paper: Encyclopedia Robotica Volume 2

frc
arms
hoppers
encyclopedia
drivebases
#1

Thread created automatically to discuss a document in CD-Media.

Encyclopedia Robotica Volume 2
by: tjf

A successor to the 2011 GOFIRST “Encyclopedia Robotica” covering drive bases, middle stages, and end effectors in general and specific (with photos).

In the 2011 FRC / CARD season, GOFIRST released the “Encyclopedia Robotica”, a guide explaining the subsystems that teams frequently built and their variations. Arms, roller intakes, drive bases of varying sorts, all with pictures and diagrams.

The PDF copy was subsequently lost in a website overhaul, but a friend gave me a PDF he found and I set about to update it for the more recent FRC design trends with recent references.

The original PDF can be seen here.

A Google Doc version of Volume 2 be copied from here.

Special thanks to Nick Hammes for finding an original PDF that I could base this off of / copy from.

Encyclopedia_Robotica_v2.pdf (17.2 MB)
FRC Motor Primer.pdf (1.23 MB)
FRC Electronics & Wiring Primer.pdf (933 KB)
encyclopedia_robotica_v2_2018_08_14.pdf (17.4 MB)

#2

Phenomenal resource. In particular, I’m a big fan of the perfect combination of depth and brevity - I think it will prove useful for anyone who is new to FRC.

This is going to be required reading on 6844.

#3

What license is this content available under?

It’d be great if it were available under the same terms as wikipedia’s content (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights).

#4

It’s the R15 license. It’s a domain specific license to the world of FRC.

#5

Given that some photos were on CD, some were on team’s websites, some were given directly / taken by people writing the original document, and the revised version had stuff written / reworded by myself and others… who knows.

Given that I’m not the sole author I really can’t declare a copyright, and also I’m not a lawyer.

#6

Great resource! Significantly (>2*sigma) above average.

One amusing observation, re: the Mike Corsetto quote under “Tips, Tricks and, Advice” – Mike stole the quote!

Mike Corsetto 2016

Dave Lavery 2003

Kinda meta, eh?

#7

Ah, the ¯_(ツ)_/¯ license, my personal favorite.

Unfortunately I don’t believe GOFIRST ever specified a license for this, but I also would be willing to bet that since we had pretty much lost this for the entirety of the time I was there, they aren’t about to enforce anything now.

#8

UN-be-freaking livable. A 15 year old meta-quote…

#9

Wow, this is an amazing resource! Thanks for putting this out, this will be great to use as a reference.

#10

Thanks for putting this out, we’ll be using it during our design training season for sure

#11

As a supplement to the Encyclopedia Robotica, a bunch of friends have helped to make “A Primer to Motors in FRC”. To download, see the original paper in CD-Media.

Thanks to everyone who helped, and any suggestions are appreciated.

Copy it to your drive using this link.

#12

This is a great resource, thanks to everyone who added something to it!

Would it help to add a “things that climb” section? Climbers from 2010, 2013, 2016 would have added value to contribute.

Also, what about a “things that capture” section, such as 973’s 2011 passively-articulated mini-bot launcher or 1885’s 2017 climber.

#13

While I see a value in “Things That Climb”, the difficulty and variety of each climb makes it difficult to have a singular topic on it. 2013 was very dissimilar to 2016 given the rules, 2010 was just plain interesting.

As to “Things That Capture”, what made 973’s minibot exemplary, and 1885’s 2017 climber? With context I’d gladly add them to the document.

#14

Mike would never do that :wink:

#15

973’s minibot [i]launcher had a HUGE margin of error. The ‘V’ passively articulated left/right when the launcher was down. The non-obvious piece here is the magnet that had enough strength to pull the launcher the last few 0.1’s of an inch for a reliable connection every time.

1885’s rope capture from 2017 also had a substantially larger margin of error than nearly all other robots. It also didn’t require special treatment to a rope, meaning we could (and did one time) climb a partner’s rope. What made it unique was that the complex capture still only used 1 total degree of mechanical freedom like every other robot - so only a slight addition of software complexity was needed for a very large benefit.

#16

With the help of several friends, we put together a primer on Electronics & Wiring in FRC. It’s by no means totally comprehensive but it should help cover some principles and basic knowledge that teams should know.

You can download it here. and make a copy of it for your team’s Google Drive here.

I also highly suggest checking out the Spectrum FRC Electrical Guide that 3847 & their mentors put together.