Team 2855 has been at work since the Lake Superior regional. We decided that our original gear mechanism that was designed to be active, which then became passive due to difficulties, was not sufficient for our second tournament. So, we have designed a completely new gear mechanism that will be revealed at the 10,000 Lakes Regional.
Note: This was filmed on our 2016 robot for testing. Our 2016 robot was tank drive but our 2017 robot is mecanum, which will solve some of the aiming difficulties.
You drive the robot in your school’s hallways without putting down anything to protect the floor?
And you drive while students are walking past, without some sort of barrier or clear demarcation of where the robot is driving?
The former I could understand if you have very accommodating building services, but the latter is downright unsafe and there’s really no good explanation for doing it, ever. I’ve heard a lot of people jokingly refer to FRC robots as “shinbreakers,” and it’s for a good reason.
Last year’s wheels are pneumatic balloon wheels, so they don’t mark the floor. We don’t really have any better place to practice. As for mecanums, well…
And this is our driver’s third season driving, so he has experience. If someone needs to walk near the robot, we pause briefly to let them by. And the group of team members does mark out a general area where it is driving.
Seems like it’s pneumatic. I think there are glimpses of the clamps clamping the gear (edit: also pneumatic tubing) - always in a hole, so it maybe catches a tooth on a gear when it drives in and has it rotate so a hole is always on top?
Consider buying a roll of carpet to lay down before you drive. It works well.
And this is our driver’s third season driving, so he has experience.
Relying on driver experience for robot safety while driving is something you want to avoid at all costs. Drivers, even good ones, are quite fallible - and, moreover, robots don’t always behave in ways the drivers expect them to.
If someone needs to walk near the robot, we pause briefly to let them by. And the group of team members does mark out a general area where it is driving.
At around 4:14, a few apparently non-team-member students (at least one looking at their phone for part of the time, no less) walk by an enabled, moving robot. Don’t do this. It is unsafe. Not “appeasing FRC’s sometimes-silly emphasis on safety” unsafe, but actually very unsafe.
Basically, we’re working with what we have.
I understand. We don’t have a practice field either, and are forced to drive in our school’s hallways. It’s frustrating and limiting, but doesn’t justify this kind of practice. If the robot injures someone, not only is that very bad in itself, but it will likely mean a lot of problems for your team - especially if that person is not a team member.
Looks really cool, I’ll make sure to stop by your pit to get a closer look. Glad there’s at least two teams making major changes to their gear mechanism’s at 10k
I like the teaser, and the active placer. My guess (without hearing the sound of the video) is that it’s a simple side clamp. Simple, sweet, effective.
Also, the word “pause” works very well. It’s one of the most powerful words in a drive coach’s vocabulary. The drive coach should be, among other things, looking out for kids who need to get through. No need to shout at anyone or blockade the hallway. Just tell the driver to pause and wave the pedestrians through. If the drive coach wasn’t there, have someone next to the driver whose job it is to look for pedestrians.
