Team 4329's 2015 Robot Update

I wanted to post an end of January update on our robot design. We have all of the main systems designed and our practice robot is nearing completion of fabrication.

http://i.imgur.com/GDYaOInl.png

http://i.imgur.com/CXMh0H4l.jpg

Tote Intake Grabber Test: http://youtu.be/U8hb2MlhnT8

Can Intake Grabber Test: http://youtu.be/cIEn1lk_Jyw

Feel free to ask any questions you may have or give feedback on our design. We’ll see you all week 2 at Arkansas and week 4 at St. Louis.

Looking good guys!

Thanks! We tested our elevator today with some good success: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01jxGRJLy9Q&t=0m8s

Our intake mechanism should be able to handle all game piece orientations - totes and cans - with a few more minor modifications. We are hoping to be able to assist any alliance by making stacks, placing coopertition totes, or capping stacks with bins.

How tall is it, and how do you plan to deal with the Transport Configuration? How easily can you get totes onto the Step?

Our robot is 28" x 38" x 63" currently. The grabber intake arms hang outside the robot but are overall under the transport configuration. Our entire elevator is one assembly and can be removed with minimal effort as well.

Our design brings totes partially within our frame using intake wheels, but we can also move a stack out using the same wheels. This should work fine for both the step and scoring platform from our initial tests.

Yeah, I guess that 42" is longer than I really realize (and us being a wide bot makes it easier to forget that some designs can just get away with this).

Nice! What ratios are the Versaplanetarys on the intake?

50:1 currently. We were already building a few of them for the elevator lift and decided to try that ratio on the intake too.

We’ve got our disc brake fully integrated tonight. If any teams are still on the fence, get one. We bought ours off Amazon and it’s holding our elevator carriage like a champ -

Disc Brake: http://youtu.be/JrebWdH8x4c

Elevator carriage with disc brake: http://youtu.be/cCGHO9kSHd0

We are streaming live this weekend from our shop -http://ustre.am/1ahgt good luck to all teams on this final weekend of build season!

Our competition version of our controls are about done. We’ve come a long way the past few years really attempting to clean our wiring up:

And our tote ramp has been attached to the competition drive frame, competition elevator will be attached tomorrow!

4329’s 2015 robot Comet has been completed:

We will be competing at the Rock City Regional & at our home regional in St. Louis. Good luck and we’ll see you during Week 2 & Week 4!

Looks great, guys! Wiring looks awesome. Looking forward to seeing you at the STL Regional.

We got some practice time in yesterday with our development robot. Still a ways to go but we’re very excited for Arkansas! http://youtu.be/Fe7KvVb4mZM See you all on Thursday at Rock City!

We have been practicing and still improving our robot for the Championship - https://youtu.be/AWMjpDtVxqo (Practice bot shown)

Robot improvements include:

  • Faster elevator carriage travel.
  • Taller elevator allows for capping of existing scored 5 stacks.
  • Better control of totes allows us to create and move 5 and 6 stacks now.
  • Can grabber mechanisms functioning, will be dialed in by champs. Allows us to grab 2 cans off the step on either side.
  • Smaller auxiliary tote ramp allows for placement on either human player chute.

Our robot can easily compliment any alliance and any strategy - co-op, adding to existing stacks with our own stacks, using our on-board loading ramp or our tethered auxiliary ramp to load totes. Good luck to everyone at Champs!

While we weren’t picked for the Hopper division elimination rounds, team 4329 is still proud of our Championship performance and put together a short highlight video that you can find here: https://youtu.be/yJoM9yETJNA

We will be competing May 9th at the first ever Missouri Robotics State Championship in Sedalia! See you there!