You are correct. And, in the video, they were always touching the fence while depositing cubes into the switch except for the very last scene, and even that’s debatable. Still, this isn’t meant to be something for teams to just copy, and everyone should know these rules by now.
Moving on, this is MFD, Robonauts!* Y’all never fail to inspire. I wish we had this kind of thing in Minnesota. Something for me to work on, perhaps?
*As is everything at MCCC
I’m going to be completely honest. Playing against this robot this past Saturday was devastating. The amount of power cubes they could dump into our switch in 30 seconds had us spending the rest of the match trying to catch back up with their switch damage. Every team should design their robot this year with that in mind. The portal will sway the way matches go every time. Be the best at it, control the scale a bit, and keep your switch and you will win every time.
Or develop a strategy that isn’t dependent on holding your Switch 
This bot is insanely awesome guys! I will definitely be pointing a few of the struggling teams that I’m working with in your direction. There are a ton of interesting strategies that this robot is ideal for!
You can’t just clip my entire last statement like that. There is more to it than what you quoted out…
Bravo!
Its not even week 1 and a solid meta is already floating around? Man I love this game already.
I overlooked the statements leading up to that last bit. I think if an alliance executes on all of the things in your last sentence, they will win more times than not.
With that said, I stand by this statement as well. There are many ways to win this game, but the thing that they all have in common is that they require a strategically sound plan, and an alliance that commits to said plan. The strategy in this game is insanely fun and important!
Great job ethan! Always expect great things from y’all’s everybot!
Impressive to see this in the match videos! The upper structure is very open, not a lot of parts to put together so pretty accessible for a team that can’t meet that often. What did this weigh, 75 pounds?
We just weighed it and it was 81 pounds with bumper and battery.
CAD files please? We are building a similar design just want to compare the intakes! Thanks in advance!
Anyone else realize how long the video is or just me?
Oh, I realized. At that point, I just figured everyone else did as well.
What a brilliant design for teams on a budget! I can’t imagine too many teams will grab the CAD files and just put this together like LEGO, but it shows speed, skillful execution, and attention to time and budgetary constraints that a lot of teams face at some point or another.
I’d love to see more teams participating in budget builds like this in the future, as it seems one of the biggest places where FIRST struggles is with low-income school districts and regions without sophisticated equipment or materials suppliers. I mean, they started FTC as a way to do a low-budget FRC, but it’s just not the same in terms of reach, challenge, or prestige, and it seems like we shouldn’t discriminate based on how much money a district or team can cough up.
As a mentor for a low-income school, in one of the poorest neighborhoods in my city, where the district is EXTREMELY wary of starting new teams at new schools because of the lack of available funding, teaching staff, and resources, simple measures like this have a big impact. These types of clever budget builds show people that you don’t have to spend a ton of money on a fancy robot to be effective, and in doing so, they have the potential to bring a TON of new students, mentors, and volunteers into FIRST.
So to sum up my thoughts on the subject: Thank you, Robonauts.
Looks great!
A dedicated vault/switchbot can be devastating in this game, and we seriously discussed going that route and foregoing the scale altogether in our strategy sessions.
“Fill your vault for 95-115 points and then go demolish your opponents’ switch” is an extremely solid strategic choice for Power Up, and a robot like this can do it in spades.
I like this. I try to impress upon our team that being simple, robust, competing every match, and technically elegant doesn’t always mean the most gizmos or motor controllers (lolz…meant in jest only…we are the world repository of motor controllers over the years).
This fits the size of our team (very small) and our budget (very tight). I did have a couple of questions please:
How is the intake opened and closed? I see the surgical tubing and the orange flat style vinyl “tapeish” we used from McMaster/Carr. I’m just at a loss how it opens and closes. I’m just a teacher so please bear with me.
Is the gear at the top a Rev Robotics gear or is it custom made? Is it 3D printed? We’ve got 3 printers now and printing is finally online all the time.
What is the shaft size y’all use for your lift? I don’t think Rev’s 5mm hex shaft will get things done. Do I need to go to andymark or McMaster for this? Please advise.
What type of motor drives the cube “manipulator” please? We’re motor rich as well but wanted to find a spot for the new “red line” motor to see if it works. I am of the school of “if you need a motor, use a CIM or 1/2 CIM”. Again, overkill gets us to the field EVERY match.
Did your robot require any counter weights or counter balancing? I wasn’t sure if it was necessary.
Are there any plans for this robot? We can “Mark 2 Eyeball” it but some serious dimensions would be quite cool. CADs? .stls?
Finally, I wanted to thank you for settling a build issue by your design. If we can do half as well as your team did in the practice matches, we should do ok. I want our team to stretch and do better. Ok is for other folks. :o
Steve Miller-Coach/Instructor
Team 3355
Purple Vipers
Arlington, Texas
The intake uses the surgical tubing that comes in the kit along with red size 64 rubber bands to provide the tension for the intake to be compliant. At the beginning of the match there is a zip tie attached to the cube arm that holds the two BAG motors together, when the arm is raised the zip tie pops off and the intake arms pivot into place so that the robot can intake cubes. This can be seen at 0:22 seconds in the everybot video.
A 72 tooth VexPro plate sprocket is used at the arm pivot. The shaft the arm pivots on is a VexPro 1/2" hex shaft. The REV 5mm shaft is far too small for this application.
The motor that drives the cube arm is a BAG motor on a 100:1 VersaPlanetary along with a chain reduction using a 22 tooth sprocket to a 72 tooth sprocket. This gives the arm an overall ratio of 327:1.
There were no counter weights in the robot however we did have the battery along with the controls system mounted in the back of the robot. The robot was a little tippy if not driven smoothly but was never in danger of tipping over.
The CAD along with the bill of materials should be released tonight in this thread. A document describing how we built Everybot in more detail will be released this week as well.
Here is the link to the CAD of Everybot. We strived to make it as complete as possible.
Here is the link to the Bill of Materials for Everybot.
Everybot came out to around $750 plus the items that are in the 2018 kit of parts.
The technical guide on how we built Everybot will be released later this week. Feel free to ask any questions.
Brilliant! Thank you so much for sharing. It is very encouraging.