Electric Mayhem White 12737 2024-25 Build Thread

[njj2026]

Welcome to the build thread for 12737 Electric Mayhem White’s Into The Deep season!

General Info:
For some general information, our team is primarily focused on the development of our members, being the traditional “jv” team, while our sister team, 12736 Electric Mayhem Green, is the traditional “varsity team”. We have 17 members, some with more experience than others, but our goal is to, by the end of the season, have the members of our team be at the level where they can move to our sister team
Our team started in 2017 as a school based team in Buffalo, NY, with our first game being Relic Recovery in 2018.
This team specifically is one of our school’s 6 FIRST teams: 3 FLL teams made of middle schoolers, 2 FTC teams with a combination of middle and high schoolers, and 1 FRC team built out of only highschoolers

FTC Open Alliance:
As members of FTC Open Alliance, weekly updates about our team will be posted to this build thread.

[njj2026]

Last weekend, we as a team participated in the 30 hour challenge. This was hosted by Green team, but many of our members came along, and in total, the challenge was a success for us.
The following update will discuss primarily our strategy and design

Strategy:
As a group, both Green and White team, after looking at the qualification rules, agreed that we should try our best to compliment each other, as this year, the first pick of the winning alliance qualifies alongside the winning captain and 1st place inspire. As the early brainstorming started, we converged on two main strategies, either focusing on sample scoring or specimen scoring. However, after some consideration, we decided that it would not be too difficult of an ask to try to do both tasks

Design:
After the challenge, this was the final version of our CAD:

Diving into the drivetrain first (pun intended), we decided that we would use a kiwi drivetrain. We decided this because it would keep all the wheels on the ground, and it gives us an extra available motor slot to use elsewhere.

For the manipulator, our inital design was to use a GoBilda viper slide with a 3D print attached to it. This was so that we could score both samples, as we could use the full extended length of the viper slides, and specimen, as we could simply not extend all the way.

And the last major part of the design, the climbers. While not fully imagined in CAD, our initial idea was to use a combination of two viper slides to ladder climb up to level 3. The reaspm we need to ladder climb is because the rules specifically state that if you plan on doing a level 3 ascent, then you cannot be touching the ground while you are touching the top beam. We were basing our design primarily off of Green team’s prototyping, as it would give us more time to prototype our main robot.

That’s it for the 30 hour update. Expect weekly updates coming from myself and the co-captain Austin.

[DjDog56]

9/14/2024, One week into the FTC season
Strategy:
Both us and our sister team decided on having complementing strategies, so Green team is doing a specimen strategy while we do a sample based strategy. We are planning on scoring 3 samples in auto and then cycle the high basket during tele OP and then doing a level 3 climb in end game.

Design:
Our drive train is going to stay the same as the one we thought of during 30 hours, which is a kiwi drive train.

For the manipulator, we are making big changes from 30 hours. We are now going to do a internal hand off. We will have an extending arm to grab samples from the submersion zone, that will deliver samples to a passive bucket that will dump samples into the basket. We are experimenting with REV T-slots because viper slides are heavy and slow. With REV T-slots we are hoping for faster extend and retract speeds.

With the climbers on the robot we are still with our initial idea of 2 viper slides because of the strength of the slides with them being able to reliably lift ourselves up.

[njj2026]

Week 2 after kickoff:
Strategy:
So far, after last week’s discovery with the internal hand off for sample scoring, our strategy has not changed.

Design:
This week, we primarily focused on skill building and development for our newer members, but on the side, we begun work on our foam model.

Our plan for the foam models is a 2 sided strategy. First, it gives us an opportunity to check if our geometry is viable, and if we can fit in the 18x18x18 sizing cube, and second, it allows us to easily divide the CAD work among our members, as we can simply write on the foam who is going to make what

[DjDog56]

Design:
This week, we focused on finishing our foam model as we are waiting for parts to come in from the mail.

We will have 2 slide systems. The first set is to go into the submersible and retrieve samples. The second set will go up and drop the samples into the bucket along with climbing. We are still experimenting with how to do the ladder climb.

[njj2026]

Week 5 update:

Design:

Big design updates this week.

First of all, we finalized our design for our robot. For the climb, which was a point of difficulty for us, we plan on doing a similar first half to our sister team. We climb up to the first rung, then latch on with another set of hooks. But the second rung is where we divert. We plan on reviving an older climb design from last year. In the design below, we hook onto the second run by extending after we reach the first climb, then hooking on with the hooks you see, and then pulling a winch to have the hooks most likely coming of magnets or velcro in order to fully reach the level 3 ascent

More, we have begun work on the CAD, with the basic drivetrain being done, that being a kiwi plate with motors and spacers. Its basic, but it is simply a starting point for when we fully distribute work.

More updates to come

[DjDog56]

Week 6 update

Design:

This week we have made massive advancements to our CAD from last week. We were able to turn a majority of our foam model into CAD.

This is all the progress we have made in the CAD this week. We first were able to get the full drivetrain into the CAD model. Then we were able to put our electronics into the CAD by putting them on the right side of the upper cookie. We also were able to finish our passive dumper that we will be using to deliver out samples into the baskets.

Along with this we also made changes to our intake. The biggest change we made is that we are using a Swift Slide instead of a Viper Slide. This change should make our intake faster. Along with this we are also going to have the hand on our intake rotate so that it can deliver the sample into the outtake

The hand will be connected to the swift slide through a L bracket and there will be a servo that is mounted on that L bracket. Then the rest of the hand will be connected to that servo, so that it can rotate.