Team 1787 The Flying Circuits is excited to be joining the Open Alliance for the 2024 FRC season! We are a team based out of Orange High School in Pepper Pike, OH.
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Our goal for this thread is to have weekly (or more) updates about what’s going on with our team during both the offseason and build season!
If anybody has questions for us, feel free to ask!
Our offseason has been quite eventful this year, we had programming lessons over the summer for interested members and designed and built an offseason robot.
Using the drive base of our planned offseason robot, we had 4 members interested in programming write code for a swerve drive drivetrain from scratch with the assistance of one of our programming mentors. Existing members of the programming team also used this time to work on improving our vision processing knowledge as well as starting work on a new scouting system.
While the Summer Programming Team was working on writing swerve code, a small team worked on designing and prototyping a swerve robot that intakes and launches cubes using an arm that pivots back and forth. This robot project was our first time using OnShape to design a robot, so the organization is a bit messy but by doing this we have started to get a better understanding of how to use OnShape. Going forward, we plan to use OnShape for all of our robot CAD excluding CAM, for which we will continue to use Inventor until OnShape has CAM support.
We got the initial idea for the robot after seeing 1561’s 2023 robot and wanted to try our own take on a pivoting arm that functions both as an intake and shooter for cubes.
We went with a design similar to 1561’s due to the simplicity of the intake and shooting mechanism being the same subsystem that just pivots up and down, and because we did not want to use any pneumatics in our design, so a pivoting arm like that seemed perfect for us.
The robot was built on the frame used for our 2022 Offseason Robot Noodle.
One interesting thing we tried that was new for us was laser cutting 90-tooth birch pulleys for use with 15 mm wide HTD timing belts. We laser cut 3 for each pulley out of 1/8" thick birch plywood and bolted them together to make it wide enough for the 15 mm belts. The teeth held up quite well under the movement of the arm, even when the belts ended up slipping.
A few weeks ago we ordered 2 Bambu Lab X1 Carbon 3D Printers and have had some time to mess around with printing on them. We bought both printers in the combo package which has the Automatic Material System (AMS) included. We found the setup for the printers quite straightforward but had some issues getting their app Bambu Handy to work due to our school’s internet setup.
When it comes to actually printing, we found the normal PLA and carbon fiber reinforced PLA prints to come out extremely accurate, but we have noticed that when we print with their Carbon Fiber Reinforced High Temperature Nylon, the filament needed to be dried right out of its sealed packaging as it contained a super high amount of moisture. We have found it to be a good alternative to our MakerBot Method X using their Nylon 12 carbon fiber filament, with the difference in precision being very minimal.
Taking inspiration from Super Grippy 3D Printed TPU90A Tires for FIRST FRC, we have started prototyping and testing our own version of the wheels that can be printed on FDM printers. It is still a work in progress, however we expect to finish prototyping them soon.
In an attempt for our programmers to improve their understanding of image processing and computer vision in anticipation of the 2024 season, we have started work on custom vision software to localize the robot using AprilTags. While still a work in progress, the repository can be found here
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Today was our first day working after kickoff, we spent today brainstorming and starting to prototype.
We started work on a simple flywheel shooter prototype to see how the NOTEs launch in the air. The NOTE was under approximately 5 3/4" of compression and used Colson Performa wheels as flywheels, but due to the axles holding the wheels not being held rigidly, the results are all over the place. We will need to retry with better axle mounting, but the NOTEs seem to launch pretty well regardless of the accuracy.
The videos of the shooter in action can be found here.
We spent a lot of time debating if we should make an intake that is over the bumpers or under our robot, with many pros and cons for each side. While an under-the-robot intake would keep it more protected from impacts and be mechanically simpler, due to the distance between the first intaking wheel and the front of the bumper, which would be at least 4 inches, the intake isn’t very “touch it, own it” and due to the placement of swerve modules, we would need to have a smaller intaking area. The above bumper intake would make it “touch it, own it” and allow us to have a wider intake, but it would also be more mechanically complex and would need to be designed to be impact-resistant.
A solution we came up with would be to have an under-the-robot intake as previously proposed but also have a simple mechanism that is moved outside the bumper during the match to push the NOTEs under the bottom of the robot, just an axle that spins compliant wheels, solving the “touch it, own it” issue and increasing our possible intake width, while also allowing us to simply not deploy it if it breaks while still being able to intake NOTEs.
We laser cut out some cardboard to test just the under-the-robot intake, and we were able to get reliable intaking with AndyMark’s 2.25 in. HD Compliant Wheels compressing the NOTE about 1/2" against the ground. We were able to get the NOTE to then go up into the robot’s workspace by placing another compliant wheel that spun the opposite direction further back with about 2.73” of space between each wheel’s edge. We will be prototyping the over-the-bumper pusher to add to this intake tomorrow.
A video of the intake in action can be viewed here.
The Onshape document for the prototype’s CAD can be found here.
Intake prototype:
Drawings of the intake:
Today we also started work on building the field elements out of plywood. The team working on it was really fast, and made the entire AMP in 2 hours! We plan on fabricating a plywood half-field for testing and practice on our carpet.
All of the media posted here today can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-5aAddGM_qJEKNykaAfqUMtDGkuFGt0D?usp=drive_link
We spent today continuing to develop prototypes, we started on a design for a climber and an alternative shooter.
Our current ideas for a climber consists of a design similar to our 2022 robot Floppy Disk (climber STEP file and raw Inventor files can be found here) which consists of a hockey stick in an aluminum 1x2 tube with a hook. The tube would be cut into a C-channel to allow the hook to extend up to the chain like normal, but to also move under the top of the aluminum tube to allow the robot to end up even higher to allow us to potentially score in the trap using our current shooter ideas with a small extending element to open the trap. The hook for the arm would be able to easily slide over the chain and have a small slit in it to lock onto a chain link while climbing.
Here are some images of the ideas so far:
Laser cut models of hook concepts:
A video of one of these hooks locking into a chain can be found here.
Today was spent working on a new prototype of the NOTE shooter I discussed yesterday.
Videos of testing can be found here.
The Onshape document fot this can be found here.
While discussing the under-the-bumper intake mechanism we worked on yesterday, we decided to design a second shooter prototype that works regardless of the squishing experienced when the sides of the NOTE are pressed on by adding non-compliant rollers to the top of the shooter instead of on the sides to have more control of how much force is actually on the NOTE.
In addition to that, the top rollers would also allow us depending on spacing to do something similar to what the under-the-bumper intake does with NOTEs and allow us to shoot it out perpendicular to the shooter, potentially allowing us to deposit it into the AMP.
Image of the idea for the shooter
The Onshape CAD document for this can be found here. The design for it is nice because it can double as an under-the-robot testing prototype due to the extremely similar geometry.
Today was spent designing and testing the over-the-bumper kicker to launch NOTEs under the robot. We found that it kicks NOTEs under very nicely and will continue to work on it when we start finalizing the design for it.
Videos of it being tested can be found here.
The Onshape CAD document for this can be found here.
Our FIELD Elements Assembly Crew spent the meeting today painting our AMP black, so now we can both test scoring in the AMP and look cool at the same time!
All the media from this post can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15ex-l8OvG_kr44wxX7ThefCC3YBw1YI3?usp=drive_link
Very excited to follow this thread especially the under the robot intake and see you guys at buckeye!
We have spent the last few days working on prototypes.
We have extensively run the side flywheel shooter these past few days with promising results. We found that we were able to grip the NOTEs with Colson Performa wheels better than with AndyMark’s compliant wheels due to their lack of compliance. After switching from drill power to running the wheels off of NEOs, we can launch them about 15 feet quite accurately.
Videos of testing from today can be found here.
We assembled the prototype and while testing found that the plate the NOTE moves on top of has too much friction to let the flywheels shoot it. We put strips of low-friction tape on the plate to try to decrease friction, but ultimately we could not get the prototype to shoot the NOTEs any useful distance. This prototype has been put on hold for now to focus on other shooter designs
Videos of testing from today can be found here.
Taking inspiration from FRC 95’s shooter, we have started work on a similar shooter prototype. Unlike theirs with 2 axles that go all the way across the width of the shooter on an angle, ours currently has 4 separately driven axles with one side running faster than the other to get a similar effect. We have been working on assembling it and will test it on January 13th.
List of wants for the prototype
CAD for the prototype can be found here.
More time has been spent working on plans for the climber prototype. So far the plan is to 3D print a carriage to fit in a 2” x 2” aluminum tube that meshes with a double-sided HTD timing belt to move the hook both slightly above the chain and also right to the bottom of our frame.
The CAD can be viewed here.
From last build season to now, our nuts and bolts and other parts have gotten very disorganized, so we have spent the last few days organizing all of our parts, so we can find them while building the robot.
We have been working on updating our computers and robot electronics to their 2024 versions. It’s a great learning experience for new programming members, so they can do it without assistance in the future!
The field elements team has been making items useful for around our shop while we wait for supplies to make the field elements. So far they have made some wooden step stools because we use them so much.
A group of team members have been working on a system to mass-produce stickers and pins for the team with assistance from our laser cutter. A video of some being cut can be found here.
All the media from the 10th to the 12th can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10BOGxLLq_94ka2XzeX3zIbCgH6xsYi1N?usp=drive_link
This is how we’re looking at packaging it for a real robot.
I’m curious about the cardboard you are using for prototyping. What is it? How strong is it? Would you recommend? Any tips for working with it?
We don’t use anything special, any time packages get sent to our mentors, we get the cardboard for it. It’s useful for quick tests to see if your part actually fits together, but if you need something to run drills or motors on, I’d recommend hardboard (something like this) due to its durability, it just takes longer to cut out. For cardboard we usually will either cut it with a utility knife or our laser cutter, and hardboard is almost exclusively laser cut.
In the last week, we have settled on a shooter design, worked on our intake and climber designs, and built field elements.
We have settled on using a design similar to FRC 95’s shooter powered by Krakens, with one on each side of the shooter. We are planning on having each side of the shooter contain a piece of 1x2 Light MAXTube with the Grid Pattern sandwiched between polycarbonate to have a safe space to keep our pulleys. We are planning to add a gearbox of some sort supported by the polycarbonate to allow us to power each side with it’s own motor, with the top and bottom wheels spinning different directions.
The current CAD for the shooter can be found here.
While testing the shooter, we were able to get pretty accurate shots into the speaker, we believe the largest error in our shots came from the extra vibrations due to the prototype’s lack of strong rigidity. We were able to make shots into the speaker ~80% of the time once dialed in from 22 feet away from the speaker.
Videos of the testing can be found here.
We have started work on prototyping the mechanism that moves the NOTE from our intaking point to the shooter. We have so far started to work on a hardboard and cardboard prototype to test if our plans for geometry will work. The mechanism will consist of 2 powered wheels and various passive rollers made of polycarbonate tubing with this heat shrink wrap around the tube.
CAD of the planned path for the NOTE with and without the shooter:
Prototype CAD:
The climber is currently planned to be inside of a 2x2” aluminum tube, with a 3D printed carriage inside. We are currently working on getting the belt to mesh nicely with the 3D print and finding dimensions for the carriage to prevent binding against the tube. We will be adding bearings to the carriage as well to help reduce friction.
CAD for the climber so far can be found here.
We have settled on a 29”x29” frame for our robot and are planning for it to start the match with a starting height of 26” or less so we can drive under the stage.
We have begun making the CAD for the drivetrain, including the frame, cross bracing, swerve modules, and bellypans.
CAD for this can be found here.
All of the media from the 13th to the 23rd can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RsfTB0xSXZ0kd8UdjPpZ8P5jt0hFFrvy?usp=drive_link
Great looking shooter implementation! Does the student down-range in the video have safety glasses on? It’s hard to tell for sure. Be safe, down-range can be pretty dicey if something in the shooter lets go.
What software is being used in those 2D layouts?
Keep up the good work and OA content!
The student is in fact wearing safety glasses! Google Drive seems to have compressed the video heavily which makes it hard to see, but all of our teammates are required to wear safety glasses while working with the robot.
Those 2D layouts are all in AutoCAD, some of our team members prefer it for rapid prototyping. Tomorrow morning I will be adding the DXF and DWG files to the Google Drive folder for the last week so those interested can take a look!
Great to hear!
The all-clear polycarb ones we often use don’t show up well on video either, especially with compression artifacts and can lead to similar questions.
In the last week, we have been working on finalizing everything to start the assembly of our robot.
We have built our robot frame and mounted our swerve modules which are mounted with the L plate above our frame to lift our frame up higher.
To score NOTEs into the AMP and TRAP, we have designed a passive “slam dunk” hood mechanism that gets pushed over the end of our launcher to redirect NOTEs downwards instead of out. The mechanism works by pivoting near the end of our launcher while tensioned with latex surgical tubing, and when the launcher pivots back to score into the AMP or TRAP, the hood gets pushed down to cover the exit of the launcher and redirects the NOTE with passive rollers.
A video of us testing it can be found here.
The intaking subsystem for our robot has finished the prototyping stage and is currently being finalized in CAD, and we will soon be starting work on machining its parts. We are now able to pick up NOTEs from the ground effortlessly and extremely quickly.
A video of the prototype picking up NOTEs can be found here.
Our NOTE launcher has also finished prototyping, and we will soon be starting the machining of its parts. This subsystem features an interesting material we have not yet used: 1/2" thick polycarbonate. It’s super heavy, so we will be making sure to pocket it as much as we can. We have also made the decision to replace the top and bottom plates that keep the NOTE in the launcher with free-spinning polycarbonate tubing to reduce friction. We have decided to use a 153:1 gear reduction for the arm’s pivot. It will be powered by 2 NEOs with MAXPlanetary Gearboxes that have 2 1:4 and 1 1:3 stages and a 36 tooth pulley to a 115 tooth pulley to achieve this reduction.
Our Kraken X60s arrived yesterday and we have now wired and labeled them. We also highly recommend the Pre-Set Torque Wrench CTRE sells.
Some of our Krakens:
We finished setting up our half field, which consists of an AMP, STAGE, SPEAKER, and SOURCE.
Placing tape markings on the field:
Team members carrying the STAGE through a trail in the woods to bring it from our shop to our practice field:
Due to us attending the Greater Pittsburgh Regional at the end of the month, we have decided to set a deadline of February 14th, Valentine’s Day, for the assembly and wiring of our robot. This leaves us about a week to write the code and allow for our drivers to practice, right up until we pack the robot to leave for Pittsburgh.
We had the privilage this week of appearing on First Updates Now to showcase a bit of what we have been working on. The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TPHdZ2WP_s
All of the media from the 24th to the 2nd can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12raB6tNdvSqHiXMF9F0Wgg3FJ60e4o4s?usp=drive_link
Excited to see the robot at GPR! Let us know if you need any assistance.
In the last week, we have worked on fabricating parts, and have been working to assemble our robot to have it built by our deadline of February 14th.
We have started work on assembling our intake and plan for it to be finished sometime Tuesday or Wednesday. So far, much of the wheels and polycarbonate tubing have been added, but we still need to run belts and mount it to the robot.f
Current intake progress:
We have finalized the design for our carriage and hook, and have cut the aluminum tube it will be riding in down to size, as well as pocketed it. Also, we have 3D printed the mount for the climber’s motor and pulleys, but we still need to fabricate the hooks.
One of the two climber tubes:
The 1/2" polycarbonate plates for the accelerator have been cut and most of the other parts have been fabricated, so we will be assembling the accelerator tomorrow and Wednesday.
So far we have cut the aluminum tubes that will hold up the accelerator as well as some axles to space the two plates apart.
One of the accelerator panels:
We had the opportunity to anodize the aluminum brackets that the accelerator’s pivot passes through earlier this week. It’s always a super interesting experience with lots of student involvement!
Aluminum brackets before anodization:
Passing wire through the brackets
Brackets being anodized in a sulfuric acid bath
Brackets being dyed orange:
Aluminum brackets after the anodization process:
The outside of our frame is now fully assembled, and we are working on installing a belly pan, bracing material, and bumper hardware!
Current state of the drivetrain:
Bumper hardware being milled:
All of the media from this post can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11KLYMGDpw-H99-YCiJMtMq1FKmo2d0Ai?usp=drive_link
We have made lots of progress over the past week and are close to completing the assembly of our robot.
The Accelerator is now almost fully assembled and installed, with just a few parts that still need to be added. We have decided to change our 4 flywheel axles from being cantilevered on one end to being joined in the middle via a 3D print with bearings instead, allowing more rigidity while still keeping the axles split.
Joined Accelerator axles:
Our electrical team has been hard at work to wire up our robot. They have been doing a great job so far, and we expect it to be finished sometime today or tomorrow.
Most of the parts have been attached so far, photos of the robot are below.
Front of the robot with accelerator up:
Front of the robot with the Accelerator down:
Back of the robot with the Accelerator down:
All of the media from this post can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1F03RMdrU2JlzMAnq5fGZ_8PinJOmH0F4?usp=drive_link
How do you reach up to the trap with your amp/trap hood? I’m having trouble visualizing it.
Very cool robot, excited to see it at Pittsburgh.
Our amp and trap scoring mechanism is a passive hood that rests above the accelerator. When we go to score, the accelerator swings into the amp/trap and that contact pushes the hood over the point where the note exits the accelerator, which then allows us to redirect the note downwards into the amp. I took some photos earlier to help explain roughly how it works.
The robot drives up to amp:
The accelerator pivots back towards the amp:
The accelerator slams into the amp, pushing the slam dunk hood over the note’s exit point:
Note travels out the accelerator and is bent back by the hood:
Note exits the hood and enters the amp:
