before someone tells me “there are no general pros/cons, it all varies by season” or something to that tune, everything does somethings better than others, and has different costs to get running. something being delicate, expensive, or highly complex would be a con, something having a lot of use cases and being highly adaptable, or taking up little space for the benefit it provides would be a pro. I’m a senior and want to build something that I can leave for the team after I go next year. I found a list in an older thread I’ve been pulling from, added a bunch of things off my own and would love some help adding notes. i’ve copied all the categories into the box below, if you want to see the page with all my notes and commentary for each system it should be at the bottom of this post
- Plow
- Redundant systems and reinforcement
- Stronger materials
- Excess material
- Bracing
- Modular design
- Drive trains
- Redundancy
- Extra sensors
- Sharing the load
DRIVE SYSTEMS
- Swerve
- Brakes
- Stair Climber
- Ramp Climber
GEARBOXES
- 1 Speed
- 2 Speed
- 3+ Speed
- Continuously Variable Transmission
- Worm Drive
- Clutches
- Winch
- Ratchet
- Power Take Off
MANIPULATORS
- Elevator
- Single Jointed Arm
- Double Jointed Arm
- Triple+ Jointed Arm
- Roller Claw
- Top roller
- Side roller claw combo intake
- Pincer Claw
- Vacuum System
- Bucket
- Shooter
- Wheel track
- Cannon
- Sling
- Linkage
- Lifter
- Balancing
- Hanging
- Grabbing Pipes
- Defense
CONTROLS
- Robot Control
- Custom Dashboard
- Path finding
- Following markers
- Preassigned route
- Machine Vision
link to the doc I’ve been building
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can someone help? please?
A lot of these mechanisms don’t seem to be too… FRC specific? Theres a ton of claw derivatives and arm derivatives that could be condensed, and shooters are just one single category, when theres a ton of different designs. Hoods and turrets are missing entirely. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sling in FRC. I also think it would be very useful to list things such as what years mechanisms were used (cannon-type in 2014, hood shooter for most small-medium ball games, roller claws for games like 2023). I’d go back and instead of looking at general mechanical systems, look at the metas in past years that FRC teams actually used, and write down what characteristics the gamepieces had and how the meta design was better than others during that year. This would allow you to see a gamepiece on kickoff and characterize it into something that is proven from the past.
part of the reason I’m asking for help, I didn’t really know how to keep going, and wanted some experienced opinions. most of my experience is with general STEM, an FTC and FRC season, and a talent for mechanical systems pulling me towards this kind of stuff for a lot of my life (aka prolonged exposure :P), with the last year being the only time I’ve been a part of something this professional and big
I will note that at one point I started just listing everything I have any experience with, even if only to say you should never use this for FRC under any serious circumstances
I’ve gone through like 3 different format phases for how I was building the doc, and most of the weirdness you mentioned on that front is from that
got any recommendations for teams to investigate or years to look at?
I’ve added some in the document, and I’ll try and write some more content tonight after I finish my homework