As a second-year team, building such a complex robot allowed us the opportunity to learn more about our capabilities as the robot really pushed our technical boundaries. Some of the key features of our robot include:
Custom 2-speed gearbox: this coupled with a 6x mini-CIM powertrain allowed us to have both torque and speed, making Skógul more versatile.
Double independent stage elevator: the first stage, with a very heavy gear reduction, was used for the scale and to climb during the endgame while the second stage, with a lighter gear reduction, was used for the switch
Hybrid Colson and omniwheel drivetrain: this let us shift the centre of rotation closer to the elevator during on-point turns and lessened the friction that would otherwise occur in an on-point turn using a six-wheel drivetrain.
No drop centre: this was to avoid the orbot rocking with the elevator at full extension
Deployable ramp: if required, Skógul is able to climb while carrying an alliance partner. The ramp was designed to be easily removable for modularity, so we could have a nimbler and tighter robot in case the ramp was not necessary.
Compressible intake: while we had originally planned to build a four-bar as an intake mechanism, we later switched to a design with a more rigid geometry due to budget constraints. The current iteration utilises compression provided by air cylinders.
Wow, that’s a really impressive design. Your team should be very proud of it!
After looking through the CAD, I have a couple of drive train questions.
I noticed you went with 4" wheels. My team did that as well, and it took some out of the box solutions and a lot of compromises to make sure we didn’t get stuck on the corner of death. Your robot looks like the frame could easily catch on the corner. Was not traversing the corner an “eyes wide open” decision? If so, do you think that trade-off was worth it, or do you wish you had a base that could go over the corner?
I love the flat 6 with omnis in the back. It looks like it should turn right around your lift. Did it actually perform that way? Did you like how it turned?
You used #25 chain for your wheels, correct? How did it perform and did you do anything special to make sure it didn’t break?
I don’t have a nicer way to ask this so I’ll use a meme…
how many wins u got?
According to TBA, this robot had a losing record so I guess the question becomes why? What happened? What worked well on this robot? What didn’t? What would you improve?
Basically, what should people steal from this design and what should they not?
We had never planned on including field-relative position estimation in our build, so it was never dropped; as to why, mainly because we felt that we felt that this year’s autonomous could be approached with a more robot-centric approach. A field-centric approach will generally be more suitable when you have a more complex drivetrain or specific requirements for your autonomous.
I noticed your intake is very similar to 1323’s, 254’s, 1678’s, and 973’s intake. However watching match video, it doesn’t appear to be nearly as effective, and struggles to intake cubes. What was the problem with it?
If I recall correctly at CVR, the pistons for the clamping of the cube with the intakes were disconnected.This would imply the only thing holding the cube was the surgical tubing. If this was the case why did those pistons get removed?
Just stopping by to thank you guys - After seeing some initial pics from this robot early in the season we chose to try for a variant of your intake design with success. The only change we made to the concept was building it terribly and instead of actively squeezing on the cubes we instead spring loaded.
