Kickoff
Kickoff today went great! We arrived at our shop at 10:30 AM and went to the Great Lakes Science Center to watch the CRESCENDO kickoff with other local teams.
Once we got back to our shop, we spent a few hours brainstorming and sharing ideas. Below are a few that I spoke to my team members about. Please note the ideas below are just that, we have not yet tested them, but we are likely to try a lot of them and more this week.
“The Firepoker”
This is an idea for a mechanism that can load NOTES into the robot from the SOURCE and score them in the AMP. The idea is that it is a rotating arm that can collect NOTES from the SOURCE by sliding them onto a stick of sorts, and when scoring, the robot will drive into the AMP to place the NOTE inside of it, and then will lower the stick down to release the NOTE into it. We also want to try to see if we can also use it to double as a mechanism for scoring NOTEs on the STAGE or climbing onto it.
Flywheel NOTE Launcher
This second idea is for a mechanism capable of intaking from the floor or the SOURCE and launching NOTEs into both the SPEAKER and the AMP. The plan for this is that it will be able to either pivot down to intake NOTEs from the ground or pivot up to catch NOTEs from the SOURCE. Then the driver can then either choose to launch it into the SPEAKER or the AMP.
While brainstorming this, we learned through the highly scientific method of throwing the NOTE really hard and fast that if it hits a wall at a fast enough speed, it will go flat against the wall and fall straight down, allowing us to launch the NOTE into the AMP without needing any sort of placing mechanism as long as we can actually launch the NOTE at a fast enough speed. We still need to test the effectiveness of this strategy with an actual AMP or close substitute, but so far it seems highly useful.
Wrist Idea
This third idea is for a mechanism that can pick up NOTEs from the ground and pass them off to some sort of undecided scoring mechanism. It consists of a pivoting arm with 2 degrees of freedom that can pivot to the ground to pick up NOTEs using a wrist mechanism, comprising two additional pivoting arms that can open and close. Each arm has two compliant wheels, enabling them to effectively grasp and secure the NOTEs. Once a NOTE is picked up, the arm pivots backward to deliver it to the scoring mechanism.
The mechanism itself takes inspiration from this subsystem from our 2019 robot.
Bowling Method
It was also discovered that the NOTE might be able to roll up the wall into the speaker to score, as seen in this video.
Mascot Wings Redesign
In addition to all the robotics going on, we also have a group of team members working on upgrading our mascot suit to be more user-friendly and robust. Currently, our mascot has wings that can extend outwards and retract which works very well so far. First on the to-do list is making a stand and wall mount for the wings to ease the process of working on them and storing them followed by making the wings less prone to being damaged, making the wings easier to open and close, making it easier to transport, and redesigning the current look of the wings to look more like our team logo.
Rest of Build Season
Our goal is to post as much as possible these first few weeks and post at least once or twice every week for our build season.