FRC Team 971 proudly presents our 2014 robot, Mammoth.
Team 971 is sponsored by NASA Ames Research Facility, Google, Abbott Fund, St. Jude Medical Foundation, Screen-Tech, Creative Machining Solutions, Group Manufacturing Services Inc., CalMax Technology, EKG Precision Machining, Intuitive Surgical, Givmar Precision Machining, Solidworks, MVHS PTSA, The Linley Group, Auris, Whizz systems, Smith/McLain Family and Crispie Family, 971 Parents, Alumni and Friends
Intake isn’t fast enough, also doesn’t have enough control loops.
Just kidding, great looking bot. Excited to see it play this weekend!
971 is the master of the intake.
Can’t wait for this weekend!
-Mike
This thing will win regionals. Yes, that is plural.
This is a gorgeous machine. Can’t wait to watch it on the field.
-Nick
Really enjoy the use of the intake to catch/pickup bouncing balls. It’s a weird problem to solve, but you make it look effortless. Also, the over the back shot is so fun to watch.
And a question, just to satisfy my own curiosity - the hall-effect sensors on the Claw’s pivot, is it safe to assume that each one of them corresponds to some unique position of the claw? Is there any reason for doing this sort of setup over an absolute encoder or similar sensor? Reliability? Cost? Simplicity?
The separate upper and lower jaw is absolutely brilliant. Your programmers must have had fun with all those possibilities.
Amazing machine, can’t wait to watch it in action!
Big fan of the spinning lower forks to help center the ball.
The motorized prongs are beautiful.
It’s cool to see the progress of your robot based on the amount of 2x4’s and pools noodles attached to the top of our 2013 drive base. 
Great job everyone on 971, this looks like an absolute beast of a machine. I look forward to playing together at SVR.
Many thanks. We’re really proud of this design. Its something that we picked up on rather early and found it worked really well. The nice thing is that it allows us to center the ball without having the intake stick far out of the robot. In this year’s wide open game, we felt it was necessary to keep things inside the frame as much as possible. We get a large intake width without having a large intake sticking out of the robot. It was difficult to package, but we are proud of the result. We are very excited to see how it does at Sacramento and SVR.
Yes. It is really nice how we are able to use the full range of the claw, and this comes with the programmability of the robot. Austin can likely fill you in more in this area. We love how we can use both sides of the intake to grab the ball and shoot. We hope this allows for more flexible gameplay and will allow us to explore a wide variety of in-game strategies.
We have 3 hall effect sensors and 1 encoder for each jaw. The hall effects are for zeroing. The one in the middle zeros the claw and the top and bottom hall effects set a software limit for each side of the claw.
Forget the flashy claw, take the bumpers off and show us some close ups of that frame design =)
I’ve been a huge fan of 971’s fabrication techniques ever since I started paying close attention to your designs back in 2012. If you can post any amount of parts photos sometime this season, I’d be grateful.
This is a great looking robot.
We hope to see you guys in St. Louis!!
I was wondering when someone would mention that 
.
I’ll see what I can find. For those who can’t see it up close in person, we’ll likely post some pictures throughout the season, and make more public at by the season’s end. The drivetrain is a result of 4+ years of iteration, and we tried to pay even more attention to detail. So far, we like the result.
Thanks! You guys are looking good too. Good luck at your competitions as well.
What are all the prongs and wheels in the intake powered by?
Super cool design! I really hope I can see it at IRI or something.
Centering “Tusks” are each powered by 1 AndyMark. Top claw has 2 RS 550s. Shooter is 2 RS 550s.
I like the “jaws of not-death” intake. Very cool.
I also like the versatility (is that the word I want?) of the shooter, able to pick up and shoot in the opposite direction with little driving.
Wow that is really sweet design. The whole time I was watching the video I was like “this robot has an uncanny ability to center the ball”. I had to read the comments to find out why :P, I can see that making a big difference in competition.
Very cool machine! I think this is the most impressive bot posted so far in terms of ingenuity in the design approach and execution. The two independent moving arms that make up the grabber are a bold design decision that I don’t think many teams would have attempted to pull off, if they even came up with the concept to begin with.
And belts everywhere!
I hope you make it to St. Louis, I want to check this out in person.