This Tuesday, September 24th starting at 8:30pm eastern FRC Deep Dive is back with an unprecedented look and AMA with FRC 148 the Robowranglers. You’ll get over an hour to find out what it takes to perform at the highest level of FIRST and also to ask questions!
You can submit questions ahead of time here on Chief Delphi or at our Discord in #frc-preshow-qa . We will get to as many questions as we can and typically those submitted ahead of time have a better chance of being asked as we have some time to organize these.
Oh and there will be 148 giveaways for those who watch live!
I feel pretty strongly about a team’s culture and it’s impact on their performance both on and off the field. So many of the questions I have revolve around that.
JVN has often talked about how 148 embraces their failures, using them as learning experiences and how the team is constantly iterating based on the things they learn. So much so that it appears to be baked into the team’s b̶r̶o̶w̶n̶i̶e̶s̶ culture at this point. Are there other things 148 feels strongly about cultivating a team culture around? (“Fun” stands out as something 148 holds pretty dear with their prank war and all.)
How do these other team culture items the team pushes for attribute to the teams success?
In my experience, many of these team culture things tend to happen pretty organically. But over the years, what’s been the hardest thing at either maintaining or changing for the better in terms of team culture?
Has 148 ever changed a design based on the inability to find components in black? #allblackeverything
I feel like my team can put out some pretty nice designs, but during the last two seasons we faced a lot of reliability issues with our mechanisms (for example, using thin polycarb in our HP mechanism that breaks after almost every match which took a lot of pit time in between matches). How do you keep your robot designs robust and reliable?
Do you use load simulations in your designs or do you just “eyeball” the material choice? Any special info about manufacturing custom gearboxes with thin (~0.118in/3mm) sheet metal? Do you CNC Lexan and if so, how (speeds, feeds, general tips for milling Lexan)?
Do you guys hide your electrical deep in the robot with “easy” access ways, Paint it, or just deal with it not being black? What is your method of making custom circuits for the robot if you have any?
Thank you for all the questions! We will accept questions until 5 PM ET. After this point please post questions in the live chat at twitch.tv/firstupdatesnow . Show starts at 8:30pm ET.
148 is known for its tenacity when it comes to iteration in the engineering process, though some levels of iteration can be too resource-intensive for other teams to emulate. Do you have any tips for lower resource teams on how to iterate effectively while staying within their means?
Can you talk about design, fabrication, or assembly choices/considerations that were a result of having a software team that can write advanced software/auton programs.
(this year or past years)
Has your iteration process ever become “unhealthy” to students or mentors? If yes, how did you notice? What point (if any) made you think you were driving yourselves too hard? (While someone might chime in and say you can never work too hard, I beg to differ)
Will your 2019 CAD be posted soon?
With the team distancing itself from full sheetmetal fabrication, do you find yourself iterating more quickly? Does the robot CAD or programming lag significantly behind what upgrades are actually on the robot?
Have you seen an increase in competition in Texas, if yes, can you attribute it to districts?
