Hey guys!! So this is my rookie year as a freshman and my team’s first year, and I don’t really know the FRC community that well, but here’s my team’
s first attempt to really innovate and create the best possible design for this year’s game: Stronghold. So here is the 5th iteration of our design that we’re about to send to our sponsor’s shop to get fabricated. We’ve already bought a 4ftx4ftx4in. block of carbon-fiber reinforced balsa that we plan to waterjet. The outer wall is a 4in high wall while the inside is 1in thick. We put cut outs were we could to reduce weight in the drivetrain. The drivetrain weight is 10.226 lbs. This innovative drivetrain makes use of our electronics to power the movement of the drivetrain. We received a large donation of parts as a rookie from an older team, and a large portion of them were old electronics. We decided to be economical, because we only have 2 sponsors right now. 1 being 7eleven and the other being an anonymous machine shop sponsor. Because of our low budget we could only obtain low-cost parts, hence the balsa and old electronics. These constraints lead us to think up a very innovative design::ouch:: . We have decided to mount the victor 888 motor controllers donated to us on the bottom of drivetrain, so that the blowing force from the fans can make the carbon reinforced balsa wood drivetrain hover above the ground. We found hovering to be the best possible method of overcoming the rocky terrain defenses because we would not have to sacrifice speed and time to traverse the rocky terrain like robots contacting the floor with wheels or treads would.We can now hover at a height of 2in. and hover across the field at a speed of 0.0113559 nautical miles/second. The drivetrain also only weights 10.226 lbs. :o . To hover we reversed the wiring so that the fan would spin back wards and would put a downward force on the floor. We also coded the victor motor controllers to spin 21.96969 times the speed they normally do to create a stronger fan propulsion source. To do this we had to replace the motors inside the fans with more powerful ones. We’re really proud to present this design to the robotics community in hopes of ways to figure out how to improve this current design. We look forward to the hard fun with other teams and hope to see you at orange county regional (March 30 - April 2, 2016) and the st. louis championships!!!
Bottom View:
I was just talking with a fellow mentor about trying a tethered quad-copter to get our climbing hook on the bar, I think this solves all of our problems! Mounting a ridiculous number of speed controllers upside down would definitely get us the lift we need to get up there!
Thanks for the support fellow roboticist! We were also gonna use this design to lift us up 2 feet off the banter during the end game for 15 points! We can avoid brownouts from voltage draw due to this design using no CIMs what so ever, so we can push more volts to the fans to achieve a greater height
I work for a division of a large multi-national corporation that manufactures motor controllers for industrial applications. Our Chief Technology Officer would like to speak with the team members who developed this, especially those individuals who coded the Victors. He is anxious to know when he can see a demonstration. I am pretty sure that he would be happy to provide sponsorship for your team after seeing your demonstration. Also, please send me your resumes so I can forward them to our CTO. He is always looking for outstanding engineering talent to give us an advantage over our competitors.
thanks for the opportunity can you message me the email at [email protected], so I can send the information. I’m really excited about the evolution of motor controllers. It saddened me that the victor888s were discontinued, hopefully the talons will pick up on their fan design for superior overclocking on the motor controllers.
I think our CTO will be out in California the week before the Orange County Regional to visit some partner companies in the renewable energy field. He might be able to extend his trip and attend to see your robot in action. He can then speak with you about how you can scale your technology up into the power range that our products operate in (100 to 1200 hp).
Question, Don’t really know the answer, but is creating a hover craft actually legal according to the rules. Like has anyone read through the manual to try and find a way where it is not legal.
So long as the bumpers remain within the required zone, there really isn’t anything stopping you besides maybe power/weight for the allowed motors. HIGHLY do not recommend this though. No significant pushing power and you will use a tremendous amount of battery power simply moving air.
According to our calculations, the bumpers will lower the height of the hover from 2 in to 1.7496 in, but we have allowed room in the inside of the bottom of our drivetrain to mount more vector 888s to counteract the downward force of the bumpers, we will have to fine tune that a little once the final weight of our robot has been set.
The design is unique! I like it ! Maybe try removing the electronics under the talon fans? That way you can avoid lifting more mass, and move at higher speeds and elevations, and draw less electricity. Another critique that I have is maybe, if you have enough money in your budget, obtaining computer cooling fans, which can propel more air downwards and are extremely low weight. Maybe even carbon fiber fans? to improve rigidity of the fan blades, so that the blades don’t warp due to the high air load they have to blow to keep the robot up… Just something to think about… Hope u keep on designing unique things and keep your mind open!
We may be able to put you in touch with our Motor R&D Department. They may be able to supply you with some more powerful motors. I am sure you can arrange for a suitable power supply to run these motors (480 V to 6140 V, 3-ph)
! Maybe try removing the electronics under the talon fans? That way you can avoid lifting more mass, and move at higher speeds and elevations, and draw less electricity. Another critique that I have is maybe, if you have enough money in your budget, obtaining computer cooling fans, which can propel more air downwards and are extremely low weight. Maybe even carbon fiber fans? to improve rigidity of the fan blades, so that the blades don’t warp due to the high air load they have to blow to keep the robot up… Just something to think about… Hope u keep on designing unique things and keep your mind open! 