FRC 9496 Lynk | 2024 Build Thread | Open Alliance

Week 2!

Welcome back to Team 9496 Lynk’s 2024 OA thread, for our second post of the Crescendo season!

Monday, January 15th

In previous discussions, we had decided that we wanted to be able to pick up notes from the ground, and now we had to decide how we would do that. The main debate was between over-the-bumper vs under-the-bumper, and we had to list out the pro/con of each system. After that, we decided to pursue over-the-bumper, as it would allow for a better touch it own it approach due to it being wider than we expected UTB.

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We also 3D-printed a field to use when developing strategies.

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Tuesday, January 16th

We received sheet metal parts for the robot cart from WestRock (thank you, WestRock!), so we could start building that cart.

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We got our MK4i swerve modules today, which allows us to assemble the chassis. At this point, we decided to go ahead with a 27"x27" chassis.

Wednesday, January 17th

We had an online meeting to discuss the 2D design of the current robot concept. The goal was to lay out how the overall system will work with real dimensions, and show us how it fits together.

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Thursday, January 18th

We worked on building the robot cart.

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We had a discussion about the design we had been proto-CADing the previous day. This concept was an over-the-bumper intake with horizontal wheels on the shooter, and at this time this is what we were looking at to complete all of our goals on the “Our Robot Will” list. Here is the concept we were discussing:

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After this, we discussed a new to-us concept for an intake inspired by 95’s design; we started calling this the “Between the Bumper” intake. After this conversation, we felt this was a different enough new design that it required us to go back to the whiteboard and compare its pros and cons to OTB and traditional UTB.

Friday, January 19th

Since we decided to revisit our decision on an OTB intake in the last meeting, this meeting’s main goal was to discuss the pros/cons of the BTB intake as compared to the list we had made for the other concepts. This is the list that we came up with. Because of this evaluation, we decided to pivot our design and move towards a BTB intake. Once we saw the pro/con list, it was a somewhat easy decision to make.

Intake Style Comparisons

Over-the-Bumper Under-the-Bumper Behind-the-Bumper
Pros: Pros: Pros:
Touch it, own it Protected Touch it, own it
Faster cycles (reach) Good for playing chicken Protected
Multi-function Defense Good for playing chicken
Lots of examples Defense
Can see when in Reach (better than UTB)
Easy to iterate 0 DOF
Able to iterate
Normal CG
Limited Jamming
Some OTB knowledge applies
Cons: Cons: Cons:
Damage More operator skill needed Not multi-functional
+1 DOF Jamming Prone Few examples
Bad at playing chicken High CG Reach worse than OTB

Saturday, January 20th

We held an online meeting to work on how we would build a BTB intake, and how it would integrate into a full robot. Our goal was to make complete enough CAD to create a prototype of the intake, and also see how everything fits together.

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See y’all next update!

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