angielam

Week 5 is a busy one for team Iron Claw as we prepare for our upcoming competition. Our CADers have been working day-in-and-out, finalizing the designs of the intake, shooter, and arm. Last week, we decided to change the intake from over the bumper to under the bumper to provide adequate space for an object detection camera, as well as to make sure the intake is as robust as possible. With the addition of our under-the-bumper intake, we eliminated one degree of freedom from our robot. Additionally, we began assembling our prototype, and tested intaking as well as centering as it goes into the shooter. With the new intake, we tested out two centering mechanisms. The first was a set of polycarbonate plates that were bent to create ramps between the rollers. In our testing, we tried several types of surfaces including smooth polycarbonate, sanded polycarbonate, velcro loop, and masking tape. While sanded polycarbonate showed potential, we decided that none of the materials were successful enough as the note jammed on the side. Due to the failure of the plates, we decided to experiment with a pair of passive wheels that would direct the game piece toward our shooter. This seemed to work better, but we are transitioning to a powered wheel solution for the final design, using [...]

After last week’s success, we have progressed further on our prototypes, succeeding on many fronts. As a recap for week 1, our DVC (Decision Voting Council), decided on a series of mechanisms that we would prototype and test the geometry for before we decide on our full robot design. Those prototypes are:  Fliptake: an intake consisting of two rollers on a pivot, allowing it to flip and outtake a note into another subsystem. Continuous Intake: an intake that brings the note over the bumper into an indexer. 95-Style Shooter: a shooter design where the shooter wheels are vertical and coaxial on 2 axles that vertically compress the note to fire it. Elevator: a one or two-stage climbing mechanism that may also place a note in the trap on the final robot. Flywheel Shooter: a shooter that has two shooter wheels that are horizontally mounted which compress and fire a note. Big Arm: a climbing mechanism that has an arm that winches down onto the chain to climb up. The prototyping groups are making great progress, they are now focused on collecting data to validate their designs against the functional requirements of the robot. For our intakes, the Fliptake and the Continuous Intake, we have discussed many options and ultimately decided to put each through second and third rounds [...]