In the 2023 FIRST Robotics Competition game Charged Up presented by Haas, alliances of three robots each compete to bring energy to their community. Teams score points by retrieving game pieces—yellow cones and purple inflatable cubes—from substations and placing them onto a grid. The match begins with a 15-second autonomous period, during which robots operate without driver input to score points by leaving their community, retrieving and scoring game pieces onto the grid, and docking on or engaging with their charge station. In the final two minutes and 15 seconds, drivers take control of the robots to continue scoring and balancing on the charge station. The alliance with the highest score at the end of the match wins. The game emphasizes the importance of energy storage and delivery, aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #7, which focuses on ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all.
This year's robot was comprised of pneumatics and the team's brand new swerve base. We had a claw that motioned up and downward and went outwards to grab and place game pieces.
This year we made the group decision to try and master the swerve drive. It allows us to drive forwards, backwards, diagonally, any direction on a horizontal plane. We were given help from many teams, all of them telling us what they struggled with so we could avoid it.
We are hoping to be able to center ourselves on the charging station to gain points during the autonomous and teleop periods, however we will only balance during 2 of our 4 autonomous programs.
The intake will bring the cone or cube into a position for the claw to pick it up. Making sure the claw will be able to grab the pieces from the intake will allow for easier pick up that takes less time.
For the game this year we needed to create something that could pick up both the cubes and cones. Also allowing us to rotate the game piece we pick up will make placement easier.