Welcome to the 8324 MECO Robotics off season thread. This is where we will be sharing our progress on robot improvements, student trainings, and general team updates and events over the next few months.
Student classes: Since the 2025 season ended, we have started multiple student training sessions on CAD and programming, designed to both help new students get introduced to CAD and coding concepts, and help beginner and intermediate students advance their skills and teach them how to apply those skills to FRC and real-world tasks and situations.
CAD software: In another piece of team news, after some deliberation we’ve made the decision to switch to OnShape instead of Fusion360 for our primary CAD software. To adapt to this change, we’ve all been going through the trainings found on frcdesign.org.
Offseason events: As a team we are planning to attend multiple events over the course of the offseason. Of course, we’ll be attending at least two the Florida events, but we will also be attending Northshore Knockout in Louisiana next month, hosted by Mandeville Robotics This will be the first time we’ll be attending this competition, and we’re excited to meet new teams and get back in the action of Reefscape, since it’s our first offseason event of the year.
In this thread we plan to send out weekly updates on the progress we are making on our 2025 bot, Hadal, as we are planning on implementing some changes to the design we utilized during Reefscape We’re excited to share all of our team’s progress with everyone, and stay tuned for further offseason updates.
If you don’t already, follow us on Instagram at @frc8324meco to see more team updates, see when we post our new CD threads, and more! Go for MECO!
Custom swerve wheels report: We took the wheel hub we already had and decided to model it on OnShape. After we finished the first iteration of that, we started on modeling the actual tread. At first, we struggled to find a way to make the actual tread pattern so we started with making a herringbone pattern.
Then, we took the same steps we used for the herringbone pattern to make a pattern that will eventually become spiky, using the loft tool (which hasn’t been done yet). After that’s finished we will have completed our first iteration of the wheel itself!
Stiffening elevator report: During the process of stiffening of the elevator we found that there wasn’t a very secure connection between the elevator and the chassis of our robot after going to competitions and competing. Therefore, the plan is to remove the elevator from the robot and lay 16th inch 2x1 aluminum tubes across the chassis connected via brackets and rivets to the robot. This will give us a secure mounting option for the elevator without needing to completely redesign the elevator system. By stiffening the elevator, we will stabilize our end effector, increasing scoring accuracy. We will also be able to increase the overall reliability of our robot with less parts shifting out of place. We will also hopefully improve balance with a less wobbly elevator.
Claw grip algae report: Concept designs iterations were made. Our first idea was remaking the arm completely to be larger to grab the algae & to replace the NEO 550 with a regular NEO. This was later changed to creating a new section on the arm & replacing the NEO 550. We’ve started our sketch’s for the new attachment!
Edited the wheel hubs (making it less of a carbon copy and giving it our own flavor), made .stl files for the wheel hubs for 3D printing, and printed our first iteration of the wheel hubs out of PETG. Some of the connecting holes were accidentally made without tolerance; they were fixed in CAD alongside some printing optimization tweaks and are on the way to being 3D printed again.
Created and finished the spikes for the tread (after much trial, error, and loss of sanity), leaving the mold for the tread as the next step (also a 3D print). We also decided that the tread would be made out of Simpact 85A Polyurethane Resin.
Elevator Stiffening Project Report: During our CAD sessions, we discovered that the plates we made were either too small or wouldn’t do much to properly stiffen the elevator. We have begun to make plates that will go diagonally across the robot frame as well as tried using pull rods to provide tension on the elevator. These pull rods are originally designed to stiffen the Z-axis of 3D printers. By attaching them to the robot with custom mounting plates, we can apply tension to the elevator. There was also the idea of adding rather large plates connected via hex shafts in the middle, but this idea was scrapped due to weight issues.
Algae Grip Report: We finished our CAD of the new piece and managed to print a prototype of it, we are also attaching it to our robot for testing and adjustments before we cut out the real piece. During our attaching, we noticed that the print might actually be strong enough for the Northshore Knockout. we also need to print a gear for our pulley because the pulley wasn’t long enough with the new attachment.
We got the second iteration of the hubs and a small price of the tread printed. There were some tolerance issues on the hub again and some walls were too thin, so we will be fixing it to make a 3rd and hopefully final iteration.
Hey CD,
Throughout the season we experienced many problems with our mechanism that cradles the coral or what we call the “trough”.
Here is an example of it being hand fed in to demonstrate the general idea.
Here is a video of v1 trough on our alpha bot:
Problems:
-Hard to center/index coral
-Coral flies through one side and goes through the other side. (Goes straight through the indexer)
-Gets stuck sidewards and doesn’t lay properly.
Fixes:
-Planning on creating higher walls with a sharper chamfer to force coral into the base
-Possibly add a passive wall to ensure coral stays in the center.
This is most likely due to your end effector not going low enough when acquiring the Coral from the trough. Also even in the successful grab in the video it isn’t all the way in just slightly deeper however when looking at the video I noticed something interesting
So when combing the above two issues you can get the catapult effect seen in the first video since when the Coral is not all the way into the end effector the wheels do not supply enough force to hold the Coral. It is also possible when it is all the way in the more compliant wheels are allowing more wiggle in the Coral and if the Coral is allowed to move enough it can overcome the friction of said wheels.
I assume you are using the feedback from the wheels stalling to say if the Coral is in or not these compliant wheels could be giving a false stall reading as well.
A way to solve the Coral not going in far enough issue is addressed in your planned fixed however a simple solution does come from 2056
When looking at your trough in the videos your V1 wasn’t deep enough however the one in the first video looks plenty deep just at too steep an angle. The steep angle could be leading to that weird grip as your end effector could be slamming the Coral into itself at said angle resulting in the Coral bouncing back into the compliant wheels.
I also may be missing something from the two videos as I can’t figure out what actually is centering the Coral as it goes from your intake to the trough.
I do think that most of your problems could be solved by a more rigid wheel, straighter trough holder and bringing your end effector down further when grabbing the coral
To help with indexing we have these set of rollers helping push the coral. When the coral gets caught in the trough the idea was for the wheels to keep pushing it and hopefully force it into the desired orientation.
At the Orlando Regional we swapped out our end effector for V2 which featured powered wheels off of a neo 550. When preforming indexing/handoff we would have this running and with the combination of the trough, another set of intake rollers and the powered end effector rollers it worked a bit better.
However one problem with the V2 roller is due to the fact its powered off a neo 550 we lack the torque needed for algae so that is one of the modifications that we are making in addition to the robot before north shore knockout.
Would it be possible to get some video of the issues you are having with the most up to date version of the robot? It could be helpful in both better visualizing exactly the issue as well as the forces at play.
Yes, I will go through our albums and see if I can find some videos.
I will report back later, if any other MECO person wants to help feel free, @sagejc8324@Ryan_Chanson@AKidWhoDoesRobotics
Elevator stiffening progress report: Found that mounting with our custom plates would not work due to connection issues, therefore we have swapped the mounting components from custom to the parts provided in the kit. These mounting plates will be mounted directly to the chassis to provide the most stable mounting space.
Algae Grip Report: We didn’t have any of the right pulley and belt for the motor, so now we designed a new pulley to fit a larger belt. It will be a 96 tooth pulley. Before buying one, we are going to print a prototype to see if it will work with the new attachment.
