Team Twelve/Final Paper
Contents |
Neither Last nor Least
Overall Strategy
At first the team was ready to score balls in the pyramid. One interesting thing to note: balls thrown over the perimeter of the field does not count as negative points. It would be unfortunate, however. In the end, throwing the balls over any wall would have been advantageous.
Mechanical design and sensors
Ball Possession: Essential Components
Last year, the rubber band roller, though not common amongst the teams, showed quick and easy success. We made a completely functional one for our Peggy (pegbot), and won Mock 1 by being excellent at collecting balls. We used a kit motor with a crude but quick motor mount to secure the roller to Peggy's wooden walls.
RUBBER BAND ROLLER - We decided to move ahead with CAD'ing the wheels for laser cutting out of acrylic. The staff had a helpful SLDWRKS file that we altered slightly (made the ridges deeper to be able to use thicker rubber bands). To keep pressure on the wheels to oppose the force of the rubber bands, we used a keyed rod to go through the centerholes, and attached shaft collars to the rubber band wheels that contained set screws.
RAMP - We also had a ramp along the bottom layer of our robot, to direct balls into the mouth of the helix. That is, the ramp had pieces of cardboard that acted as walls. It started at the bottom of the rubber band roller and angled upwards in a semicircle arc until the maximum height that balls could go up. It then slanted downwards slowly to give the ball some momentum to end up in the perfect pick-up spot for the helix.
ROBOT DESIGN - All of our robot prototypes had very low robot bases, only .25" off the ground or so. This way, we did not need the ramp to collect balls (note: not bring them to the hopper, just collect them), and this way we won Seating. At some point, Hermes ate 6 balls and kept them in "herm" stomach. Goes to show: crude ball collection, paired with dependable code, can get you an easy win before the final competition.
Upwards Transport in the Robot: the Archimedes Screw
We understood that we need an internal upwards-carrying mechanism in the robot to score. The lowest scoring point was 6", so we needed a mechanism to move a ball up at least that high.
1st IDEA: PULLEY + CONVEYOR BELT - At first, we wanted to make some simple conveyor belt with sturdy metal parts which could figuratively "scrape" along the bottom of the ramp and draw up balls. We would be able to
Robot Motion: Trying out Gears, then Failing
We had a pretty sweet gear setup on our second acrylic prototype
Sensors: On How many, Placement, and Redoing the EE way too many times
Upward Motion
We had a conveyor/pulley belt idea at first. Here are some sketches:[[File:]]
However, after our with-the-staff meeting, we decided to use the Archimedes screw as our ball-lifting mechanism. Attach CADs?
Software design - H,D
Overall performance - all
Conclusions/suggestions for future teams - all! we can separate this by person
R: Organize your electronics FROM THE START. This is compulsory. Weak connections caused our robot to not really be able to run our very first match (motor wires not in controller all the way).
Try to make stuff/prototypes early. Anything. Make Anything Early.
MAYBE HAVE A MECHE ON YOUR TEAM?? Although I can't say it went badly. It was awesome. Even if you think you might fail at stuff, keep going. Ask for help.
Huge thanks to all the Staff, Mark B. (and the rest of Edgerton staff) and Richard B. (and the rest of the CMS) for all the super mega awesome help. Each of you should get to choose between Donuts and Chocolate.
Also huge thanks to [HexnetLLC (team 1)] for laser cutting our stuff the first two times and being generally wonderfully supportive and helpful. [1]
