2021-Spring: MAE Artemis

MAE 3 Spring 2021 Live Contest Bracket:

Contest Bracket

Point Tracking For Teams

Tracking

Youtube Link

Youtube

Congratulations to our 2021 Contest Winners!! Team P.E.N.

Also, Congrats to our Design Innovation Award Winners, Team All Hail!!

Your team of engineers has been recruited by NASA to design the latest moon-bot for the upcoming Lunar Colonization! Your job as a team is to design, test, analyze, fabricate, and control the Robot to unload the supplies from the rocket ship. But be warned, you are not alone. Other teams trying their best to secure the landing area as well, so you must act fast and act swift!

Breaking NEWS: The rocket will be landing on the moon on 06/08/2021, so all teams must have their moon-bot ready by then to compete!

Design Challenge:

Teams will be using Fusion 360 to design their moon colonization robot, or moon-bot, to gather construction objects from the landed rocket. The rocket ship is loaded with three primary objects essential to the mission. The objects should be delivered to any of the construction sites or the rover in order to assist with the mission. The first object is your Flag, found at the tip of the rocket, which will be used to claim your new colony. Although it is sufficient to merely deliver it to a site, the flag should ideally be upright to help boost morale. Students will need to utilize the unique but limited MAE3 hardware kits and their creativity to fabricate an original robot that will score some or all of the points on the field. Competition constraints and scoring may be found down below.

Risk reduction prototype:

Each team must perform a risk reduction by testing a portion of a proposed design (due Week 8). The Risk Reduction Prototype may make use of materials that aren't contest-legal, but the majority of the materials used must be from the contest-legal kit. The Risk Reduction Prototype should be designed to test an important uncertainty in the concept development stage of your full-scale design. Motivated by this, it should at least contain a mechanism that shows conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy. It is not expected to be a “full” prototype, but if the risk reduction prototype tests more of your concept, then the following weeks will likely be easier. Details on the deliverables from the Risk Reduction are available in Assignment 7. Although every individual can make a RISK REDUCTION prototype, only 1 (for the team) is required. That is, the RISK REDUCTION is a team exercise.

Competition prototype:

Each individual must produce a Final Prototype (due Week 10) based on their harvesting robot design. The prototypes will be looked over during their lab section, and by this time the robot should be capable of scoring a minimum of 1 point and compete against the Tutor-built golem from week 9. Each prototype from a team will be identical, all of the same design, however each individual from a team will be responsible for having their own working robot prototype.

Head to Head Competition:

In the competition, teams will use one of their team's robots (a robot may be switched out for another robot of the same team) to compete in a head-to-head match to see who will score more points. The winning team will advance into the bracket and will be one step closer to achieving the MAE 3 credit.

Rules:

Robot Boundary Restrictions:

    Your Robot must fit within the bounding box, which is a rectangular prism of 5” x 5” x 8”, in order to participate in the competition. Your Robot can exceed these dimensions after the start of the competition. The instruction team will inspect each team’s Robot to make sure it is within the bounding box. The bounding box can be in any orientation.

Fabrication:

    Teams can only fabricate their robot with the tools and material found in the hardware kit, including the shipping container it is in. Tools not found in the hardware kit can not be used to fabricate any parts of the robot. An example of this would be the use of power drills and/or drill bits not provided during fabrication. The teams can replace broken materials at their own expanse, but must only use the types of material found in the hardware kit.

Scoring Points are awarded in several ways. To calculate your score in this competition, follows the steps below.

1. At the end of the competition, any object that is on the Moon and not in one of the Construction Sites or the Rover will be awarded 10 points. Any object in possession by your robot, but not touching the Moon or the Rocket, when the competition ends will also be awarded 10 points.

2. Delivered objects (Modules/Batteries/Flag), will be awarded points based on their type. Please refer to (3) below for point distribution. To be considered as delivered, the objects must meet both of the following criteria:

   • The object must be fully or partially within the space directly above the Construction Sites or the Rover.

   • The object must be in contact with the Construction Site or the Rover, or it must be stacked on an object or objects that are in contact with the construction site or rover.

   • For the Flag object, the upright orientation is defined as the flag pole being perpendicular to the playing field.

3. Point Distribution:

   • Module: 20 points each

   • Battery: 40 points each

   • Flag (upright): 100 points

   • Flag (fallen): 60 points

4. Objects that have fallen off the Moon have fallen to the dark side of the Moon where aliens have stolen your precious cargo. Any object left remaining on the Rocket or that has fallen off the Moon will not be awarded points.

5. Teams will be awarded bonus points for delivering one or more objects to more than one site. The more sites you deliver to, the more bonus points you will be awarded. The number of sites you deliver to will be calculated by the number of sites occupied by one or more objects at the end of the competition.

   • Object(s) present on two sites only: 20 points

   • Object(s) present on three sites only: 50 points

   • Object(s) present on four sites only: 100 points

   • Object(s) present on all five sites: 200 points

6. NEW BONUS CHALLENGE: 50 bonus points will be awarded for each battery delivered to the rover.

7. The only way to lose points in this competition is by knocking over the Rocket, which will result in a deduction of 70 points.

Competition:

Each match will consist of 2 teams competing against each other to score as many points as possible within one minute. 

The robot must start within their bounding box such that the bounding box either covers or is completely within the “Robot Placement” square on the Moon. Please refer to the Section 2 document for images. A Robot can be fixed (using screws or adhesive) to the surface of the moon. During the competition, the operator cannot touch or assist the movement of the robot or playing field in any way other than through the remote control. Also during the competition, if the Robot at any time goes off the Moon, then it is not allowed back onto the playing field.

Competition Structure:

The class winner is determined in an online competition using bracket format. The competition will occur on finals week Tuesday, Juen 8th from 8 am to 11 am PST.

Tie Breakers:

In the case of a tie, rounds will be added to the match if time allows. If there is not enough time, ties will be decided by the judges.

Materials/Fabrication:

• • 3 types of scoring objects (Flag, Battery, Modules) 

    • 1 Flag, starting on the high shelve on the rocket

    • 2 batteries, starting on the middle shelve on the rocket

    • 4 modules, starting on the low shelve on the rocket

    • Orientation of the objects does not matter, as long as they are placed on the correct shelves.

• 1 Rocket

  • • The Rocket Ship is composed of 5 simple cardboard cut parts, see section 3 for a tutorial on fabrication.

    • The Rocket is to be placed into the slotted section on the playing field and glued down for stability during the unloading process.

• • 1 Playing Field

    • The Playing Field shall be composed of cardboard from the MAE 3 hardware shipping box.

    • Construction sites can be either be printed on papers, or drawn directly on the playing board.

    • The Rover is the bottom half of the hot glue gun box and will be glued to the Moon.

For the complete ruleset, please see Section 1 - Project Competition in Canvas-Files-Robot Project. Please post questions on the Canvas discussion if clarification is needed for any rules not explicitly specified in this document. Malicious interpretation of the rules will be subjected to review.

Deliverables Summary

- Risk Reduction Prototype (Week 8)

- Final Prototype (Week 10)

- CAD for Design (Week 10)

- Team Webpage (Week 10, details posted on Canvas)

- Presentation of Design (Week 10, details posted on Canvas, slides about the presentation in "Files" at bottom of page)

- Final Robot Report (Due 06/08 Midnight)

Robot Final Report Guidance

Each student will write a report on their team's work for the Design Competition. The report should be double spaced, in a professional font, and generally look well made. 

Grading Guidelines: The individual analysis will be graded on clarity of text and graphical content as well as the correctness of the analysis. The analysis section will consider the complexity of the analysis. If a relatively simple part of a machine is being analyzed, then a high grade will require more in-depth analysis, such as: consideration of friction and the motor torque-speed curve. The instructor(s) will be looking for a critical assessment of machine performance and a meaningful explanation of experimental results and how they may vary from the theoretical expectation.

This report [400 pts] will include:

• 1. Description of Component (2-page max): In this section, you will introduce your entire robot's design, what it does, and introduce the component you intend to analyze. It should be clear to a naive reader how your robot works. Assume the reader knows the competition but has never seen your particular design. [25%].

This explanation should involve:

• • 1. 3D CAD of the complete machine with annotations. It should be clear how the overall machine works

    2. 3D CAD of components with annotations. You should show how details of components work. Include a clear description of the role the analyzed component plays in the larger machine. Include multiple views if it helps.

    3. Photo of your robot

    4. Minimum Set of Functional Requirements of your component

       1. What the component needs to accomplish (not how it was accomplished)

       2. List each FR as a one-sentence bullet. Indicate quantitative values where appropriate

       3. Example: "Robot must reach the middle of the table in 10 seconds."

    5. Overview of how well the component functioned. Give numerical values (e.g. speed, points, maximum mass lifted, etc...)

• 1. Analysis of Component: Present an analysis of your component. Note that there can not be overlap between team members on the analysis unless explicitly allowed by the professors. Each team member must analyze something different. If the design cannot be split into enough "components", the MAE3 instructors will work with the team to find an acceptable division. [60%]. 

This analysis should include:

• • 1. A problem statement -- what are we going to learn about your machine? The goal must be a maximum or minimum of some kind (for example, “maximum exit velocity of football”, “minimum force required to release the trigger”, etc)

    2. Assumptions -- these must be appropriate for the analysis.

    3. The relevant Free Body Diagram(s). Follow the rules for good FBD’s (include coordinate axes, no internal forces, etc)

    4. The actual analysis -- perform the analysis that is most relevant for assessing the performance of your component. This will take the form of one of the two options below:

       1. Force/Torque analysis: This solution must start from force/moment balance equations obtained from the FBD’s. Using those equations, the work will proceed as needed to answer the problem statement to calculate the maximum performance.

       2. Speed analysis: Calculate the maximum theoretical speed of your component. 

Note: For either of the above, you must show a solution that ultimately answers the problem statement. 

• • 1. Perform an experiment to measure the actual value computed in part d.

    2. Calculate the realized Factor of Safety of their component (for either force/torque or speed, depending on what you selected above) and interpret the value.

    3. Overall conclusions: make general conclusions about your component and the robot as a whole. 

       1. Briefly summarize the results of your analysis

       2. Compare the results of your analysis and experiments and explain any discrepancies

       3. Discuss limitations of the chosen design

       4. Discuss any design changes that you would make if given a second chance and other overall design directions you would have taken if you were to repeat the competition

       5. Reflect on the biggest technical lesson you gained from the project

       6. Conclude general and thoughts ideas for the robot

• 1. Design Process Essay (1-page max): Select ONLY ONE area of project management listed below, and explain how this approach was used by you in the design process. This essay is not related to your analysis. Describe what aspects of this design process worked well or didn't work well, and what would you change in future design projects. [15%] 

     1. Concept generation and creativity methods: Give an example where you had a conceptual block, conceptual breakthrough, or where you used a solution neutral environment. See the lecture on Creativity.

     2. Risk reduction tests: Describe a case where you built a simple proof-of-concept mechanism in order to decide whether to proceed with that approach. The results of the test could have led you to pursue or abandon your approach. 

     3. Prioritization and scheduling: Explain why you prioritized certain tasks and how this impacted your overall design process. For example, did you follow your Gantt chart, and did the chart help the design process?

Expanded Rules List

1. The course instructors reserve the right to make changes to the contest rules if deemed necessary, but we will try to avoid this if possible.

2. Judges and/or instructors will disqualify any robot that appears to be a safety hazard.

3. A maximum set-up time of 2 minutes will be allowed for each round

4. Operators may not interact with their robots after the competition round begin.

5. Playing Field, rocket, and scoring objects must be made per the fabrication tutorials found in Canvas under section 2 within Robot Project folder.

6. It is allowable to adjust the configuration of the machine between matches; for example, to switch out damaged parts.

7. Parts built for the Risk Reduction prototype can be used in the final contest prototype only if those parts would normally be legal for the final contest (ie, if you used non-contest materials in your risk reduction, you can’t use your risk reduction parts in your contest prototype).

8. Machine advertisements and decorations must be of the nature that it does not offend any other students or audience participants (use common sense!).

9. All rulings of the judges will be final.

10. The blade kit as well as the hot glue gun and any packaging for those tools may not be used as parts for the robot.

11. The flag object can be placed in any orientation on the top shelve with the flag pole being upright i.e. perpendicular to the field.

12. For the purpose of scoring, only the nut of the flag object is used when determining if the object is within the construction sites.

Robot Contest Results from Spring, 2021

Complete Contest Pyramid and Results

To Be Updated

Contest Winners

 - Undecided - 

Most Creative Use of Kit Components/Most Resourceful

 - Undecided - 

Most Unique Design Feature

 - Undecided - 

High-Quality Presentation Award

 - Undecided -

High-Quality Animation Awards

 - Undecided - 

Most Custom Designed and Fabricated Parts

 - Undecided - 

Most Decorative Base

 - Undecided - 

Most Fabulous Robot

 - Undecided - 

Most Environmentally Friendly

 - Undecided -