Now that all the regionals are over, I guess this is a good time to post some pictures and information about our robot.
Our robot has changed dramatically since we shipped it. Our shipped robot had the following capabilities:
- Latch and unlatch 1 goal and transfer the weight into robot
- Pick up balls (or so we thought)
During the practice rounds in Cleveland, we came to the realization that our ball mechanism did not work at all. After our last practice match on Thursday, we got to work stripping everything off our robot that had to do with the ball mechanism (which was quite a lot). With all the extra weight we had left without the ball mechanism (we were right at 130 lbs with it), we decided to add an extension. We built an extension on Friday, and spent most of the day testing and fixing it until finally in the last match of the day it actually worked. Also on Friday after the completion of the QM’s, we added a second latch. Unfortunately, we had neither the time nor the resources to make it transfer the weight, but at least we could latch 2 goals.
So, at the end of the Cleveland regional, here were our new capabilities:
- Latch and unlatch 2 goals and transfer the weight of 1 goal
- Extend into 1 endzone
After Cleveland we worked extremely hard to improve our robot. We made it so we could transfer the weight on the second latch, we built 2 self-contained extension units, we made new shields for the sides of the robot, and we made a plexiglass top for the robot.
Thursday at Silicon Valley was yet another busy day. We had to add all these things to our robot. It took us most of the day, and we ended up only playing in 2 of our 4 practice rounds, but by the end of the day our robot was looking really good. Our new capabilities at Silicon Valley:
- Latch and unlatch 2 goals and transfer the weight of both
- Extend into 2 endzones at once
Throughout the entire process, only our drivetrain remained the same. Here are a few specs on the drivetrain:
- Each side is driven by a chiaphua motor and a drill motor in tandem
- We can shift on the fly, and our shifter is powered by pneumatics
- Our gear ratio is 8:1. In high gear we go about 13 fps and in low we go about 1.5 fps (at least I’m fairly sure on this one)
- We have custom wheels with treads that have a coefficient of friction of 1.6 (vs the .6 of the skyway wheels)
Here is a picture of the robot at each stage of building:
http://dagnabit.org/~robotics/images/robot.jpg (1024x768, 770 kB)
As you can see, our robot made a big cosmetic improvement from Cleveland to Silicon Valley as well. Our robot in Cleveland looked kinda pathetic :rolleyes:, even thought the guts were basically the same.
Here are some other pictures of our robot in Silicon Valley:
With 2 goals
Close-up of latch
Close-up of transmission
Starting position
Robot in action
We have made a few changes in getting ready for Florida and we hope to do well and have fun!
