, featuring 2 rollers using 2-inch diameter WCP flex wheels, with 0.5 inch of compression (inspired by Team 3255).

The 4 rollers above are made out of polycarb and will be covered with grip-tape. We couldn’t get cat-tongue grip tape unfortunately as it was out of our budget, so we got a Chinese knock-off from Aliexpress(let’s pray it works)

To center the notes while intaking, we decided to add 3d printed diverters on each side of the intake. We haven’t added them to the CAD yet, but we are thinking of something like what team 3847 is using.

All 6 rollers will be powered by a single NEO motor geared down 1:1.6 .

Dead-axle Arm Pivot

This year we(@Kbeldag ) have decided to design a dead-axle arm pivot after building a live-axle hex arm last year(it did not go well)

This design is very obviously inspired by 2910’s 2023 arm. Huge shoutout to them!
The arm will be powered by a single NEO motor with a total of 1:197.82 reduction. We might end up adding a second motor if one doesn’t suffice, however from our calculations 1 motor should be fast enough.

Shooter (and Indexer)

This design features a top and bottom roller shooter, with 0.5 inch of vertical compression and 2 inches of horizontal compression.
It is heavily inspired by Team 111’s and Team 3255’s shooters.
The bottom plate will be made out of HDPE, we initially thought of making it out of polycarb but after some research on CD we decided HDPE would be better as it is more slippery.

We will be using 8 stealth wheels, 4 being blue and 4 being orange. The shooter will be powered by 2 NEO motors, geared up 1:1.6 . The indexer will be powered by a separate NEO motor.

Amp Scoring

Speaker Shooting

Climber

We will be using 2 telescopic climbers with a Team 4481 style hook attached to them. They will be powered separately using 2 NEO motors geared down 1:16. We initially wanted to climb using an elevator, but we decided it would add too much unnecessary weight to the robot and decided to challenge ourselves by building telescopic climbers, as it will be our first time building them.

That’s it for today’s update, let us know if you have any feedback or questions!

[JamesCH95]

Looking sharp!

[karadagahmetkutlu]

What will be the material of the hanger hook? And will the single plate hook be durable enough?

[Kbeldag]

It will be 2 3mm sheet metal each telescopic mechanism.

[Yigit]

@karadagahmetkutlu

And will the single plate hook be durable enough?

After our initial testings, if we realize it’s not durable enough, we might rebuild it thicker to make it more durable

[karadagahmetkutlu]

Your robot looks quite nice. I wish you good luck in the build process.

[erenorhun]

Great robot, i wish you a good building process and season.

@Yigit

1:197.82 reduction.

How did you calculate this reduction. its very spesific

[Yigit]

@erenorhun

Great robot, i wish you a good building process and season.

Thanks! Unfortunately it looks like we have picked different regionals this year, so we won’t get to compete together. We wish you a good season as well.

@erenorhun

How did you calculate this reduction. its very spesific

Well, it first goes through a 1:64 gearbox, and then a 22:68 chain reduction. So the actual value is
1 / (1/64 * 22/68) which is approximately 197.82

[erenorhun]

Thank you, i really would like to see your robot competing in the field with my own eyes but i have to wait for off-season (or maybe champs, who knows)

[Yigit]

Manufacturing almost done, 24 days until Bosphorus

Wait… what?? 24?? That can’t be right…

Oh.
ANYWAY

It’s been 18 days since our last update, so I thought I might as well post our progress. Spoiler Alert: We might actually get a little bit of driver practice this season! Considering I had to code the robot the day before comp(literally) last season, this is a massive improvement.

Swerve Cleanup

We hadn’t touched our MK4 Swerve modules since our last off-season event, which was a bit… watery. Before anything else, we decided to completely disassemble them, clean them up with isopropyl alcohol, assemble them back together and replace their treads. We probably should’ve done this before kick-off, but as our school schedule is very busy we can’t spend much time in the shop before build season begins.

It took much longer than expected, due to several unforeseen issues. The main problem was that we had applied wayyy too much loctite on them, and it was extremely hard to remove it. However, after around 10 hours of cleaning, they’re as good as new! (Except for the screws, they’re very worn down, some of them even have corrosion so we had to order a new batch from the US, which cost us a bit due to shipping)

Painting

We have received the majority of our parts from our sponsors! The sheet metal parts were painted at our sponsor’s factory using powder coating, and we painted the aluminum parts using black and orange spray paint(following team 95’s guide) to fit our team’s colors.

What we have so far

We’ve finished building the chassis

and started assembling the shooter

We are waiting for our aluminum tube to arrive so that we can mount our shooter onto the robot.

it's obviously not gonna look like this but still

As for programming, the code for all the subsystems are ready and we have fully migrated our swerve code to utilize the YAGSL library. We just need to wait for the mechanical subteam to finish up so that we can tune the PIDs. And then we will move into programming the autons…

Also... team uniforms for the CRESCENDO season are ready!!

[erenorhun]

Looks absolutely beautiful. black painting on the profiles and parts make it look fantastic i cant wait to see your full robot and its performance in bosphorus regional. Also how did you convert your robot sketch into a transparent vector

[Yigit]

We exported the CAD file as .dxf and then used another program(I believe we used Adobe Illustrator) to convert the dxf into an SVG file. You can check the thread here for more information.

[keremkarakas]

@Yigit

That looks awesome waiting for complete build.

@Yigit

But careful on your chassis, it could be has a little problems for index. Have a good season. Good luck!

[Yigit]

Slight Oopsie With the Intake - 14 days until Bosphorus

We unfortunately haven’t finished building the robot completely, so I’m going to talk about some issues we’ve had this week with the intake and our progress so far:

Intake geometry issue

So, this is kind of funny… While designing our intake(it was literally the first thing we did this season), we decided on an intake and what dimensions we want it on and we just designed it with 2-inch wheels with 0.5 inches of compression and didn’t take a second look at it ever again, considering it done(very wise!). We realized a mistake after building it and after it (shockingly) couldn’t intake any notes.

@Kbeldag

@Yigit

The mistake we have made is that we don’t just have half an inch of compression in-between the wheels, but also a 1/2 inch compression in-between the top wheels and the floor This was entirely due to a misunderstanding between me and @Kbeldag , and then also our fault again for not double-checking it.The top roller was not supposed to touch the note at all until the bottom roller touched it first.

The problem is even if we were to redesign the intake side plates, they would take at least 2 weeks to be manufactured at our CNC sponsor. What we quickly came up with was just remove the top roller entirely, and try intake notes solely using the bottom roller. Thankfully it worked, albeit not perfectly. We’ll just leave it as is for now, but it will be redesigned before Marmara Regional. As for the polycarb rollers, they will be covered in grip tape, but we realized even that might not be necessary, as it can be seen below.

This is after we removed the top roller of the intake.

The arm!!!

We’ve also completely finished building the arm, so right now we just need to wait until our 1/2 hex shafts arrive before we build the shooter. The arm is very rigid and has little to no backlash, which makes it very easy to control. We are using onboard pid on sparkmax combined with an armfeedforward to control it, we will post videos of it this Sunday, but have this picture for now!

also.. if you want to know what NOT to do while welding poly cord check this out

(it didn’t work)
(for safety reasons we did have an extinguisher very nearby don’t worry)