Offseason Competition: GRITS
GRITS, short for the Georgia Robotics Invitational Tournament & Symposium, was a two-day offseason competition held on the last weekend of October. We assigned five experienced members to work on alterations to Bowie, our 2023 competition robot.
Design/Mechanical:
Onshape
Instead of pursuing a new design, we iterated on our 2023 Pink Arm robot. We changed the following:
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Intake: We took inspiration from 8177 and used a similar intake except we modified it so it uses 2 neos, and added a wrist.
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Arm: We added direct drive using spline, hoping to combat the tilt and breaking that we experienced when we were hit hard in 2023.
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Supports: We 3-D printed mounts to use to attach support bars on both sides of the A-frame to prevent the arm from slipping out.
Electrical:
Unfortunately, by the time we started wiring, we only had two weeks until the competition. Wiring the arm went well; however, the cable management was extremely frustrating. After we mounted the arm, we spent three days solely focusing on cable management. We settled on using two sets of Igus chain mounted on the linear slider, as we had to add power and CAN wiring for the wrist to our original electrical setup. To protect the wires coming down from the arm, we used extra black bumper fabric.
At the competition, we had CAN issues, which were resolved with the help of 4188 and 1261 electrical members. We fixed our CAN connections and changed our wire protectors to a mesh fabric.
Programming:
Our sole programmer last year left, leaving a mechanical member with no experience to step up to this role. Last year’s code was refined and added to to include a wrist subsystem. The arm subsystem code was rewritten, and new buttons were configured so a single button was able to set the position of both the arm and wrist at once, significantly saving button space. Autonomous code was also rewritten to implement the wrist. However with only a few hours to test the robot, we were unable to properly tune the set positions to be very exact.
Github
Competition:
GRITS was a good learning experience for our team. Our new members were able to experience their first competition which should prepare them for the upcoming season.
However, everything that could break did break. We began the day with no drive practice, electrical problems, and a drive team with no continuity from our 2023 season.
Things that broke during our matches:
Match 4: Did not appear - we were fixing CAN and programming issues
Match 9: CAN issues
Match 14: Bumpers fell out
Match 23: CAN issues
Match 28: CAN issues after going over bumpside
Match 37: Arm Chain Slipped, so set positions no longer worked.
Match 42: Low Battery
Match 47: Chain on linear slider broke, arm chain slipped, bumper fell off
Match 54: Arm was ripped off due to mechanical oversight on the fixes from match 47
Match 62: Battery problems towards end of match
Things we need to improve/fix before the upcoming season:
- Battery
- Bumpers
- Wiring
- Field Connection
- Mechanical Checklist
- Electrical Checklist
Plan for November and December:
- Teach underclassmen electrical and programming
- Transition from Neos to Falcons on Swerve
- Create best practices guides to avoid future mistakes
Although GRITS was frustrating, we’re dedicated to improving our processes so we can successfully compete in 2024.
