FRC 694 StuyPulse | 2025 Build Thread | Open Alliance

[jblay]

Champs Alliance Selection
We will be doing some more writeups about our run at the championship, but some people have been asking me about the story of alliance selections on Daly so I thought I would do a writeup on it in here.

Going into the competition we thought that 2056 and 1678 would likely be the class of the division with us and 1796 slightly behind. At moments during the course of the competition 2630 and 9432 showed themselves to be right there with us and 1796. When divisions dropped we set some goals for the competition, we knew we would have a tough time going to Einstein out of this group, and so much would be out of our hands, we just had to do our best and put ourselves in the best possible position that we could. Match schedule would influence a lot, we could only control so much. We set the goal of being the captain or first pick of one of the top 3 alliances. Anything past that would be icing on the cake. Maybe things could break our way and we could make it to Einstein, making division finals would be a real possiblity.
Then our schedule was released…It was an absolute gauntlet. We played really well, and managed to get every non win related ranking point and the coop tiebreaker every match, but we lost 4 matches and finished 9th. 4415 did a fantastic job with not just robot performance, but strategy. They finished first which we knew would create all sorts of interesting possibilities, some of which could break really nicely for us to pair with one of the other top teams (2056, 1678, 1796). Huge credit to 4415, lots of teams get blessed by the match scheduling gods, but following through on seeding first is no easy task when the bright lights of champs are on.

After matches concluded, the pits were filled with whispers and gossip. It was clear that 1678 was going to decline 4415, but it was a question mark if 2056 would decline after 1678 declined. If 2056 accepted, 1796 seemed like they would take us and we would play with our friends from NYC for the 3rd time this season.

4415 came to me and our driver and told us that 1678 was going to decline no matter the iteration of picks and that 2056 would decline no matter the iteration of picks as well. They then informed us that they would likely pick us at that point. 4415 ended up asking 2630 what they would do if chosen, and 2630 said that they would accept.
We discussed this scenario with our head scouts before this and determined that we would accept for a few reasons. First off, 4415, at that point in time, was reasonably high on our picklist and we doubted we would get a better bot if we managed to move up to the 8th or 7th spot. There was also a real, however low it might be, chance that if we declined we would miss playoffs entirely. If 2630 was bluffing about accepting in order to not get scorched and declined and 4655 declined as well we would miss playoffs entirely. With the robot and season we had, I personally felt it was a non starter for us to risk missing playoffs.
I do have regrets about us not talking it over further as a team and I think there were at least a few students who felt that we should have taken the risk. I do think we made the right call, for us, but I think those voices should have been heard out a bit more, before we decided. We told 4415 that we would indeed accept if chosen.

At about 9 on Friday night 4415 called us to let us know they had locked in on picking us after 1678 and 2056 declined. We headed over to their hotel to combine picklists and talk what kind of alliance we wanted to build. We ultimately knew we would be constrained by a few factors in our picking:

1. 4415’s side auto just was not consistent or accurate enough, but they did have a center auto that scored their preload and attempted to put 2 in the barge. We needed to pick a team that had a consistent side auto, hopefully a 3 piece.
2. Our net scoring was inaccurate and we were unable to pickup from the ground and put the algae in the net. We were able to grab off of the lollipop and score into the barge so we could try strategies around that.
3. Our ideal robot had a climb, a side 3 piece, and solid algae scoring. The ground algae pickup wasn’t necessary since 4415 had that ability.
   This boxed us in a number of ways in our picking of a second pick and backup bot. We were ultimately thrilled to get 302 and 1425. 4415 is a fantastic team and was a pleasure to work with, our alliance just had the fatal flaw of missing algae and in such a high power division that was something that really sank us in the end. This was overall a really cool experience for our team, and we learned a lot of lessons from it. We hope to see our partners from Daly again in the offseason and on future divisions. This is our second time playing with 4415 at worlds, hopefully the 3rd time will be the charm in a future year!

[Mehmet1]

@jblay

We headed over to their hotel

What?? I’m asking the other top teams as well- is this normal, to go to another team’s hotel so late at night?

The trips I’m familiar with have curfews and we would discuss alliance selection in our rooms at night, I never even dreamed of going to another team’s hotel .

[Dominick_Ferone]

Sometimes when teams know they’re pairing up the night before, they’ll work together on the pick list.

[PatMcN]

Late nights and early mornings are common for champs. All bets are off to give yourself the best chance on Saturday.

[jblay]

I think its a pretty common thing for the 1 seed to do at worlds and sometimes the 2 seed as well when it is clear who the 1 seed will take. Being able to strategize for an extended period of time like that is a nice advantage.

In terms of trip and curfew stuff, I’m one of the teachers in charge of the trip and went with the kids to 4415’s hotel. We often extend curfew (within reason) at competitions for select students working on something important such as picklists or practicing for impact presentations, but we make sure adults are present for that and kids go immediately to their rooms after it is done.

[Kevin_Leonard]

@jblay

I think its a pretty common thing for the 1 seed to do at worlds and sometimes the 2 seed as well when it is clear who the 1 seed will take. Being able to strategize for an extended period of time like that is a nice advantage.

Also common at district championship events. We were fortunate at NEDCMP this year that 190’s hotel was right across the street!

[Jeanne_Boyarsky]

@jblay

practicing for impact presentations

Hopefully that extension is not to be needed again :). When practice day ended later, by the time we got back to the hotel and had dinner, it was late. Having that extra 90 minutes or so from the regional ending earlier lets us practice at a more reasonable hour…

[Kalimul]

Software @ Champs!

After our last regional in NYC, we made a few changes in preparation for competing at Houston.

Here’s a recap:

• implemented L1 scoring with our shooter
  • Because our shooter scores L1 perpendicular to the edge of the trough, the coral falls off immediately (if scored underneath the L2 reef pipes)
  • To address this, we align to the corners of the reefside; that way, when the coral is scored, it orients itself horizontally and doesn’t roll off the trough
  • Although we didn’t score L1 much this way, it was pretty consistent when it was used
• angled barge shot
  • Catapulting the algae into the barge while facing it head-on would cause it to bounce out a non-negligible amount of times
  • Angling the shot gives the algae “more net” (area) to bounce around without falling out. It also forces algae to roll towards the edges instead of settling in the center of the barge
  • We chose two angles for the robot to face depending on which half of the barge the robot is in; this gives our driver the flexibility to switch angles if one side is fuller than the other
• reef-face switching
  • Only during reef alignment, our driver could press the left and right bumpers to switch the face of the reef the robot scored on.
  • We had some challenges getting this to work…
    • Would not work very well if the face was switched while the robot was very close to the reef, because the velocity setpoints did not account for the reef being in the way of the robot → the robot would then crash into the reef in this case
    • Then we integrated obstacle avoidance code from PathPlanner to address the issue. While it stopped crashing into the reef, the motions were altogether unideal and jerky; also, switching the reef-face when scoring L4 or L3 always got close to tipping the robot over
• new L3 setpoint & backwards reef algae pickup
  • L3 raises the elevator up high and ever so slightly moves the arm forward → faster motion
  • The backwards reef algae pickup sped up our cycles on the back of the reef
• cache (kinda) the alliance color in the robotPeriodic
  • We noticed high CPU usage from the method we call to check our alliance color and realized it was very inefficient for no reason
  • Instead of grabbing the alliance color from the FMS multiple times every frame, we only update a variable in the robotPeriodic and use that everywhere else

At Champs the only changes we made were increasing the exposure on our cameras during field calibration and minor adjustments to our auton. That’s all! We had a lot of fun competing at Houston, learning about other teams’ robots, and watching Einstein together in the stands.

Shoutout to Mr. Blay, our president of software Ian S., our driver Philip, and everyone else who helped develop this robot for coming up with so many cool features for the software team to work on this season!

And a special thanks to y’all for following our OpenAlliance posts. See you in the offseason!

– Kalimul

[ItayKauf]

Do you have a video of the L1 scoring?

[Akalumous]

FRC 694 StuyPulse T-Shirt and Hoodie Orders

We’ve been getting a ton of requests and interest in acquiring our team’s merch recently, and we’re excited to say our online shop is up and running! We currently have our 2025 season shirts and hoodies (pullover and zip-up) available, with more items to be added in the future. Currently, we are only offering pickup at one of our off-season competitions: Battlecry (June 7-8) Duel on the Delaware (June 21) IRI (July 10-12) NYC Robo Replay (October 11-12) Brunswick Eruption (October 18) Here …

[Kalimul]

Sorry for the late response, here’s a short clip I found from testing.

[brenndussy]

Champs Strat

Hey OA, it’s Brendon, the Director of Strategy for 694 StuyPulse, and I present to you the long-awaited Strat breakdown for our Daly Division Run!

Quals

Q9:

Red: 9032, 1678, 900

Blue: 1847, 694, 1481

First match of Champs, playing against 1678, 900, and 9032, we knew this match was going to be rough. Not expecting to win this match, we were going to focus on the 3 remaining RP. Throughout the competition season, we found that us “playing for the coral RP” allowed us to score the most points, so in the end there was really no difference on focusing on the RPs or not.

While planning the strategy for this match, we noticed that 1481’s auto ended on the starting line after initially leaving. This was one of our biggest concerns during champs, because we wanted to secure the auto RP every match. However, we made sure to observe their robot on the auto practice field and it was successful in not ending on the starting line.

We split up the field to give ourselves the LK, JI, and HG faces. Right out of auto, we scored two algae in the processor to co-op. 1841 took the AB face, while 1481 took the CD and EF faces. Our thought process was that if 1841 was able to finish scoring L3 and L4 on the AB face, they could leak over to the CD face while 1481 scored on the EF or the back HG Face. For endgame, 1481 took the far-side cage for a better sightline, while we took the cage opposite to them.

Result: 3RP + Loss

Q24:

Red: 226, 9301, 2630

Blue: 694, 6017, 5968

For autos, we ran the configuration best suited for our alliance. Out of auto, we wanted to clear the algae off of the reef for our alliance partners. After putting 2 in the processor, we would make our way back to our side of the reef, and barge the LK and JI algae whenever possible. 5968 and 6017 took the AB side and BD & EF sides respectively, while we took the LK, JI, and HG. 694 and 6017 were able to deep climb, so we assigned cages to each of us. 5968 slipped their bumper in for a park.

In this match, we faced up against defense, which was unexpected. It slowed us down a little, but probably wouldn’t have changed the outcome since we got 22 penalty points at the end of the match and lost by 14.

Result: L + 3RP

Q35:

Red: 4415, 6995, 8738

Blue: 694, 4013, 1425

We ran our processor side 4 piece, 4013 ran their center 1 piece, and 1425 ran their side 3 piece. Right out of auto, we transitioned to doing barge algae, clearing the AB, LK, and IJ sides. Doing this out of auto lets our driver get in the zone, and transition to coral cycles easier. Afterwards, we took the AB, LK,and IJ sides to fill up with coral. 1425 took the CD and EF sides, and would transition to GH if they filled up their faces. Unfortunately 4013 was broken and could not score, so they stayed on our side to prevent defensive penalties, and parked near the start of endgame. 694 and 1425 each took a side of the barge to deep climb.

Result: L + 3RP

Q43:

This match was looking pretty winnable, and we had to make sure to capitalize on all opportunities. We ran our side 4 piece, 3297 ran their middle 1 coral + 1 algae (that we made sure would not end on the starting line), and 7034 ran their side 3 piece. After auto, we grabbed the algae off of the AB side, barged it, grabbed the IJ algae, scored, then the KL algae and scored. This cleared out all of the algae we needed to take care of in order to fill our faces of the reef. Our scouting data recorded 3297 scoring 1 algae in a previous match, so we had them complete the co op requirement, staying near the AB and CD sides to make their path to the processor shorter. 7034 completed coral cycles on the EF and GH sides.

For endgame, we wanted to maximize visibility for our alliance’s cages, so each team climbed on their driver station’s most visible spot. This made the pathing a little complicated, and we one of our biggest priorities for endgame is to minimize collision and make sure everyone is able to accomplish their climb. It ended up being okay and we scored 3 climbs.

Result: 6RP!

Q51

Red: 1796, 9280, 6146

Blue: 8808, 537, 694

This match was looking to be very evenly matched. We ran our side auto and scored 3 pieces, 537 ran their 1 piece, and 8808 scored one piece. We would take the CD and EF faces of the reef, 537 would take AB and KL, 8808 would take GH and JI. Each of our zones lined up well with our driver stations, giving the drivers the best sightline. We also took this side because the path to the processor would be shorter, scoring the barge would be convenient, and the climb paths do not collide.

We coordinated with our partners when to go to the cages to climb, and made sure our paths did not collide.

Result: L + 3RP

Q73

Red: 2648, 2129, 4967

Blue: 4005, 694, 7048

Before the match, our scouts noticed that 7048’s climb was sometimes not being counted, and we believed it to be touching the chain. Something we did throughout the entire season, but especially at champs, was to make sure our alliance partners were working properly to achieve the RP. The climb was especially important. We made use of our temporary match strategy slack channel and watched 7048 climb successfully on the practice field!

We ran our side 4 piece, 4005 ran a 1 piece, 7048 ran their 3 piece. Immediately out of auto we wanted to score the AB and CD algae into the processor, then barge the EF algae. We would pick up any other algae off the ground or the reef and toss it in the processor or barge whenever convenient. We transitioned to scoring on the AB, CD, and LK sides. The LK and CD sides are almost completely automated, so filling up three faces of the reef should be no problem. 7048 and 4005 took the JK and EF sides respectively, and shared the GH side.

For endgame, we ensured that our paths would not cross, since 7048 and 4005 were on opposite sides of the field, coming in at about 20-25 seconds, while we would push the last cycle and come in at about 10-15 seconds to climb.

Result: 6RP!

Quals 84, 100, 112, 125

These four matches, the strategies were a bit repetitive. We ran the same strategy as Q73, which was a triangle offense (taking the AB, LK, and CD faces), scoring the first 2 algae into the processor, and supercycling whenever convenient. We achieved 6RP for all of these four matches!

Playoffs:

Throughout the playoffs, we utilized slack channels to take notes on all alliances. Examples below:

Strategy

We ran a similar strategy in each of our matches. The outcomes of our strategy were highly situational, for instance in M1, we had two golf-tee algae available, so we shot those in the barge. In M7, those algae were not available for our shooter to intake, so we used our processor algae intake and put it in the processor instead. This saved us some time, which gave us more cycles and allowed us to help out our alliance partners with filling up the reef. Below is the strategy outline for M1, and the strategy stayed the same for the rest of playoffs:

M1:

Right out of auto, we went to the golf-tee algaes, intook with our shooter, and grabbed a ground coral with our ground L1 intake. This allowed our alliance partners to cycle on the reef and score barge algae on the opposite side from us. After shooting the two golf-tee algae we were able to intake, we transitioned to scoring the reef algae. From then on we cycled on the CD and EF faces, 4415 took the GH and IJ faces, and 302 took the KL and AB faces. For endgame, we each climbed on the cages closest to our driver stations, as the sightlines didn’t seem to be a problem and the cage positions allowed for the lowest possibility of collision.

Misc

HP Scouting

Throughout the Daly division playoffs we began HP scouting after many matches ended with just a small point differential. We rotated around 4 members in the stands to scout each match, taking note of what team the Algae human player was from and how many shots they made. We also took notes on where and how they shot the algae. This was honestly a really fun idea and it boosted the morale of some scouts.

Alliance Selection

Our head coach already did a great recap on this, make sure to check it out here.

Thanks to our alliance partners 4415, 302, and 1425 so much for having some amazing matches with us!

-Brendon X

[Life]

Post Champs End Effector Updates

After noticing an undesirable level of accuracy of barge scores at champs, we decided to redesign our end effector to:

• Get algae higher so we don’t have to simulate a catapult motion with the arm for more consistent scores
• Try to place algae in the net as gently as possible to prevent bounce outs
• Potentially pick algae up off the ground to the barge

While still being able to:

• Score coral efficiently
• Score algae in the processor

Here’s a list of updates we did to make this possible:

• Ditched the “Loki horn” intake and replaced it with something that resembles a roller claw type algae intake
• Significantly increased the torque output of the coral rollers and algae intake
• Swapped out the tread covered wheels we were originally using for 3” 35A compliant wheels
• Added mini ramps inside of the shooter to prevent jams
• Completely rerigged to prevent belt skipping

As a result of these updates:

• Our shooter is able to score algae higher, more consistently, and more gently
• We don’t have to use the catapult method

FRC 694 2025 Offseason | NEW! HiKi Reef, Barge, and Processor Testing

• We are able to pick up algae from the ground against any wall

FRC 694 2025 Offseason | HiKi Ground Algae Intake Test

• We maintained efficient coral scoring, processor algae scoring, and intaking algae from the golf-tees

FRC 694 2025 Offseason | HiKi Funnel-side Coral Scoring

FRC 694 2025 Offseason | HiKi Golf-T Algae Intake

– Ehan F. and Ryan L.

[PigTwo]

Offseason Update!

During the offseason, our team builds a robot modeled after a top performing team whose design approach we aim to learn from and follow. Last offseason, we modified and replicated 2056’s robot and competed in multiple offseason events, which provided valuable experience and preparation for the next season. Like last year, we once again chose to build 2056’s robot, inspired by their consistently strategic and effective design choices.

Additionally, we are involving newer members as mechanism leads, helping them strengthen their CAD skills and gain leadership experience ahead of the next build season.

Here is a link to our current CAD (in progress): Onshape

-Elin Kim

[PigTwo]

Offseason Project: Telescoping Arm

This project is based on 2910’s telescoping arm design this year. Our goal is to learn how to design and manufacture more complex custom parts, while also practicing how to create a compact and sophisticated mechanism. We aim to simplify 2910’s design to better fit our team’s resources and capabilities.

Limitations
Our team has limited experience with custom machined 3D parts, an area where 2910 is highly experienced with. Manufacturing an arm of similar complexity would take us considerable time. Key challenges included designing and fabricating components such as bearing blocks, tubing, the main plate (which holds the gears and fixed stage tubing), and the chain holder.
To make the project feasible, we went through several design iterations in CAD to simplify and adapt the arm while still capturing its functionality.

Iteration 1: Near replica of 2910’s Arm

This version closely followed the original 2910 design, but was shortened for testing purposes due to resource constraints. Although not dimensionally identical, it features most of the same components.
The motor is not located in the drivetrain, as this arm is not going to be on a bot.

Iteration 2: 3D Printed Inner Bearing Blocks

Due to limited summer access to our school’s lab, we explored alternatives for complex parts. In this iteration, the inner bearing blocks were redesigned to be 3D printed with threaded inserts.

Iterations 3: 3D Printed Upper Bearing Blocks

Further adjustments were made based on our manufacturing limitations. The upper bearing blocks were redesigned to be 3D printed in CF-nylon and reinforced with aluminum plates to handle the forces from the chain and cords.

Additional changes included:

• Switching mounting bolts for the upper bearing blocks from 4-40 to 10-32
• Addint separate hard stops inside the fixed stage
• 4-40 bolts to 8-32 countersunk bolts because of the 4-40 holes were too small to be machined

Iteration 4: Tubing Modifications

We had limited machining access, so we can only use the CNC at the NYC FIRST STEM Center. As a result, we could no longer machine down tubing dimensions. This led to a redesign of the arm’s telescoping stages using more readily available sizes:

• Original Tubings:
  • 3” x 3” with ⅛” wall
  • 2.375” x 2.375” with ⅛” wall
  • 1.875” x 1.875” with 1/16” wall
• New Tubings:
  • 3” x 3” with ⅛” wall
  • 2” x 2” with ⅛” wall
  • 1.5” x 1.5” with ⅛” wall

Benefits

• Chain can now be directly mounted to the tubing without needing custom brackets
• No need to shave 1/16” off the tubing
• The second stage tubing, despite a thicker wall, is lighter due to strategic pocketing

Drawbacks

• Some bearings needed to be significantly resized, either larger or smaller
  • Inner bearing blocks for the second stage now use 0.5” OD bearings, which may be undersized
    
• Top bearing blocks had to be lengthened to accommodate the larger bearings
  
• The echain is now positioned closer to the bearing blocks and uses different dimensions than 2910’s original echain
  

Final Note
This project was designed in a single Part Studio (excluding imported parts) with the extension being adjustable. It serves as a learning experience and an exercise in adapting a high performance design to fit our own team’s resources and constraints. It was extremely fun to design and one of the challenging CADs I have done. Here are some images of the part studio below!

Additionally, we would love to hear suggestions for all our projects!

Elin Kim

[RachelKim]

Offseason Project: Double Jointed Arm

This offseason project is based on 2630’s double jointed arm this year. The goal of this project is to make a version of this double jointed arm with the resources available and mount it on our alpha bot drivetrain so both our mechanical and software departments have an opportunity to experiment.

Details

Since our budget is limited, we decided to use WCP tubings instead of carbon fiber tubings for the structure of the arm. This version is significantly heavier than that of 2630’s, so we used 2 krakens for the first joint with a reduction of around 130:1 while the second joint uses 1 kraken with a reduction of around 100:1. The first joint has a CTRE pigeon 2.0 while the second joint has a WCP through bore encoder.

We created a similar base structure to 2910’s structure using tubings as reinforcement and additional perpendicular support. This allowed us to use stock we had readily available without buying new, thicker plates.

We stayed with regular 5 mm belts because we had long belts available in the lab. If 5 mm pitch is not enough, we can always switch to 14 mm pitch belt and pulley.

The belt tensioner was made with ⅛” thick 1” x 1” angles with 3D printed belt clamps layered in between.

The angle on the arm of 2630 was recreated with gussets and a 3D printed block inside for reinforcement.

We are experimenting many new things with this project: under belly plate electronics (first time for our team), CTRE canrange, CTRE pigeon 2.0 to determine the position of the first arm (we have a through bore encoder as back up), WCP through bore encoder (we weren’t able to use them during the season because we received them late), and a slip ring for the end effector wrist. We will get more into detail about the wrist and end effector soon in the next post.

We are also attaching the system core on the bot for software experimentation.

Iterations

1. Motors sandwiched between the base structure

We originally started off with placing the motors in between the base structure to make every compact and save space. However, we quickly realized the limitations it placed on the entire mechanism, such as the size and location of the gears, chain, and unsupported gearbox plates.

2. Straight arm

We immediately realized we needed extra space for the end effector so we angled the arm and straightened it out at the end effector mounting just like 2630.

Challenges

Due to our school closing over the summer, we weren’t able to machine a good chunk of this project. Without having access to a bridgeport or lathe, we had to hand saw parts like the belt tensioner ourselves and manually make c clip grooves with the hand tools we had available. We were still able to water jet the sprockets for testing before our lab closed.

Positions

These are not accurate positions, however, they are estimates to check if our arm proportions are viable.

We are currently manufacturing and building; we would appreciate any feedback or suggestions!

[AmitN]

Great to see that our arm inspired your off-season project!

We would be happy to share insights and lessons we learned throughout the design and development process, feel free to reach out anytime.

Amit
2630

[elin-semicolon-D]

Offseason Project: Hooded Shooter

This offseason project is based on the hooded shooters found in the 2020 FRC game, Infinite Recharge. Our goals were to learn the principles, familiarize ourselves with the process of prototyping, and build a hooded shooter or a similar mechanism in preparation for future games. Taking inspiration from teams who did hooded shooters in 2022 like 1690, 1678, 254, and 3476, we desired to make a mechanism for the smaller game piece from 2020.

Some limitations we encountered were the difficulties of testing and obtaining data. Due to meeting constraints and lack of certain electronic components we spent much longer than necessary to find the best compression for our hooded shooter. To solve this, we created our own electronic set up by splitting wires and using sparkmaxes in place of something like a test board.

But anyways, here is our prototype for this project:

We powered the 2 wheels with 2 NEO v1.1s, and there were multiple bolting holes so that when we swung the arm, the distance between the 2 wheel decreased .2” at a time, allowing us to test compressions in .25” increments

Our data showed that our precision was best at compression 2, when there was a 3”compression on the ball. We test compressions between 2.75” and 4.5”

Compression Data
Hooded Shooter Data

Hooded Shooter Compression 2 Setpoint 0.525 test

Gear rack

The gear rack, which is mounted to the hood plates, uses a herringbone pattern to mesh with the pivot gear to handle load. Its underside provides a consistent surface for the ball to roll on in order to maximize contact time, which strengthens shooting precision. The herringbone pattern will help center this gear.

Designing this part was the most challenging because we were trying to make it small and compact to make the overall shooter smaller, while getting the most amount of rotation possible. If we wanted to increase our range of rotation, we needed a bigger gear rack. However, making it too big made taking the ball harder when we wanted to shoot a steep angle (see picture), as well as increase the amount of PLA required to print it. We decided to remove a roller from our original version (shown below).

To prevent the hood from colliding with the handoff rollers, we placed hardstops above the rollers.

Hood + Main Axle rollers

We wanted to be able to play around with mitigating backspin on the ball, so we geared opposite spinning hood rollers onto the hood plates. The hood roller (the blue one on the top) has a 2” diameter and is powered by two identical pulley + gear systems (one on each side of the shooter to increase torque). We will be using 2” stealth wheels as they were the type we used in our prototyping.

The main roller consists of four 4” diameter stealth wheels accompanied by a 4” flywheel and is also powered by the pulley + gear systems. We might want to create custom flywheel shapes in the future, but we are using the .5” SDS to substitute it for now.

The gear + pulley system uses one motor with a 12T pulley pinion power the hood and central roller (2.5:1 Gear ratio for both rollers).

Handoff

This was created with the intention of being mounted on a turret so to transfer the game piece from the turret to the hooded shooter we created an intake system at the bottom. Using 5 sushi rollers on two shafts and a 3D printed wall, the intake takes up the ball from the bottom and brings it to the hood where it can be shot. It’s also powered by a Neo and uses gears with a 6.4:1 gear ratio.

Pivot

The pivot contains a herringbone gear and the gear rack. When the herringbone gear on the shaft is powered, it causes the gear rack to move up and down depending on the direction. To spin the shaft we used two 25 tooth gears connected to a motor.

Past Version

Current Version

Side View of Gear Box

Our past hooded shooter, while functional (in theory), was improved through these methods.

• Because of a lack of resources and cost constraints, the intake pulleys and others were switched into gears.
• Past gears were shrunken for space while made slightly thicker to make it stronger.
• It became smaller due to better space usage making it more compact and easier to machine.
• The gear box, the structure protruding on the side, was also made smaller and simpler.
  *The gearbox bearings were flipped so that they faced into the gear box to make the gearbox more compact and prevent bearing flanges from interfering with the ball path
• We’ve also decided to switch how we would power the gear rack, from a singular gear on the side to one much larger herringbone gear in the middle . This applies the force much more evenly, is much more precise, and can move the gear rack up and down more easily.

We’d love any feedback on our designs!

• Your Local Pulsite & Friends