First Robotics

This year's competition offered several ways for our team to earn points, but many of them were too complex for us to complete in the three months leading up to the event. After careful consideration, we decided to focus our efforts on applying the hatch base clovers. If time allowed we planned to use the robot as a battering ram for defense. These hatch covers were crucial for scoring points, as they kept the payload contained and counted in their respective storage bins. This strategy would allow us to contribute to scoring points while creating a robot that was manageable for our small team.

We began by building a completely new chassis and drivetrain to provide a fresh base. This involved cutting the frame rails to size, assembling the chassis, greasing the gearboxes, configuring the drive belts, and tightening every bolt to ensure the base chassis was sturdy.

Next, we focused on developing a mechanism to hold and release the "donuts" (hatch covers) onto their holders. Initially considering various options such as an inner hole grabber, outer grabber, and suction cup, we eventually discovered that the pre-assembled hatch covers had a ring of soft fuzzy Velcro around the circle. We decided to take advantage of this feature in our design. The next challenge was to create a simple mechanism to push the "donuts" off our robot and onto the hatch holes. After brainstorming ideas, we settled on using a piston connected to a servo and pneumatic pistons. While the pneumatic pistons required more research to assemble a reliable system, they ultimately made our robot very responsive and mobile for gathering points.

One of the most memorable subsystems was my work on the wiring and electrical panel to ensure compliance with the rules and compactness. This involved organizing the wire runs for easy inspection and access while keeping them small enough to fit securely into the chassis.

To test the functionality of our new robot, we created a test hatch hole on a wall and set it up for testing our bot's release system. The hatch cover was positioned on the ground as it would compete, allowing us to make improvements to cable snagging, tube wrapping, and software troubleshooting.

Despite all our efforts, we ultimately finished second to last in the competition. However, it was a rewarding feeling to know that we had contributed and were not last.

Key Takeaways:

• Hands-on experience 

• Team design process management

• Wiring and cable management

• Pneumatics plumbing