Welcome to 5431’s third Open Alliance Thread! We are proud to continue being a part of and contributing to the Open Alliance for this 2024 season - Crescendo.
2024 marks FRC 5431’s tenth season since we started out of Plano ISD Academy High School in 2015. Over the competition seasons, we have had the wonderful opportunity to compete in Worlds multiple times like last season - Charged Up - with our outstanding Impact Award Team and Robot. Titan Robotics and our fellow sister teams take pride in being the organizers of the North Texas Tournament of Robots, an off-season competition for teams to train and test new concepts!
Our competition dates are Week 2 Plano and Week 4 Dallas. We wish you luck and hope to see you at the competition!
After watching the long-anticipated game reveal, 5431 rushed back to the Academy to begin brainstorming what this season’s robot will look like. Before ideation, we reviewed the game manual with a team alumnus to highlight important information and rules. With that information, we created a chart with our needs, wants, and limitations. We broke into groups of three to four students to start tackling different parts of the robot like the climber, intake, and launcher.
The Build Leads led the design discussion when everyone came back to find that many students had similar ideas on what the robot’s mechanisms would look like. After that, the build team began the V1 CAD designs once they knew roughly what they wanted, that being an intake-shooter combo, an elevator climber, and a 29x29" frame perimeter with swerve.
Here is the link for the current V1 Cad Design on Fusion 360: Fusion
While waiting for the vendor libraries to update to WPILib 2024, the Programming Team ran some calculations to find the optimal limelight angle and height for the best April Tag acquisition. The best angle for the limelight was initially thought to be 22 degrees, but they ended with 45 degrees for better close-range accuracy. For now, the calculations provide the programming team with some basic information and further calculations will be done relating to the limelight and April Tag detection if necessary.
The Scouting Team started highlighting important rules and information in the game manual for our rules quiz and for anything the build team needs to know. They also were running rough calculations on what a good score would look like based on cycle times from Charged Up.
With everyone amped up for the game, we’re excited to see what the season has in store for us!
Practice 1/18: OMIO Shenanigans, Swerve Fixes, and the Rules Quiz
Due to a Winter freeze, we couldn’t have a practice on 1/16. This practice we started off by taking the Rules Quiz before continuing with practice.
Build Team
Rookies took the SNS quiz while some worked on V1
Assembled the rest of the drive base
Began assembling the framework for the intake and shooter, while the drive base was prepped
Discovered that the x-axis stepper motor of our OMIO had been broken and the gear knob on the end of that stepper motor had essentially impaled itself and severely impacted the function of the machine
Decided to swap out the current OMIO for a better OMIO about 20 minutes before practice ended so that did not get completed
Programming Team
Fixed swerve with the help of Phoenix Auto Generator after the steer motors were not functioning properly
Found that the length of the robot was incorrect and was suspected to be the cause of the issues
Electronics Team
Worked with build to expedite the completion of V1
Continued to help prototype new ideas
Compiled all the new electrical parts for V1 into one singular location for ease of access
Scouting and Strategy Team
Handed out the rules quiz and started to grade the quizzes.
Marketing Team
Continued to ideate season shirt and button designs
Assembled the V1 Superstructure (Framework) before passing it to the Electronics Team
Self Described “Build Goblins” kept putting together intake and shooter
Bolted down the new aluminum extrusions onto the robot cart
Programming Team
Rookies added the shooter subsystem
Some rookies worked on commands but full integration will happen next practice (Hopefully)
The Leads worked on and mainly calibrated PhotoVision and Limelight 3
Concluded that a coprocessor would be helpful when adding more cameras for logging, driver vision, object recognition, and localization. This will likely mean that we will not use the Limelight and a standalone camera could replace it
Fused polyester cord together with a heat gun to find that there was not enough friction between the pulleys and the cord so we need to redesign the pulleys.
Realized that we did not have all the parts to fully assemble the shooter
Discussed what was the best orientation for the rails supporting the robots so that the wheels can spin freely. The different orientations ranged from a square around the wheels, a rail on the inner frame of the robot, a rail on the outer frame of the robot, or another combination. This discussion led the Build Team to realize that we are in the “finding out” stage of what bottom-mounted electronics do to the overall design of the cart and robot.
Rookies learned and calibrated April Tag and game piece detection on cameras
Found the average discrepancy between the estimated distance and real-world distance is about 0.3 to 0.05 meters so more tuning is required
Game piece detection went well for Cones from Charged Up and Power Cells from Infinite Recharge, however the Notes were a bit more complicated. Additional fine-tuning is required
Refactored the CTRE swerve code
Added a QoL feature to the order list to update budgets (so that cough cough build doesn’t go over budget)
Scouting and Strategy Team
Continued to grade rules quiz
Scouted the teams attending the Plano Event and took notes on their gameplay
Practice 1/25: Motor Controller Replacement and Testing
Build Team
Built the table for the second OMIO
Started cleaning the OMIO out but ran out of drain cleaner to clear out the gunk in the system
Finished mounting the intake with the exception of the motor controllers which got recalled by REV
Developed a backup plan for the recall to use a NEO for the pivot motor of the intake and a NEO 550 for the driving motor
While building the gearboxes for the NEOs, the build team needed to press fit on an adapter for the gearboxes to remember that the hydraulic press isn’t parallel to the pressing surface. This led to some issues and having to mount the gearboxes next practice
Tested the shooter up against the speaker while trying to see how far a note could be explored
Determined that the bottom wheels of the shooter must be 20 to 30% lower in power than the top wheels of the shooter to generate a trajectory needed to score in the speaker
Implemented a Feed forward system to keep the intake angled in a desired position but it needs to be tested
Tested Swerve to find that there was a mechanical issue with the bearings, explaining the clicking sound the modules would make when turning ever so often
Rookies explored Path Planner GUI to learn more about how autonomous paths are made and executed
Practice 1/25: Motor Controller Replacement and Testing. During this practice, the Build and Programming Team continued to work together on the shooter.
Build Team
Built the table for the second OMIO
Started cleaning the OMIO out but ran out of drain cleaner to clear out the gunk in the system
Finished mounting the intake with the exception of the motor controllers which got recalled by REV
Developed a backup plan for the recall to use a NEO for the pivot motor of the intake and a NEO 550 for the driving motor
While building the gearboxes for the NEOs, the build team needed to press fit on an adapter for the gearboxes to remember that the hydraulic press isn’t parallel to the pressing surface. This led to some issues and having to mount the gearboxes next practice
Tested the shooter up against the speaker while trying to see how far a note could be explored
Programming Team
Worked with the Build Team to test the shooter
Determined that the bottom wheels of the shooter must be 20 to 30% lower in power than the top wheels of the shooter to generate a trajectory needed to score in the speaker
Implemented a Feedforward system to keep the intake angled in a desired position but it needs to be tested
Tested Swerve to find that there was a mechanical issue with the bearings, explaining the clicking sound the modules would make when turning ever so often
Rookies explored Path Planner GUI to learn more about how autonomous paths are made and executed
Practice 1/26/2024: OMIO, Subsystem Structure Changes, and Scouting App
Build Team
Mounted the motors and gearboxes onto the intake. The reduction on the motor was too fast so they went from 15:1 to 5:1. After that the NEO 550 would not run.
Assembled and attached a coolant holder for the side of the OMIO to easier replace the coolant
Flushed out the calcium buildup in the old OMIO spindle’s coolant track so that water could run through
Used our new OMIO to begin cutting shooter plates for V1. The plate was set too low so it didn’t cut all the way through
The plasma cutter is still broken and waiting for repair
Deep-cleaned old OMIO
Programming Team
Made several changes to the overall subsystem structure to get it ready for real tests on V1
Set up a router powered by a SIM Card so that it can be used in the pits at comp without problems
Rookies continued to mess around with Path Planner and our programming lead explained how the code changes affected and improved the robot code’s modularity
Practice 2/1/2024: V1 Mechanically Working and Vision
Build Team
Got V1 mechanically working. The Electronics Team kept having issues that needed to be modified to fix
Prototyped a way to push the note into the center of the intake. The prototype was simply a roller with a padded tape cut in a spiral pattern that met in the middle. This was done in an attempt to use the spiral to move the note to the center but it did not work.
Ideated a design that would pick up the note using the full side of the robot which would take up the space required for the climber. They may be able to design around it by mounting above the swerves but the current idea is just widening the intake again.
Helped fix the problem the Programming team was facing by relocating the absolute encoder to a position unaffected by the slack
Swapped the belt on the intake to a chain to mitigate the slack issue
Altered the polycarbonate under panel to allow for more space
Re-routed Swerve cables to avoid any snags in the intake
Performed general CANbus work which includes testing and cable management
Calibrated Swerve and began testing the robot
The robot is fully functioning!
Programming Team
Fixed a value wrapping issue, ensuring angles like 360 degrees + 5 degrees were correctly interpreted as 5 degrees. This solved problems around the 0 degree mark
Tackled a discrepancy between the intake motor’s movement and the pivot’s actual angle which was caused by the slack in the chain
MOO team! 
