The 8

FIRST General Forum
#1

During the upcoming season I am looking to train the students in eight common robot subsystems, below are my personal favourites, which would you choose?

  • Drivetrain
  • Linear motion
  • Arm
  • Kicker
  • Intake
  • Hopper
  • Hanging
  • Shooters
#2

Hmmm…I’d have to go with: (In no particular order)

  1. Drivetrain
  2. Electronics
  3. Manipulator
  4. Arm
  5. End game (Being stuff like hanging/minibot deployment/ramps/etc.)
  6. Shooters
  7. ?
  8. ?

Not sure about 7 and 8, but there’s what I came up with so far. I’ll edit the post if I think of more.

#3

I cant think of all eight atm, but pneumatics is a good one.

#4

Not trying to offend, here, but how is this thread benefiting us? Are we learning something from this, other than what people’s favorite subsystems are? Unless you were actually trying to figure out which 8 subsystems would be most beneficial to teach, i apologize. At least start this kind of thread in the Chit-Chat forum.
Not trying to offend.
If so, I apologize in advance.
-Duke.

#5

So what would be most effective to teach them with would be

  1. have the students build a simple drive train
    -learn how to program in
    -wire it
  2. a single jointed arm (this can be used in many applications)
  3. Fly wheel(?) (learning how to build some sort of fly wheel would be nice but its not top priority)

Get the basics down first and build and ITERATE and perfect them.

#6

You’re way too specific. The final seven can all be lumped together in different ways. Some of them have only been seen once; others are seen infrequently; still others crop up most years.

There are two ways that I can think of to break down a robot’s subsystems: function and actuation.

Function: Drivetrain, arm/lift/internal transport, end effector/manipulator, acquisition. The last 3 are all interconnected; internal transport is between when you pick up the piece and when you score it, which may or may not be the same mechanism. (If you have an arm, it is often the same mechanism. But for 2006 and 2009, it usually wasn’t.)

Actuation: Electrical, pneumatics, software, mechanical. Your standard basic subsystems.

When you combine function and actuation, you get 8 subsystems. Is there overlap? Yep. It’s kind of pointless to have an arm that isn’t powered by something…

#7

No offense taken, I actually am trying to figure out the best set, not necessarily 8, of subsystems to teach. Good examples of each (well documented and demonstrating basic principles) are also very welcome.

#8

A good practice for the insides and outs of a drivetrain would be to make this: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86171
P.S. This thread should be called Super 8 :stuck_out_tongue:

#9

So you are looking for the 8 most commonly used robot mechanisms and systems to educate students on classic FIRST design?

  1. Drive Train
  2. Mechanical Arm
  3. Single Action Grip/Grab (Not just to pick up balls or tubes, but to latch onto rolling goals or Tetras.)
  4. C-Shape Roller Hand Grip (It is too important to pass up an opportunity to learn about being design specific to the game you play. Not every object can be effectivly picked up by a single action grip.)
  5. Ball Shooting/Aiming Systems (this includes the Hopper and Intake Designs as they are connected to each other seemlessly anyway.)
  6. Hanging Systems for Horizontal and Vertical Bars
  7. Mechanical Elevators and Telescoping Systems (Regardless of how it’s done, many teams have used ways of moving their parts to get a little bit more extension or height.)
  8. Game Specific Robot-to-Field Interaction Designs (See Rack n’ Roll for how teams were able and unable to cope with getting caught in the Rack, or in Breakaway, as some teams created systems or used different parts to deal with moving on and over the Bumps. What do teams do to prevent balls from getting caught in their wheels or when a track ball hits them after getting flung by 1114? It is important to visualize how your robot will exist within the game environment and implement into your overall robot design. Consider this the “wildcard” of FIRST design that embodies everything the other 7 didn’t.)
#10
  1. Drivetrain
  2. Another Drivetrain
  3. Arm (rotational)
  4. Roller Gripper for ball like pieces
  5. Roller Gripper for non-ball pieces
  6. Intake and ball managment system (2006, 2009 type)
  7. Elevator
  8. Pneumatic grabber

I think this is a pretty comprehensive list of things you could learn before an offseason that could be applied to many games.

#11

Pneumatics, pneumatics, pneumatics. :smiley:

Properly implemented pneumatics can vastly reduce the complexity of some mechanisms.

#12

Amen

#13