2025 - Reefscape

Two alliances of three teams have to gather PVC pipes called Coral from Coral Stations in order to put them on one of the four levels on a tall structure called the Reef. Robots can also remove these rubber playground balls called Algae from the Reef in order to add more Corals onto it. With those removed Algae, certain robots can then grab those and either put them into the Processor where a human player is, or the Net on top of the Barge. During the last 20 seconds, robots can attempt to climb on the Cages under the Barge and choose if they want to Deep Climb or Shallow Climb.

We used a swerve drivetrain consisting of 4 SDS Mk4i modules with an L2 gear ratio which allowed us to easily travel around the field very quickly, allowing us to have very low cycle times and to evade defense.

The Elevator raises our Wrist and End Effector up to the levels on the Reef so that we can put Corals at each level. We decided to use a two stage elevator with cascade rigging for robustness. The rigging is fully custom with REV bearing blocks. Each stage is held together with a combination of gussets and tube plugs. This makes the Elevator very fast and tall which allows for good accuracy and low cycle times when scoring Coral on L4 on the Reef. We used constant force springs to reduce load and offset the weight of the end effector.

Our End Effector is called the Cheesestick along with our single axis Wrist and these allowed us to easily move Coral to the desired angle for scoring on different levels on the Reef. Our Cheesestick uses two 3D printed cams that have hot glue on the edges so that it grips onto the Coral. The Cheesestick is actuated by a REV Smart Robot Servo over PWM.

The Landing Pad is our Coral Intake where our Wrist and Cheesestick grab the Coral from. It was designed to allow Coral to land in many orientations and have it still land vertically. It allows us to go up to the Coral Station, have the Human Player drop Coral in, have the Coral land vertically, and then have the Cheesestick and Wrist grab the Coral and move it to one of the levels on the Reef.

In order for us to climb on a Deep Cage, we built our Climber to pull the Cage into an almost horizontal position and centered in the middle for balance and to get our robot off the ground. It has hooks made of Lexan made to grip the two bars of the cage. We added a triangluar point made from HDPE which allows the cage to align with the hooks while being resistant to damage. We also put magnets on the hook arms to latch onto the cage and further improve alignment. The Climber is driven with a winch system and two torsion springs. When the winch system is fully extended, the hooks open to grab the cage. We can then retract the winch to close the hooks, which allows us to grab the cage and climb.

Our Algae Intake allows us to intake from the ground and input Algae into the Processor. It is very light and quick and it uses 4" diameter wheels to compress onto the Algae. The Algae Intake allows us to get the Coopertition Bonus, which makes getting the Coral Rank Point easier. It also allows us to clear the field, which also makes coral cycle times lower.