We (mostly) have a robot!
(Disclaimer: this post was written on 1/19 and has been delayed)
We had a meeting last night. A team meeting. The type of meeting where we walk in with multiple competing plans and walk out with a unified vision for the robot.
A weeks worth of snow days and cold days lead to us spending a lot of time staring at our computer screens and imagining the robots we could build. We outlined four contender robots we were investigating for the 111 2024 robot, and we had THOUGHT we narrowed it down to two. Robot Type 1 (Double Jointed arm on a lift) and Robot Type 2 (Launcher on a lift with U-Turn amp mech) both showed a lot of promise, but ultimately, neither is what we will be pursuing for 2024.
Robot Type 1 (Double Jointed Arm on a Lift)
Major Pros
- Simplifies DoF required to complete a Note scoring cycle (1, shooter tilt)
- Storage of notes in shooter allows for late drive decision making of speaker vs. amplifier scoring
Major Cons
- Entire arm shoulder must be mounted to elevator carriage, presenting huge packaging/rigidity problem.
- Trap climbing requires storing lift for majority of match at mid point of travel, raising up to plant arm, then pulling drivebase up to allow extension over what would normally be the 48" height limit.
- Compounded DoF can lead to positional repeatability issues.
Robot Type 2 (Launcher on Lift with U-Turn Amp Mech)
Major Pros
- Moves most of robot mass very low for majority of mass.
- Eliminates bending of the note before launching.
Major Cons
- Lots of moving mass on elevator may slow certain robot actions.
- Multiple compounding DoF’s can lead to inaccuracies in shooter positioning.
The Bot We’re Building
After much review of both robots, we eventually settled on talking through these robots, trying to build a new design from basic functional descriptions up to a unified robot concept. The new design attempts to combine the best of both worlds.
This robot would use a UTB to feed up into a feed system. This feed system can pass the note out either end. A lift would raise the feed system up to the amp scoring position or keep it at it’s lowered position and feed backwards into the shooter. The shooter is attached to the drive base and can tilt up/down to ‘bend’ the note path through the robot and hit all of our required launch angles.
The climb system would be a pull down hook on an arm coupled with a follower wheel mounted to the lift. Deploying the feed up to the top of travel would also deploy the reaction wheel above the bottom of the stage core, enabling a climb.
This robot take both the minimal moving DoF benefits of the double jointed arm robot, and marries them with the integrated feed/launcher system of the launcher on a lift robot.
