Round Table Robotics 1792 | openalliance build thread for the 2024 build season! RTR is a branch of the OC STEM Club located in Oak Creek High School, WI.
2024 will be our 9th season competing in the FIRST Robotics Competition.
You can find out more about us through our:
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2024 Competitions
Does RTR also plan to go to the Sussex Week 0 event?
TBAThe Blue Alliance, a site for FIRST Robotics Competition event data has you guys going to Northern Lights and Midwest, are you guys dropping the Midwest Regional for the Wisconsin Regional?
Yeah, it’s already reflected on the FIRSTevents website but has yet to propagate.
We dropped Midwest so we could get it to WISCO.
As always, it is our goal to participate at the Sussex Scrimmage.
Week of 11/27
In this offseason, Round Table Robotics wanted to take a quantum leap in our capabilities with the robot, and to accomplish that, we started to build and test a swerve drive. In the beginning of the offseason, we gathered together as a team in a classroom-style environment where every student that was at that meeting worked in small teams to build 8 MaxSwerve modules. We did this to make sure that everybody on the team knew how the swerve drive worked. This ensured that we kept our program sustainable with a large number of students who knew how they work and can transfer information to new students.
In the offseason, we designed, built, and tested 2 swerve drive prototype robots; Hangnail and Alpha. Alpha was what we used to test the driving, control, and begin autonomous for Hangnail. It used the standard plastic tread of the MaxSwerve modules. Our second robot, Hangnail, is a robot that features a frame made out of solid steel bar that weighs in at about 100 pounds. We competed at two events with Hangnail, the Mukwonago Robotics Offseason Competition and IndyRage. With Hangnail, we won MROC with the help of teams 930 and 3538. These events were massive successes; we were able to get many students learning how to fix swerve, and to learn to fix the issues with the swerve drive.
Many issues came along while developing our swerve drive. One of the largest was the normal tread of the REV modules. We made this issue a priority after MROC, where we shed many of these stock treads onto the field in numerous matches. We entered the event with the 10 stock wheels that we purchased originally along with the 20 other wheels that we purchased because of the gracious offer from REV Robotics, where we were able to buy them for $1 each. By the end of this event, we had none left because of the fact that we had to replace them each and every match. Our solution was to use a 3D printed jig to cut tread and to put that tread onto the aluminum REV hubs. It took us multiple times to print it to the correct size and line up the holes. Even after we had it printed correctly, it still took multiple tries to get the tread onto the wheel correctly, from having the wrong sized bolts, to putting holes in the wrong spot of the tread, to not being able to drill holes in the rubber that would stay open for a bolt, and even not knowing how to attach it to the wheel.
If anybody here knows how to attach the tread to the wheel without stripping out the hub, please reach out. We have already stripped out 1 REV hub and 2 other ThriftyBot hubs.
Code for our swerve: https://github.com/OCHS-STEM-Club/2023-Hangnail
I have never had an issue stripping out the hubs. What tread are you using?
Week 1
Team 1792 met up at one of our sponsor’s headquarters, ZÜND, with all of our team members, mentors, and families to watch the game reveal. We couldn’t wait to pass around the note so that we could all get a feel for the game piece and to read the rules in full. We couldn’t wait to begin to develop our strategy for the season.
We normally don’t practice on Sundays, but we always do on Reveal weekend. On the second day of the season we always have our strategy meeting. Our team’s lead students guided a discussion of all of the ways to play and score in this year’s game which also included every member on all subteams. We feel it is important for us all to have a voice because an incredible idea can come from anywhere. We looked at how every aspect of the game was scored and evaluated if we thought it was important to score each element, how difficult each piece was, and what we thought was the best way to play the game based on our goals.
Based on this discussion, we began to set some of our 2024 team design requirements. This included a swerve drive. We prioritized a robot that at its travel height was a maximum of 24 inches so that we could go under the stage and chains. We also wanted to have a low bumper height so that we do not have notes go under our bumper. Another priority was to be able to pick up notes from the floor, with the secondary possibility of picking up notes directly from the source in the future. We also had a priority list that included driving effectively as our 1 priority, Scoring in the amp and speaker at will as our 2 priority, 3 was climbing, 4 was a note in the trap, and spotlighting the stage as 5.
On the Monday after Reveal, we also made 8 Swerve Drive Specialties MK4i swerve modules that use Colson wheels with the entire team so that all team members understood how to make them in case of repairs. In the offseason we tried swerve for the first time, but struggled to make an effective replacement tread for the REV MaxSwerve module. Since we didn’t solve this challenge prior to the season we made the change to the SDS MK4i because of the fact that it had a COTS tread that had an extremely high CoF.
On day three onward, we made a lot of drawings, CAD, ideas, and inspiration from previous games.
One of the struggles we had this week was the high number of snow days that happened because of the snow storms. We lost not only one of our practice nights, but an entire Saturday as well. This put us behind for our team goal to complete the chassis by Saturday at the end of week one.
We were able to build the amp this week and will need to work on the other game elements next week.
We started CAD files, drawings, and threw out many ideas. We anxiously watched all of the Ri3d and studied past game designs with a focus on Ultimate Ascent, Steamworks, Infinite Recharge, and Rapid React. We locked down and created CAD for our chassis. We decided to create a double frame (swerve modules mounted with REV ion MAXTube with another layer of heavy MAXTube on the outside) to protect our swerve modules from damage. The dimensions of our chassis will be 27.5 X 27.5 inches. We also decided to mount the battery box in between 2 mounting rails of REV ion MAXTube with a grid pattern to ensure maximum security of the battery. Another thing that we designed into our chassis this year was bumper mounts that were easily removable. This is the first time that we are trying to use the McMaster Carr slide locks.
Are you building a stage with the chain? We might need to have some practice with y’all to practice 2 robot climbing.
Week 2
Overall we made a lot of progress this week and by the end of the week we felt good about our progress. One of our big accomplishments this week was getting a fully working chassis to our programming team on Monday night- even with the snow delays. We really wanted to give our programmers as much time as possible to program with the new MK4i swerve modules.
In the past we have not always considered bumpers in our chassis design and that has caused us some difficulty. We used those lessons to ensure that this year we CAD bumpers into our chassis design. The bumper mounts were well worth the money and our bumpers slide right on. In order to keep the notes out from under the chassis we designed to have our bumpers 1 ½ inch off the ground. We were even able to paint them black so we are really proud of them. We still need to sew the fabric and attach the pool noodles, but the hard work is done.
We are able to set up a partial field in one of the classrooms in our school. We rolled out carpet and set down the amp we created from last week. This week we worked to build both the speakers and the stage. Our team split into smaller groups and had our veteran students teach our freshman how to safely use tools in our woods classroom. Together they were able to build both. We decided that since we were going to focus on ground pick up that at this point we didn’t need to build the source.
Another big event for us this week was promoting FIRST Robotics at the Wisconsin State Superintendent’s Conference. We were able to talk to other school districts to promote robotics and STEM education in the state. Team 930 also joined for part of the time and we had fun catching a note from their robot onto the cone of our 2023 robot. (Video)
Design decision
During this week we also decided to finalize a concept for our robot. We were split between iterating on the unqualified quokkas RI3D robot and creating a robot that would operate in a similar manner to a see-saw, while having an over the bumper intake on one side and a shooter, similar to the kitbot shooter on the other end. In the end, we decided to go with modifying the unqualified quokkas design. This is because it is a proven design that we believe we can manufacture quickly, program well, and adheres to our strategy.
Saving the best for last, after making our design decision we were able to, for the first time in our team’s history, manufacture our own parts. In the off season our team made a major purchase of an Omio CNC machine. We have been working to set it up, calibrate it, and learn how to use it. Our fabrication team was able to manufacture brackets, our polycarb intake, and our belly pan. While we have had good partners and sponsors that have helped us. This will significantly cut our waiting time so that we can make adjustments without having to wait multiple days for parts to be remanufactured. We did break a few bits as we learned this week and are still working on cutting parts and drilling 10/32 holes to match with the REV ion.
By the end of the week we had enough of our intake built that we were able to test it out with a drill. Check out our video of our excitement with our first note shooting into the air!
Struggles (programming, intake inside of perimeter, trap)
Our struggles this week that we are still working on:
For our design we are still considering ways to bring in the intake into our perimeter. We know that some teams that have iterated on the Unqualified Quokkas design have chosen an under the bumper intake, but our team made a decision early on to avoid an under the bumper intake because we are worried that the notes will hinder the ability of our drivetrain. We are continuing to iterate on designs to make either a wrist or a pneumatic extension. The partially built intake that we have made is about 15 pounds so we are continuing to consider that in our potential designs.
Our team, while lower priority, considering the ten points needed for a ranking point at end game, feel that the trap is an important element. We are considering a stinger type of attachment, but are starting to consider the number of motors that are on the robot and to possible electrical draw. We are still finalizing the CAD for the robot, so this might not be a problem that we have solved until the end of week 3 or into week 4.
Our programmers are struggling to tune the swerve modules. They have gotten a lot of help through discord and we appreciate everyone that has helped us. We are able to get our robot moving straight and turning, but haven’t been able to get the robot to rotate yet. If anyone has recommendations on how what they did to tune them, we would be really grateful.
Week 3
In order to get more contributions from multiple people on the team we created a Google Form for each subteam to report out on their progress and challenges for the week.
Design
This week we began to work on placement of the climbing mechanism. This was difficult because there was minimal space in the middle of the robot to package a climber. We are planning to use the Thrifybot two stage telescoping tube kit. We also continued to brainstorm how to complete the trap. We thought about a stinger and also ways to score with our arm we use for the amp and speaker. Finally, we began to lay out the electrical panel and began to CAD in the electronics. It remains important for our team to consider ways to bring our intake inside the perimeter without having an under the bumper intake or having to redesign our chassis. We have not yet solved this design challenge given the lack of interior space.
Assembly
We were able to partially assemble the intake/shooter. Our goal is to have it completed next week on Tuesday so that we can get it to the programmers. We also finished all of the superstructure. We connected our intake/shooter to our robot and just need to put on the final motors, sprockets and chains. A challenge we had this week was when we machined our 2x1 aluminum extrusions for the superstructure, we cut our bearing hole and bolt holes off of different zero points. It wasn’t a problem this time but for future reference we should have gone off of one zero point. Something that was a challenge for assembling the arm was the tight spaces we needed to get into with drills.
Roadcases
This year we made a major investment in roadcases. We finished all of the carpeting inside of them and are designing how to best make use of the space. Something that other teams could help us with is the designing for the battery portion of our road cases.
Week 4
This week we worked hard on manufacturing. We attached the gear boxes to the super structure and assembled all the sprockets and chain that went with it. In addition, most of the electrical components were put on and we were able to get “Beta” running. Our programmers are still working to finetune the swerve programming. We started to machine all the aluminum bars for the intake and superstructure for will be our Alpha robot.
We were excited on Saturday to have a fully functioning Beta robot. It was able to shoot notes into both the amp and speaker. Next week we need to work on our gear ratios since the intake is very heavy and we were having some slippage. We also noticed some of the superstructure was not saying square so we are adding additional bracing for Alpha.
Another challenge we had was finding a place to mount the gearboxes so they wouldn’t interfere with each other. Because of the orientation of our gearboxes the hex shaft was unable to be locked in place and we had to redesign a plate to fix the problem. Something that other teams can learn is to make sure your CAD is finished so they can figure these things out before we incorporate them to the robot. We have also been working on a hardstop for the arm to make sure it can not rest on the ground. We put our limelight on the shooter-facing side at a 12 degree angle, which we calculated to be the best angle for the average height of the apriltags. We are working on incorporating sensors like a through bore encoder, as well as 2 limit switches in the intake.
This week the design team also investigated the possibility of working on a redesign of the robot. This would have had an impact on the overall speed in concept of the design, and would have included an elevator and a pneumatic intake/shooter on a carriage. In the end, we decided to go with our current design instead of a redesign because of the short amount of time we have until all of our regional events.
Week 5
This week in design we added more of the “real life changes” to the CAD and finalized the design for our climber. We needed to modify our motor mounts to use the U channel bracket for added stability. In our design we added our limelight mount after trying it in a few places and printed the mount on our 3D printer. We finalized all of our motors and gears in CAD this week too.
At the start of the week we assembled the superstructure for competition robot, Boombox, and attached it to our frame. After having to restart on cutting the belly pan a few times we were able to attach the belly pan and bumper pins. This week we have made a huge effort to start assembly on the intake/shooter for Boombox. Another thing we have started to work on this week is our climber. We are working on different types of hooks and will prototype this week.
We also spent a significant amount of time working on our bumpers this week and are really proud of them. We had an issue with the iron on numbers sticking so we decided to sew each of our numbers on. It took a long time for us to complete, but they should function well with our quick release clips.
Since many of the parts were cut for the robot at the start of the week, we were able to start to cut out shelf brackets for our superpit. It was still a struggle to get all of the holes cut to the right size this week. We have tried to make sure we were going through our list of operations correctly to prevent so many miscuts.
We incorporated a new sensor that helps the robot autonomously perform tasks. The new “Beam Break” sensor will let the robot know that it has acquired a game piece. We also added a ramp down rate to our shooter, and continued to tune our autonomous.
Some challenges we faced this week were:
A challenge that our programmers faced this week was pathplanner bugging out and was looking for a path that was deleted. We have yet to find a solution for this problem. If there are any suggestions, we would love to hear them!
This week in design we modified the intake panels so that they would not be intersecting the bumper. This also allowed us to add a hard stop so the intake was slightly above the ground. This week we put chain on intake and arm after putting on the motors for the arm. We also attached our climber and let electrical go to town. Our center distance for one of our shooter chains wasn’t perfect, so we had to utilize a half link and even still it’s a little looser than we would like it to be.
Our main task this week for programming was the development of autonomous programs. We are using Pathplanner, a motion profile generator created but team 3015, to make our paths. Our main accomplishment was getting a basic autonomous program running that implemented the intake and shooter. We also implemented the PID on the arm and implemented setpoints for shooting, amp and travel. These setpoints were set to out operators button box. Our main challenge this week was getting our robot to accurately follow the path. We are still working on fixing the problem of our robot driving farther than we have it set to.
Another project that we we worked on this week was the development of our scouting software to be able to track all elements of the game, and organize that data into a set of graphs and tables and data-sheets. Since this is the first time we are trying to collect data in the stands using our own stat trackers we are using Google forms from people’s phones and it is feeding into a Google Sheet. We have a sheet that calculates high and average scores for amp and speaker, both in auto and teleop. We also added a ranking column so that we can quickly sort teams. We also have another tab, “Teams” that will allow us to see lots of details on one robot. We think this will be useful when we are strategizing for a match and getting to the alliance picks. The “Match Predictor” tab allows us to select the robots we are playing with and against so that we can develop a strategy for amplification and defense. The last two tabs are the bubble type of charts that are also found in statbotics. We are using our data sheets in combination with the blue alliance OPR and stabotics charts and EPA.
