Nicole

Last weekend, our team competed in the Central Valley Regional. The Wednesday before competition, team 2473, Goldstrikers, used our practice field for testing auto routines and driver practice. We hope that the time they had on our practice field helped strengthen their robot. In the future, we hope to accept more requests from teams who wish to use our practice field.  By Thursday, the Pit was packed in the trailer and our competition team headed to Fresno. During the competition practice day, we encountered an issue with the CANivore and RoboRio. The CANivore failed to communicate with the RoboRio, so the Hardware and Software pit crew ran many tests in hopes of fixing the issue. After swapping out the CANivore did not work, we attempted to swap out the RoboRio instead. Upon noticing that neither change yielded desired results, we replaced the CANivore and RoboRio, restoring communication between the two. We hope to conduct more testing of the two hardware pieces on our test beds. Additionally, during our first practice match, we realized that shooting from a distance no longer worked. This was an unresolved issue that we plan to look into more.  On Saturday, our pit crew got to work, re-tensioning the chains, checking the wires, and replacing the battery. We focused on software, as the issue [...]

By attending Silicon Valley Regional last week, our team was given the opportunity to observe and learn from other teams early in the season. After a busy week at competition, our team had a thoughtful debrief to focus on what went well during SVR, as well as how we could improve our robot. In preparation for Central Valley Regional, the strategy team will be deciding the next goals to focus on for robot actions, hardware, and software, keeping in mind our functional requirements. Over the next two weeks, these respective subteams will implement these tasks in order to maximize the abilities of our robot for competition. This week, our machining team has manufactured new spare parts for Vivace. On top of machining, the rest of the mechanical subteam has been hard at work assembling the modular spare parts for Vivace. These subsystems include the intake, shooter, and rotating arm. For the intake, we are working on redesigning the plates, as well as updating the billet piece for durability. Additionally, we also plan on redesigning the bumpers to increase robustness for the intake and mounting the assembled spares onto our off season swerve, Phil. During SVR, we learned that our bumpers were shifting upon impact, caving into the billet piece causing the piece to take damage. In order to [...]

As February comes to a close, students have been hard at work during their break. Week seven has led our robot to progress nicely. All of our sub teams have been working hard to prepare for our first competition of the year, Silicon Valley Regional. This week, the arm, shooter, and intake have been mounted and wired onto our robot. Our subsystems were assembled separately and, when done, mounted on the drivetrain. We designed around serviceability and ease of understanding in preparation for competition. All power wires were labeled and routed separately from CAN and sensors for clarity in robot inspections, debugging, and replacing of parts. Wire connectors and extensions, for example, are all centralized in certain accessible locations to avoid having to access our protected upside-down control system board. The programming team has been successful in identifying the initial x and y velocities for shooting while moving (SWM). We can make various test cases, and make them work. We are now working on successfully integrating drivetrain into the test cases by setting drivetrain velocities and attempting to shoot at the actual pose of the speaker. The Vision team has been increasing the accuracy of our computer assisted game piece acquisition. This includes training better machine learning models and fixing the distortion of the camera. We have also [...]

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 [...]

Week three concluded with a DVC (Decision Voting Council) vote on our subsystems. As a team, we extended our prototyping process to ensure that our DVC could use the data and information collected to make an informed decision. We also created an integration team that is responsible for researching possible ways to package and integrate the subsystems onto our 26.5” x 26.5” swerve drivetrain. Below is an overview of how the final prototypes progressed and finished over the week. This year, when presenting the final subsystems, the prototyping teams ensured they validated the capabilities against the functional requirements that the team created in week one. The Fliptake team finished a CAD of the prototype and simulated the full range of motion. We also worked on mounting it to Phil, our off-season swerve robot, to test its ability to intake while driving. In its stowed position, the two rollers of the Fliptake are positioned halfway across the robot with a polycord infinity loop, allowing spin in opposite directions. Incorporating a self-centering board cements the note to flip back on the pivot and handoff to the shooter. However, we found that the self-centering board acted as more of a hardstop for the note. During data collection, we accomplished a 100% success rate during 25 trials from the center using the stationary [...]

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 [...]

After our most successful season yet, Iron Claw Robotics is feeling upbeat and ready for the 2024 Crescendo Build Season! On Saturday, January 6th, our team met over winter break for our annual kickoff day to watch the game release. This year’s 2024 game consists of a ring-shaped game piece called a note, which can be deposited into three field elements: the amp, speaker, and trap. Although the endgame is not a time constrained section, robots can choose to climb on a chain with other robots or score in traps. Over the weekend, the team focused on strategy, dividing into five groups to discuss the best ways to maximize points and create potential auto paths during matches. On Sunday, after the groups presented their strategies to the class followed by a team discussion, the DVC (Decision Voting Council) voted on our robot functional requirements. These requirements dictate our strategy and what the robot will or will not do, playing a crucial role in our design using specific metrics to follow. Devising a detailed plan for strategy is our first important step to ensure our robot’s success. Throughout the week, we spent several meetings split into five groups to research various designs that uphold our functional requirements and team goals. After designs were presented, the DVC filtered twenty six [...]

Team Iron Claw 972 is already one step ahead of the Crescendo game: our practice field is almost complete and ready to go. Thanks to the hard work from mentors Art Chan and Harrison Van Der Walt, having a practice field will not only be important for driver practice, but also for analyzing the accuracy of prototypes and designs when interacting with the field elements. Additionally, our mentor, Aaron Payne, has provided us with a large space in the wood shop to hold the practice field.             We had four out of the five practice field elements made just within the first 10 hours of Crescendo being published, including the speaker and subwoofer, the amp, and the source.  We are also planning to build the stage field element before the end of build season, but are currently waiting on the trap to arrive from Andymark on January 15th, as well as a vendor to sell us Trusses. All other parts of the stage are planned to be cut out using a CNC router, making the process of assembling the field elements a lot faster than the objects that were cut by hand. We look forward to observing how the creation of our field this early in the season will influence how we design [...]