Day 28: Helping Hand

A rookie team we are mentoring came to use with some problems with their robot. The drive train wasn't performing liked they wanted and the pneumatic gripper intake wasn't collecting balls either.

We started working with them and over the weekend we should have a pretty solid robot for them to base things off of.

We looked at what we had on hand and what parts they already had. They had purchased a full AM14U2 in the off season and had their Kit AM14U3 as well. With all the included wheels, etc. They also had a lot of sprockets too. They were willing to spend some money so they are purchasing the AM14U Wedge kits for the front and back of their robot and moving to a 10 wheel drive train. This should let them get over all the passive defenses. For an intake we looked to the MCC design by WCProducts for inspiration. It's very simple and allows them to have a full wrap bumper which is stronger and better for defense. They already had a DART linear actuator so we are working with them to find a place to mount that will allow it to accurate out of the frame perimeter. We also looked at 118 Robonauts Everybot design for inspiration as well and we think they can add wheels to the outside of their intake roller to be able to lift up the portcullis. The intake will definitely be able to lower the CDF panels, so in all this robot should be able to do 4 of the defense groups and work with others to do the draw bridge and sally port.

The design is very liberal with it's use of COTS parts. It's also simple as it only uses 6 total motors and doesn't need pneumatics.

We also got our first real sheet metal run sent to the sponsors last night, so we should be getting our drive trains and intakes back early next week.

- Spectrum


"Let me do all the good I can, to all the people I can, as often as I can, for I shall not pass this way again." - John Wesley