Off-Season and Pre-Season
Mechanics
Before kick-off our team looked through previous years games and had predictions about Crescendo 2024 game. In order to get ready for the season we built up robot parts and subsystems that can be helpful in the season. Our mechanics crew divided into 4 groups to work on 4 subsystems:
1-Quick-Release Bumper Mechanism
2-Cycloidal gearbox
3-Four bar intake
4-Adjustable Shooter Prototype
Groups worked on their projects for 6 weeks and presented their products to other team members.
After the kick-off we got our kit and our mechanics crew divided into groups to increase our work efficiency for the season and make a rapid start. Groups started working immediately after reading the necessary parts in the manual. Groups were specialized in their working areas are as follows:
1-Inventory
2-Bumper
3-Robot car
4-Playfield
5-Robot
A last group of our experienced members started the draw the first CAD models of our robot after making huge brainstorms and long meetings. Cartesian robotics is proud to present the first model just 10 days after the kick-off.
We will share a directory for our CAD this week once it is organized.
Electronics
Our electronics department is responsible for the wiring of the robot and developing custom circuit boards when needed. We use EAGLE EDA for designing circuit boards.
In the off-season, we worked on circuit theory and custom circuit boards other than FRC electronics and wiring. Our new team members learned how to analyze simple circuits and design custom circuit boards in EAGLE EDA.
They designed a motor controller circuit that uses the 555 timer IC to create a PWM signal to control the motor through a BJT.
Programming
Our summer journey began with the introduction meeting on June 29. The programming team was subdivided into 3 groups: Web Development, Vision-AI, and ROBOgramming (robot programming). Team Captains gave different tasks to each group to practice their programming skills. The team had a regular meeting, where team captains checked the development of the members and the given tasks every week. For ROBOgramming, our team provided materials about Java for those who do not know or those who want to improve their skills. On the way, we created drive files to store every data and program and made them easily accessible.
On August 8, we brainstormed for project ideas. Groups of 3 to 4 people focused on their projects. We have PRogramming projects like Cartesian Wiki for documentation of team members’ knowledge, FRC Meeting Application for easy communication and meeting of the teams, FRC API for scouting during competitions, and AI Sign Language to easily communicate with the hearing impaired.
Experienced members introduced the electronic components of a robot to ROBOgramming members and downloaded the required apps(WPILib, Game Tools) to program a robot. After downloading WPILib, members learned about the basics of WPILib and Command Based Programming. Members programmed a drivetrain and started to work on PID. With some practice and the help of experienced programmers, we learned how to write autonomous codes and create trajectories.
In the summer, our team worked hard, meeting regularly every week and we made significant progress. On September 12, the school began.
During the following months, we worked on swerve, which our team is trying out for the first time this year. We started with driving the robot in tele-op mode and moved our way up to autonomous. With thankfully very few errors, we were able to successfully program a swerve drivetrain. We later integrated limelight and position tracking. Currently, the swerve can follow AprilTags no matter their orientation, motion, or position.
We now put ROBOgramming on hold for the new robot to be assembled, and are focusing on PRogramming projects.
And here is our long awaited GitHub Link:
