What I've been up to....part 2

[cvec7]

Info: http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/default.aspx?id=966

Team website designed and created by me: www.dimondrobotics.com

Game animation:
Quicktime Movie Large (640x480) - 124MB
Quicktime Movie Medium (352x288) - 59MB
Quicktime Movie Small (160x120) - 23MB
Windows Media Large (640x480) - 120MB
Windows Media Medium (352x288) - 57MB
Windows Media Small (160x120) - 23MB
AVI Large (640x480) - 34MB
AVI Medium (352x288) - 32MB
AVI Small (160x120) - 18MB


What it is:

A robot designed for this year's "Rack 'N Roll" game. In the game, there is a rack in the center, 12' tall and 12' in dia. in the shape of an octogon with 6 "spiders." Each 'spider' is connected with only chains so it can move freely.
The game begins with a 15 second autonomous period in which the robot will attempt to score on it's own programming (C#), and use the on-board camera to 'hone' in on one of the green lights on top of the 'rack.' After that, the robots will be controlled by us, and we will attempt to make as many points as possible. To score, you have to make rows of 3 or more, kind of like tic tac toe, except you can't go diagonal. At the end of the game, the last 10 seconds are the end game where you must elevate the other robots on your team off of the ground. Each bot that is 12" or more off the ground gets you 30 bonus points.
Our bot is designed to get two for a total of 60 points.
The game is announced on Jan. 6th, and you also get your "Kit of Parts" on that same day, and you have up until Feb 20th to complete your robot. So on Monday, we crated it up, and shipped it out. A VERY hectic 6 weeks...


The robot:

Our robot has a 44" ramp, and a small platform that will fold out. It also has a two stage arm with a claw on it for grabbing onto the tubes. At the end of the match, we will unlatch the ramp, shake the bot, and the ramp will fall down. The first bot will drive up the ramp, park at the end of the platform. The second one will go up, stop on the ramp. We will then fire the pneumatic rams on the end of the ramp to lift the ramp up, earning us 60 points.
The drivetrain was a thing of beauty. It was going to be 4wd, 4 motors, 4 gearboxes. Each wheel would be mounted on a lazy suzan, off-center, so that when the motor spins, the wheel ends up spinning the whole assembly. To control rotation of each wheel assembly, a disc was mounted to it, then a bicycle disc brake was mounted around the disc to act as a braking system. To lock the brake, a small, short-throw pneumatic ram would activate the brake. To sense the rotation of the wheel assembly, a potentiometer (you know, those things in servos) was mounted to each assembly.
The whole system would be in the programming. You would just move the joystick where you want to go, and it would go in that direction.

BUT, ultimately, we had to get rid of two assemblies because we were 10 lbs overweight. So we just have casters where those two assemblies used to be. The remaining two assemblies are just locked into place, so the movement and control will be similar to that of a zero turn radius lawnmower.


Misc facts:

-2 ESC's
-On-board controller is programmed in C#
-6 pneumatic rams
-4 air tanks
-on-board compressor
-limited to 120 psi in the tanks, 60 psi to the rams

weight classes:
4' tall= 120 lbs max
5' tall= 110 lbs max
6' tall= 100 lbs max

-ours is the 5' class
-All money comes from fund raising and sponsors, which include, BP, SqareD, HDR, PDC, Anchorage Rotary Club, Dowland-Bach, Dowl engineers, "The world famous" Chilkoot Charlie's (Anyone in the lower 48 ever heard of them? They're a bar) AND, Zone's FAVORITE sponsor in the WORLD, the local walmart. :lol:
-Entry fee your first regional is $6000...$4000 for each additional regional
-Only 3 teams in all of AK, all in Anchorage.

We will be attending the 2007 Silicon Valley regional in San Jose CA, on March 14-17. Since we're in Alaska, we're getting to fly!

More pics:

Top half:

Bottom half:

Even more pics:

Anchorage moutainscape:

I'm not actually in any of the pics because no one else besides me wanted to get out the camera, lol.


FUEL CELL:

We have also been working on a fuel cell project.
The fuel cell we received is a 10-stack cell, capable of 2 amp peak output running at 1 psi.
In case you don't know what a fuel cell is, I'll give you a run-down. A fuel cell uses reverse electrolysis to combine H2 atoms with O atoms to produce electricity. A small amount of H2O is given off as an exhaust product.
For the challenge, we had to design and test the system by a certain date. We got our fuel cell two weeks later than other teams because it was shipped from Chicago to Washington state, then back, then back to WA, then finally up to AK. So they were kind enough to give us extensions on our deadlines.

Pics!:

off:

On:

System overview:

In the bot:

Last Year:

This is my second year participating in FIRST. Last year I was on a team in VA, and here was our bot:

Here is the bot from the team I'm on now:

Here's a thread about my experience last year:
https://www.rcnitrotalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38940






Ok, there will undoubtedly be questions, so let 'em fly!

 

[4u2nv]

I seen a thing like that on Connan Obrian. It was a college (Purdue I think) and they had this big robot that did all this cool stuff. Was pretty neat.

 

[AC48]

I saw one of those here on WPI's campus. Pretty awesome.

 

[cvec7]

Yea, they are pretty cool. One of the best parts is getting down to the competition and seeing the other teams robots who may be on your "alliance" at one moment, then on the other alliance the next. Some teams have radically different approaches to the same thing which is always very interesting to see.
Right now I'm working on putting together a video for the judges to display in our pit area at the competition, and I'm working on an animation that will demonstrate how our bot will work... Once that's done, I'll post the animation on here so you all can see exactly how this thing works.

 

[Tweak]

WtF did he just say?

Something about a robot with a big rack and.... oh forget it.

SHINY ROBOT, ME LIKE!

 

[cvec7]

Well, my plane got back in from CA late Wed. night. What a blast though. My third, and favorite FIRST event yet.
Competition-wise, we didn't do so well, 37 out of 48 teams. From what I hear, this team has a whole on/off thing going on. Last year they did really well in competition, and the year before they didn't. And this year was our off-year.
We did walk away with the Judge's award though. Description of the judge's award:
"Over the course of the competition, the Judge's may encounter a team whose unique efforts, contributions, or group dynamics merit recognition."
What we won for was primarily our fuel cell program we participated in, how we were able to raise money in such a desolate place as Alaska. And well, just being from Alaska gives you points with the judges right there, lol.
Also, what I know helped some was the video I made for the team and had displaying on a laptop in our pit area. (The laptop fell and broke some plastic parts, and shattered the lcd screen on the last day) But what happened was, one of the judges was talking to me, and some how, the fuel cell came into conversation, and BAM! there was the fuel cell part of the video. Then she asked about any volunteer work we had done, and BAM! there was the volunteer part of the video. Then after the interview was officially over, she was like, "So...Alaska...what do you all do up there for fun?" and, BAM! there was the part about some of the stuff we do in Alaska, lol.

After the competition, we went around to Monterrey, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and toured some places on the Nasa-Ames base where we were staying including their robotics lab, and the world's largest wind-tunnel.
The weather the entire time was PERFECT, 60's the whole time. I think the weather played a huge part in our good spirit despite not doing so well. The weather was just soo much nicer than in AK that we just didn't care, lol. The most depressing part of the entire trip was when we had to trade the sand for the snow haha.

I don't have any competition pics yet, but I do have some general trip pics which I'll post up.



Ghirradelli Square (the king of all chocolate places) in SF:

The most awesome candy store I've ever seen, LOL: (I mean comon, everyone loves candy, lol)

You could even get M&M's BY THE COLOR! So if you wanted a bag of all green, no problem! lol.


Nasa Wind-tunnels:

an old tunnel being torn-down:

Their control center for one of the small tunnels:

Inside one of the smaller tunnels for scale models:

layout of the facility:

Outside views:

Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us take our cameras into the robotics lab where they had all the cool stuff going on...including the stuff with arms, rovers, 30 GIGAPIXEL panoramas... (They only had 2GP pano's to show us, which were still AMAZING)