Hello, everyone currently reading this! We are a university team from Las Vegas, NV (UNLV), and taking a course on how to do potential mentoring in the future. While this Build Guide isn’t the most descriptive piece of work out there, we hope it can spark some inspiration for others out there!
Our team is based on a custom 6WD (6-wheel drive), being made up of both kit-of-parts and custom parts.
Brainstorming Process and Pre-Game Strategy
Our team read over the game manual and tried to make sense of it.
Our first few assignments consisted of understanding the 2024 FRC Game Manuel and making notes of what is feasible to do in a 3-hour class (meeting per week). These notes would be adding limitations to what is possible in our kit (eliminating the option to score high points) to focusing on what game cubes to score on (cube or cone scoring). Our team of six people (which has been reduced to four now) made a collective effort to work on brainstorming and rule analysis.
Our reasoning leaned towards creating a single-stage elevator design with some sort of roller intake. The reasons for these decisions are as follows:
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A single-stage elevator design reduces the complexities of including a cascade and continuous system. Our intake would be in charge of moving (through a pulley system) while the elevator itself is stationary.
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This, however, eliminates the option to score high points.
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A roller design inspired by Team 9151: RoboLynx. We initially decided to roll in cones first, but we have decided to do both cones and cubes.
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Our focus shifted towards the weak points that we had in the team. This consisted of longer troubleshooting for electrical, slight bits of programming, and learning a new form of CAD (Onshape).
Prototyping Process and Outcomes with Dimensions
We decided to stick within the dimensions of 32 L x 27 W x 41 H (without the intake system going up/down + bumpers). Our robot contains two DOFs (up and down directions). The pulley system would be levered up or down through a gear chain system. The grey parts (two in total) shown in the image would have more stationary/rigid movement while the dark blue portion would move freely. The light blue portion on the left side would provide the most movement in the whole system. We have nothing moving side to side in terms of the intake system due to complexities.
We did consider the possibility of prototyping with a double, elevator system (taking inspiration from Team 7426: PAIR OF DICE ROBOTICS), but quickly realized that this would introduce more risk of error in how to properly balance the intake system’s weight. We were uncertain, at the time, in knowing how much the intake system would weigh and how much stress it would produce.
Overall Robot Architecture and Central Sketch Concept
The overall architecture of our system is to use an elevator design that uses a roller intake. The intake rotates about a point to pick up the game pieces while using rotation movement to store the pieces while transporting the game scoring center. We are still in development of where the game pieces will be stored in our robot. The drive system is also in the works, most likely heading in the direction of consisting of two bands meeting in the middle (one towards the front and the other towards the back) and being run through a gear system by the motors. More information will be provided in the next section.
Robot Design, Assembly Details, and Part Management Process
Robot Design
As of now, the robot consists of three main systems (all separated in its individual Onshape files). These subsystems are Drive, Elevator, and Intake.
Assembly Details
As of 10/13, we have just received our main drive components consisting of the side rails around the base of the drivetrain, unfortunately with the need of looking for screws and bolts to assemble the acquired pieces. In the meanwhile a circuit and wiring is what we have accomplished at the moment. Although without the belly pan the wiring cannot be fully completed.
Part Management Process
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This process entails a multi-step procedure. After creating the individual parts, they were assigned a part number and put into the organizer.
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After the identification, an engineering drawing was created.
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The part and drawing were given to the fabrication team and put into the management system with links to the perspective categories
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After the system has the desired part, it is shown the status of readiness of the part.
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Assembly of the pieces were then added to the robot for assembly.