FRC 2021 Competition

FRC 2021 Game Overview

In that year's challenge, FIRST Infinite Recharge (Home Edition), teams scored points by programming an accurate autonomous and shooting balls from certain distances. The challenge was an adaptation of the previous year's challenge under the same name that could be played at home, allowing teams to compete virtually.

Infinite Recharge Home Edition Field

That year, team 4817 made two robots. I joined a few the team a few weeks late into the FRC season as a member of the CAD sub team and ended up being instrumental in completing robot CADs to catch up to missed deadlines.

First Robot With a Ratchet Design

The Team’s First Robot CAD

The robot featured an intake, indexer, and double horizontal flywheel, all on top of a standard tank drive.

Close Ups of My First Robot Intake CAD

I was tasked with designing the intake and came up with a way to do it with a single motor. Using ratchets, my intake flipped down the intake from its starting position when the motor spun one direction, and spun the intaking axle when the motor spun the other direction. By using mecanum wheels, balls on the edge of the drive base would be pushed towards the center.

Second Robot Using Motor Without Ratchets

The Team’s Second Robot CAD

This robot featured an intake, indexer, and single horizontal flywheel, all on top of a new 3D printed swerve drive base.

Close Ups of My Second Robot Intake CAD

Again, I was tasked with designing the robot's intake. This design is an over-the-bumper intake (a gap in the robot's frame could not exist anymore as we had changed to a Swerve drive base) that used mecanum wheels to push captured balls to its center. Ratchets reduced the number of motors needed, but as we had extra motors to spare I was told to not use one for this iteration.

The Final Products

The First Robot Built in Real Life

We built both of these robots (unfortunately there's only a photo of the first one) and attempted the virtual challenge. Admittedly, the robots did not perform well, but the team was also relying mostly on new and inexperienced freshmen for all parts of the process. This simply meant I had the opportunity to be heavily involved in CAD and also learned quite a bit about fabrication and assembly while helping the mechanical subteam make these robots.

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