We built a low cargo + hatch specialist to play Destination Deep Space in about a week due to losing the first two weeks due to Chinese Exam timetables and losing another 2.5 weeks due to Chinese New Year.
Weighing in under 70lbs our robot features a 6WD belt in tube WCD with a custom single-stage gearbox geared for 20fps.
The manipulator/arm is largely made from Carbon Fiber tubes and fiberglass though some last minute parts are aluminium.
The robot was intended to have a climber + buddy lifter, and the chassis is designed for this. Due to time constraints, we will add these mechanisms at our second event if time permits.
The intake features 32 flex wheels of both 3" and 2" variety. The 3" are stretched over a 30mm aluminium tube and are driven by 775pro motors via custom machined pulleys with 30mm bore. Our cargo mechanism can rotate the front roller in reverse while still holding the cargo inside in order to clear a path in front of the robot when scoring cargos and hatches.
As a rookie team, we experienced some issues while finishing off our robot.
The pneumatic cylinders used to lift our arm do not have sufficient bore so for testing and practice we turned up the regulator, but we will need to change to larger bore cylinders at our event. Additionally we had some major leak issues from our solenoids (purchased on Taobao), so we would love to get some help from other teams’ students and mentors at Great Northern Regional to get our pneumatic system working and our robot working to its full potential.
If I didn’t see the pictures of it I wouldn’t believe it… Awesome job this year guys! It’s crazy how great this robot looks for it being your rookie year!
I am wondering how wide the supported portion of the bumper will be. It looks like it is 4 inches wide (1 piece of 2x2, and 2 pieces of 1x1). Just want to make sure it would be legal for bumpers.
Lovely robot guys, even more impressive that it was built in a week! I’m looking forward to seeing it in action and meeting you at Great Northern. We have a few students on our team that speak Mandarin and we’d be happy to help out with your pneumatics as well.
I see the same thing. You need to look very hard at the bumper rules as I do not think this will pass inspection. PLEASE UNDERSTAND, you did a great job but the details on the bumpers will cause pain at your event.
I’m going to third what others have said about bumpers here. Definitely look at bumper rules, specifically R24:
Blockquote
R24. ROBOTS are required to use BUMPERS to protect all outside corners of the FRAME PERIMETER.
For adequate protection, at least 6 in. (~16 cm) of BUMPER must be placed on each side of each outside corner (see Figure 10-2 BUMPER corner examples) and must extend to within ¼ in. (~6 mm) of the FRAME PERIMETER corner. If a FRAME PERIMETER side is shorter than 12 in. (~31cm), that entire side must be protected by BUMPER (see Figure 10-3). A round or circular FRAME PERIMETER, or segment of the FRAME PERIMETER, is considered to have an infinite number of corners, therefore the entire frame or frame segment must be completely protected byBUMPER(S).
Thanks for the above advice! The bumper rules can be a little confusing at times.
Our robot has three different bumper segments, two corner segments for the side with the absent buddy climber. These measure 6"x 8" and meet bumper requirements in the 8" section.
The other side of the robot has a C shaped bumper which has 6" at either end which again fits bumper requirements.
We realised that the requirement for 1/2" support at either corner would be a problem for the front of the robot but we were unable to finalise exact sizing due to waiting for narrower Colson wheels which were sadly out of stock for the entire season here in China.
The bumper segments are rigidly secured and supported in all parts except the 1/2" min at bumper end rule which will be solved with a small angle bracket added to the cutouts of the chassis to provide at least 1/2" of support.
The rule you may be missing is that bumpers need to be on each side of each outside corner of the robot. Your robot has 4 corners, therefore, it needs 8 sections of bumpers 6" long (minimum) each, two for every corner, including the front corners of your bot.
Jim and Phil, we appreciate your feedback and sharp eyes! The rule in question is R33: “BUMPERS must be supported by the structure/frame of the ROBOT (see Figure 10-8). To be considered supported, a minimum of ½ in. (~13 mm) at each end of each BUMPER wood segment must be backed by the FRAME PERIMETER (≤¼ in. gap)”
The front of our robot is already approximately 5” in width, as we previously stated we already know that this does not meet the R33 requirement so an additional 1” will be added via a small gusset or angle bracket attached to our WCD tube in order to do so.
