In this unit students will be presented with a game (typically the VRC game of the current competition season). They will split into teams and then spend the rest of the semester designing a robot which can play this game head-to-head against the robots built by their classmates.
This robot build will follow the engineering design process discussed in Unit 1. The first step in this process is analyzing the design challenge placed in front of them and deciding what they want their robot to do
In this unit, students will learn about the different types and categories of robot manipulators. Students will be presented with robot manipulators from the real world, and shown the basic principles behind their operation. Students will then create their own object manipulator for use on their competition robot.
In this unit, students will learn about the physical principles of speed, power, and torque. They will also learn about DC motors and how these principles apply to them. Students will apply these concepts on a sample mechanical system to calculate key details of the design.
In this lesson students will learn about the different types of mechanical power transmission. They will learn about different gear types, and how to calculate gear ratios.
These principles will then be applied to the types of motor - arm systems seen in Unit 7.