Over the past month, both FTC teams have been building their robotics. In this post, we’ll look at Team B, headed by Brian Pohl.
Brian with Team B’s notebook and robot.
First, the team built the base of their robot, including the initial “street sweeper” to pick up balls. The first iteration of the street sweeper connected the gears of each of the robot’s wheels, inadvertently preventing the robot from being able to turn. This was resolved by cutting the street sweeper axle in half. The change did make the street sweeper less effective, and the team is still looking into improving the structure. Below you can see a video of the modified design picking up balls. The video also shows the servos mounted to the back of the bot, which will latch onto the rolling goals on the field and pull them around with the bot.
Next is a clip that shows the robot’s scoring mechanism in action. We used a plastic VEX conveyor belt connected to two axles, and rubber-supported duct tape cups carrying the balls from the base of the robot to the goal. In this video, a team member is holding the top of the belt up. Eventually, the bot will have linear bearing lifts powered by strings winding around TETRIX continuous servos. We were originally using LEGO parts for the lift, but due to several issues with sliding and staying connected, we have switched to generic drawer slides. Strings within the lift will pull the slides up to the extended position at the beginning of the match.
Both teams continue to work as the first competition approaches.
At the last few meetings, the teams have begun designing their FTC robots. These bots must be capable of picking up small balls (golf ball and baseball sized) and throwing them into tubes of varying height. Team A began by brainstorming ideas on the whiteboard:
The first brainstorming session.
Second brainstorming session.
Next, we began sketching the possible designs. We are considering implementing a folding conveyor belt into our bot, so we did some math to figure out how long the pieces of the arm would have to be.
Another page from Team A’s engineering notebook.
A page from Team A’s engineering notebook.
Meanwhile, Team B is formulating their design:
Some early sketches of Team B’s design ideas.
Team B’s Brian Pohl documenting a possible design.
Next up will be converting these rough sketches into technical drawings that we can use to define the details of our bots.
While we are very excited to participate in the FIRST Tech Challenge, many of us would also like to go to the FIRST Robotics Competition as well. To that end, we have created an Indiegogo campaign, which you can find by clicking “Donate” or by following this link: http://igg.me/at/oakvillerobotics. This campaign is designed mainly for small businesses (and heavily involved individuals) to be able to cover part of our registration fee without paying the entire amount. You can contribute at multiple levels and we will recognize you in different ways. $100 will get your name on our website; $500 will get your company in our videos; and $1000 will get your company’s logo on the side of our robot! We have a campaign video below about why we want to go to the FRC.
If you wish to contact us outside of the campaign website, you can do so at roboticsohs@mehlvilleschooldistrict.net. We look forward to competing, and we hope that the community will help us achieve our goal!
At our meeting this past Monday, we took inventory of each club member’s focus, such as programming, building, or drawing. We then divided the club into two teams to take to FTC competitions. Oakville’s teams will develop separate robots and compete separately in competitions, but some key personnel, such as the lead builder (Brian Pohl) and the lead programmer (Jacob Kauffmann) will work with new members on both teams to teach everyone the basic skills they will need. Oakville’s 2014-2015 FTC Teams are as follows:
The Oakville High School robotics team has decided to compete in the First Tech Challenge this year. However, I and several other members strongly want to participate in the First Robotics Competition. To this end, we are considering splitting a branch of the team into a separate group that would pursue higher-level builds while also accepting more responsibility for the organization. We are currently working hard to raise the funds necessary to participate in the FRC. If you want to contribute to our goal, you can visit our Indiegogo campaign by clicking on the “Donate” button at the top of the website.
I’m pleased to share that our robotics program has skyrocketed in popularity this year! Will all of the participants eager to begin working, we’re now in the process of deciding which competitions to register for this year. We are leaning towards both the FIRST Robotics Competition and the VEX Robotics Competition, and are looking into ways to raise the money needed to sign up. This website will keep our fans up-to-date with information on our progress throughout the year.
