Ian Hsieh – Iron Claw Robotics

2024 Fall Season Turret Blog

By Ian Hsieh|2024-12-09T19:21:39-08:00November 6th, 2024|

One of our advanced projects for the 2024 offseason is building a turret. This is a new subsystem for our team that we’ve never made before, so it was a steep learning curve for everyone involved in the project. Having a turret allows a greater range of motion and faster aiming and scoring, giving our robots more versatility and making scoring more efficient. Last year in Crescendo, many of the top teams had turrets, which gave them an edge in competitions. In previous years beyond that, there were several instances where having a turret gave teams a huge advantage over others. Our team decided to take two approaches to the project. Since this is our first time building a turret, we wanted to have a model for us to design our own. As a result, we purchased the GreyT turret from West Coast Products and then used the design philosophy of that turret to design our version from scratch, which would give us greater flexibility and freedom for design. The manufacturing process went well, but due to issues with assembly, backordered parts, and our project lead leaving the team, we decided to scrap the project and work with the GreyT turret instead, since it would be easier to assemble and test. Assembly went well, with only a few [...]

2024 Weekend Workshop

By Ian Hsieh|2024-11-15T16:06:08-08:00September 23rd, 2024|

Iron Claw Robotics is all geared up for the 2024 - 2025 FRC season with sixteen new first years! We started the year off strong with a weekend workshop, having five 45-minute stations designed to teach newer members the basics of different robotics subteams. Getting familiar with the different sections allows members to see what the subteams are in charge of and decide what they might be interested in working on. The first of the stations involved the electrical board and pneumatic systems that we use on our competition robots. A thorough presentation covering the parts of an electrical board gave students a better understanding of the inner workings of a competition robot. Next, in our metal shop, students learned how to use the drill press, deburr, and rivet through the demonstration and guidance of senior students. The new students also got a brief overview of how our CNC machine works, and enjoyed the hands-on tasks. The drilling station was especially important this year, given our problems with students not knowing how to use drills and drivers properly in previous years. Students practiced drilling holes, learned the difference between drills and drivers, and discovered where they can find the right equipment when they’re working. The station also covered using circular saws, which will be useful for prototyping [...]

2024 Build Blog Week Nine

By Ian Hsieh|2024-11-15T16:07:24-08:00March 20th, 2024|

One week out from the Central Valley Regional in Fresno and our team is hard at work putting the finishing touches and final improvements on our robot. After experiencing issues with our bumpers due to heavy impacts, we redesigned our bumpers and billet piece to be much more durable. We also completed production of spares for our shooter, intake, and arm so we can easily swap out parts if needed at competitions. In addition, we fine-tuned our auto paths making a clear selection of working paths, most notably our 5-piece auto, which was a tremendous success this past week. The strategy team looked over matches of high-ranking teams that we will be competing with at CVR and studied their auto paths to improve our own. In addition to efficient autos, the auto team is also making complementary auto paths with other teams (1-3 piece auto), which could be helpful in getting the right alliance members for alliance selection. Significant contributions have also been made to vision. In addition to new camera mounting positions and redesigned camera mounts themselves, we have been working on speaker and amp alignment to increase cycle times. Having efficient cycle times is important for our success, so our drive team has been practicing hard. They have also been working on avoiding and playing defense, [...]

2024 Build Blog Week Six

By Ian Hsieh|2024-02-26T22:47:08-08:00February 19th, 2024|

Week 6 has ended on a high note, and our team has been hard at work as we continue to build our 2024 robot. As our first competition at Silicon Valley Regional approaches, we need all hands on deck in order to maximize our chances of success! Over the past two and a half days, the Machining team has made much progress with the intake and outtake. We have been busy machining many hex shafts for intake and outtake assembly. In addition, we used the CNC router to manufacture many plates for intake and have recently started manufacturing for the arm. The Machining team plans to CAM the arm plates, then use the CNC router, all for assembly on Wednesday. We have also been working on the bumpers, assembling and testing them for fit. The CAD has been finalized and ready for manufacturing. During the beginning of the week, hardware teams worked on finishing and approving the CAD of the intake for manufacturing, then assembling and testing the intake on the drivetrain. Additionally, the shooter has been assembled and will be tested on its own and then on the arm. The arm is currently being machined, and some key parts are still being shipped, so it will be assembled soon. The CADers are working on putting the finishing [...]

2023 Houston Championship Recap

By Ian Hsieh|2023-04-26T14:26:57-07:00April 24th, 2023|

Last week, our team competed in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Championship in Houston from Wednesday April 19 to Saturday April 22. In the George R. Brown Convention Center Out of the over 3250 teams in the world who participate in FRC, only 620 qualify for Houston, where the best of the best compete to see who will become world champions of FIRST. Teams compete in 8 divisions of about 77 teams. Our team was in the Archimedes Division, which included several of the best teams in the world, including defending world champions 254 and 1619, several Hall of Fame teams, and other high-ranking teams such as 2056, 6036, 111, 1577, and 2468. Our robot in the pits after unloading Before competing with the best teams in the world, our team made sure that our robot (“Vertigo”) was at its peak condition. Prior to the competition, we had been testing and perfecting several autonomous routines for our matches, mainly three-piece auto and over-the-charge-station auto engage. On the mechanical side of things, the electrical team hot glued all the electrical connections to make sure no disconnections would happen mid-match, and we had also added LEDs to our robot for better communication with our team members and human player during teleop routines. Furthermore, our drive team had also practiced relentlessly before [...]

2023 Build Blog Week Twelve

By Ian Hsieh|2023-04-17T22:23:07-07:00April 17th, 2023|

With the World Championship just a few days away, our team is busy making a few last minute changes that will hopefully further boost our robot’s performance at Houston. After the Silicon Valley Regional, extra spares will be required for Houston, and that has been a focus for our mechanical team for much of the week. They’ve also worked on re-tensioning the elevator and cleaning out our swerve drivetrain as part of a maintenance routine on our robot. Additionally, to prevent any connection issues during matches, the electrical subteam has hot-glued the robot’s connectors in the electrical board to ensure that loose wires won’t be a problem. The most noticeable change to our robot is the new LEDs running down on either side of the elevator, which are useful for many things during a match, such as indicating the alliance color and signaling to our teammates about getting a cone or cube based on the color. Our programming subteam is hard at work fine-tuning the elevator and intake to make our scoring more reliable and efficient. Most of their efforts have been on improving our autonomous routine during autonomous mode during our matches. They’vebeen trying different auto routines, such as three-piece auto and acquiring a piece by going over the charge station. Since we will be facing the top [...]

2023 Build Blog Week Three

By Ian Hsieh|2023-04-24T23:48:54-07:00January 30th, 2023|

Week 3 was a very decisive week for the whole team. We started off the week with design presentations of our prototypes. We narrowed down our options for our robot. We decided on 5 main designs: The Angled Elevator with 4 bar and layered intake, the Angled Elevator with 4 bar, RI3D grabber and extending wheels orienter, the 4 Bar Lead screw, (“Wheeled”) layered intake with a fixed bar orienter, the 971 Arm, RI3D grabber with extending wheels orienter, and the 971 arm with wheeled Intake and extending wheels orienter. With these designs, we did a team decision matrix where we split into five groups and scored each design based on a couple different criterias. The results of this are the designs with the RI3D Grabber were voted least. The 4 Bar Lead screw, (“Wheeled”) layered intake with a fixed bar orienter and the 971 arm with wheeled Intake and extending wheels orienter were pretty even in terms of votes. The Angled Elevator with 4 bar, layered intake was the clear winner. Our DVC voted and we ended up choosing the angled elevator with a 4 bar arm, a layered intake and a fixed bar orienter. On the mechanical side of the team, the machinists have been working on the belly pan and bumpers of the robot. The [...]

About Ian Hsieh