AIR Strike FIRST Team 78’s 2012 Robot
Striker Mk. III
We look forward to seeing everyone in Manchester and Boston!
(Photo by Joe Menassa)
AIR Strike FIRST Team 78’s 2012 Robot
Wow. Two CIMs on your shooter. Where are you shooting from?
What wheels are you using? Hard to tell
Looks like 8" AM FIRST wheels with a custom tread.
Wow, no kit chassis this year. Looks like a great bot!
As always, AIR strile looks formidable.
Good luck and see you at GSR.
Nice looking! It might be the angle of the picture but it does not look like your short bumper with the number 78 on it is 8" long from the corner of the frame? Please tell me I am wrong!
[R27]
Robots are required to use Bumpers to protect all exterior vertices of the Frame Perimeter. For adequate protection, at least 8 in. of Bumper must be placed on each side of each exterior vertex
As always a great looking robot, AIR Strike!
121 (the team from which 78 branched off of after the 2009 season) used a similar looking material on their kop wheels to acquire the trackballs in 2008 (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64785&highlight=121+2008)… I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re the same material.
It looks like your entire upper assembly (loader and shooter) is on a turret… do you mind if I ask what the reasoning behind that decision was? Lower the weight of the turreting assembly? Improve consistency of feeding balls into your shooter?
Perhaps I should just wait to check out your robot at GSR… I’m quite curious about your shooter and drive motors, your drive wheels, how you handle the wiring for the upper assembly, and your seemingly sheet metal outer frame (new for you guys, if I recall correctly).
Nathan
Sweet machine and good looking shooter.
I also noticed that your front bumpers appear to be beveled to feed your harvester.
We asked the question and got this responce from the GDC:
Q. We have a harvester to pick up balls from the court. Is it permissible to bevel the bumpers at the entrance of the harvester to assist with the ball pickup as long as the bumper backing is at least 8 inches long? FRC1501 2012-02-04
A. Any cross-section of a Bumper backed by plywood must match that in Figure 4-5 (not beveled). Per Rule [R28-C], cushion material may extend up to 2-½ in. beyond the end of the plywood, which may be beveled
Good luck this year.
To answer some questions:
[size=3]Like all teams with wheeled shooters, the shooting distance will be dependent on the balls at the event.
The front bumpers are 8 inches long and are not beveled. The angle of the shot and tightness of the fabric may make the bumper appear as though it is beveled. The plywood and pool noodle are both cut to 8”.
The shooter wheels are standard rubber 8” AM wheels. The coloring you see on them is due to some rather extensive testing and our workspace (Navy warehouse – not the cleanest spot). Didn’t have time to clean before the glamour shot…
We decided to rotate the feed and the turret together to ensure the ball was consistently hitting the shooter wheels the same way on every shot. Also, if for some reason the turntable bearings broke (including our spares), or we needed to remove the turret feature due to weight, the turret could be mounted directly to the chassis.
The turret wiring is attached to the turret with powerpole connectors. This allow for a quick disconnect if needed. All wiring to the camera, LEDs, shooter motors runs through conduit on the sides of the turret.
The non kit chassis is a new endeavor for us. We received a CNC machine this fall and incorporated it into our workshop. If you look closely, you can see the weight reduction in the chassis, bridge device, and turret. The chassis plates are ¼” aluminum held together with extrude aluminum. It was nice being able to have a consistent hole pattern on all our machined parts.
The drive wheels are four 8” pneumatic wheels and two AM 8” plastic wheels. The plastic wheels are there to aid with turning. For the last 3 years, we have had this type of wheel in the back of the drive train with great success.
Nathan, stop by the pit and say hi. Our student pit crew can give you a tour of the machine. I will be by the 1519 pit to check out your machine as well.[/size]
Awesome work. Can’t wait to to see what it can do on the field. Wish I could convince NAVSSES to let us use a warehouse.
How well does loading from the floor work when your turret/tower isn’t at a right angle compared to your loader?
About how many driving hours have you been able to put on that machine?
That design (with the turret at the bottom of the tower) was exactly what we were going to do originally until we realized that we needed to support the top of our tower to prevent it from snapping off at the frame/turret during rough driving/collisions/bump crossings/etc. The weight of that shooting head (especially with 2 CIMs up there) will induce incredible forces on the base of your tower during rough play.
Great looking machine though for sure!
Congrats.
Our NAVSEA sponsor graciously pays the rent on our warehouse workspace. We have enough space for our workshop, 1 FRC team, 3 VEX teams, and 2 FTC teams. They were also instrumental in getting us a (new) CNC machine…a 1995 Wells-Index. Taken some time to learn how to use…it’s been a fun learning experience.
I believe the turret is coded to revert back to center in order to pick up.
We have some driving time on the lazy susan bearing, but it was never beaten up like it could at a competition. It’s a rather beefy bearing…got it through McMaster. We’ll see!
Very elegant robot 78! Can’t wait to see this in a few days!
Rick and Co. -
Looks awesome as usual! Unique take on the rotating turret/shooter assembly. Do you guys drive over the barrier as well?
I’ll be buy to check it out in person this weekend.
-Brando
It may be just the picture, but what is the little protrusion and flat piece of aluminum at the very top of of your robot for?
Sweet looking 'bot!
See you at GSR again, maybe for another collaboration? 
Nicely engineered and clean cut as always.
Just a quick question, what made you folks decide to have a turret for the entire shooter mechanism as opposed to a turret head? In 2009, we had a setup like yours but opted to go with the head only instead for this season.
From above:
121 also had huge success with this style system in 2006 so I’m sure the 78 was knowledgeable in this area when designing their robot.