Nicole

This past week, on Friday and Saturday, our team competed in the Silicon Valley Regional in San Jose. We were able to load in one day early and due to this, we were able to completely dedicate the practice day to playing as many practice matches as we could. During our practice matches we tested out new autonomous routines that were developed and evaluated the limits of the robot.  Silicon Valley Regional was a great competition for our team to demonstrate the new changes made to our robot. At the San Francisco Regional, we would usually deposit a single game piece onto the grid and balance on the charge station during autonomous. However, we tested out the new autonomous routines, which consisted of both two-piece and three-piece routines at this competition. The three-piece routine was able to run when the robot started in a certain position. We were able to score game pieces quicker and more accurately, and we had the same game piece configuration as we did in the San Francisco Regional. Ultimately, our team ended up in 9th place after the qualification matches. During alliance selections, the captain of alliance #3, team 604, Quixilver, invited us along with team 5171, Deus Ex Machina, to join their alliance. Our alliance fought hard against opposing teams, eventually making [...]

As we are approaching Silicon Valley Regional and the Houston Championships, the team has been working hard to prepare for the competition, and we are¥ continuing to make some small revisions on our robot.  Operations plays a vital role in our ability to attend Houston. This past week, the team has continued to write emails reaching out to parents, friends, and other relatives for funds. We have also contacted local and big businesses, seeking corporate matchings for grants. So far, we have been able to raise around 60% of the fundraising goal of $45,000, and we are working hard to reach the full amount needed to fund the competition. Please help us reach our goal by donating on our website! Any help is greatly appreciated, and would help our team attend Houston.  The Mechanical team is finishing creating spares for the robot, including a spare wrist, elevator and intake. Additionally, we shifted to a new bumper mounting solution and moved the bumpers higher to make engaging in auto more reliable.  The Programming team wrote code for a two piece autonomous and engage, and are working up the speeds for a three piece auto in the final days leading up to the Silicon Valley Regional. The team is also working on programming multiple autonomous routines to increase our flexibility and [...]

This past weekend, our team competed in the San Francisco Regional. Placing the robot on the field at the beginning of a match After setting up the pit and making minor mechanical adjustments to the robot, we focused on cycling practice matches to get as much driver practice as possible. During our practice matches we focused on playing with top teams such as 581, the Blazing Bulldogs, 971, Spartan Robotics, and 649, MSET Fish to gauge our robot and driver’s synergy with other teams. Walkthrough of electrical board during inspection With our new roller intake/outtake and wrist, which we designed once we returned from the Hueneme Port Regional in week 1, we greatly improved our performance. Our new roller intake/outtake allowed for quick alignment and acquisition from the single substation, dramatically decreasing our cycle times, driving up our point scoring during TeleOP. Additionally, we worked on refining our Auto routines to allow for improved charge station engaging. Our robot scored well with fast cycle times from the single substation, and we were able to get our autonomous routine, consisting of one cone being placed onto the top node and then engaging on the charge station, working consistently. We ended the day on an optimistic note and were ready for the qualification matches on Saturday. Systems check and elevator [...]

Coming back from Hueneme Port Regionals last week, our team was given the opportunity to observe and learn from other teams by attending an earlier competition. This past week, our team focused on what went well during the competition, as well as how we could improve our robot. After thoughtful consideration and an in-depth discussion, we decided that we would redesign our intake and four bar arm while making minor changes to the elevator. Some of our goals for the upcoming competition are to create faster cycle times for the robot, refine the scouting app, create a more organized pit, fix the bumpers and robot cart, and reconsider our strategy during matches. For the intake, we aimed to create a larger acquisition zone and more reliable cone storage and intake. The team created a horizontal roller design similar to the one used by team 1678 Citrus Circuits, which would increase the acquisition area and carry the game piece more securely. In addition we changed the motors for the wrist and intake to Falcon 500s to reduce wiring clutter. The intake uses two 2” dead axle intake rollers and a polycord gear reversal to intake both cones and cubes consistently. We are wrapping the rollers with self sealing silicone tape to ensure that the intake can grip the game pieces. [...]

Last weekend, our team competed in our first competition at Hueneme Port Regional (also known as HPR) in Ventura Country, California. We chose to attend this Week 1 competition for the opportunity to test our robot early in the season and to learn from other teams’ designs. During the week leading up to the competition, the team focused on creating spares for the 4-bar arm and energy chain of the robot, and tested its auto routine in order to get ready for the competition. On the first day of competition, which was practice match day, we practiced driving our swerve drivetrain and controlling the superstructure mechanisms as well as tested several autonomous routines, including one which automatically balances the robot on the charge station. Meanwhile, the rest of our team toured the pits to scout other robots and collect data on unique and efficient designs. Additionally, several mechanical changes were made such as adding chain tensioners to reduce the four bar’s backlash. Another thing being worked on was the autonomous routine, we were trying to get a cone on the high node during auto. Within the first few practice matches, our drivers confirmed that although our robot could score cones, we could pick up and place cubes much more efficiently; this led us to revise our strategy to [...]

As February comes to an end, students have been hard at work during their break. We are putting the finishing touches on our robot, and are preparing for our first competition in the upcoming week. This week, the elevator, 4-bar arm, and intake have been mounted onto our robot. This has allowed our electrical team to wire around the superstructure. The wires for the encoders have been mounted on the side of the elevator, and we braided the wires for the sparkmax and NEOs motors to prevent them from becoming tangled. The team has taken careful consideration to ensure that the wiring is as organized as possible. We also wired an e-chain cable carrier, which allows the elevator to extend to the maximum height. The electrical team is using mesh cable shrouds to protect the motor cables for the elevator, to the virtual 4-Bar, and intake/outtake. As our first competition approaches in the upcoming week, our team is working many hours to ensure that our robot is ready. The robot is very close to being finished, and we only have to mount the extending arm to complete the superstructure. The electrical team finished all of the wiring and they are working on organizing the wires to end at one point, creating an efficient modular design. The machining team [...]

Week 6 has ended on a high note, and our team has been hard at work continuing the development of our 2023 robot. As our first competition at Hueneme Port Regional draws closer, our team needs all hands on deck in order to maximize our chances of success! The construction of our superstructure is underway. We are currently working on mounting our elevator and 4-bar arm, and the process is going very well. The elevator has already been mounted on the swerve drivetrain, and the 4-bar arm components are in the process of being machined. While the main construction of the robot is going on, our separate subteams are hard at work doing individual subteam tasks. With the robot beginning to be constructed, our programmers have been able to start testing their code. The programming team is currently working on the elevator code and they will soon be able to test it on the elevator. They are also working on starting the automatic charge station balance code, which would allow our robot to balance on the charge station in an instant using a button. The Intake code is complete and the 4-bar arm code has been merged to main. The Scouting team has been modifying our scouting app to make it more efficient and easier to use for [...]

Another week has gone by and our team has continued to make a lot of progress in each field of our robot construction. Week 5 has ended on a very positive note! Our programming team has been working on their code and preparing it to test on our robot. The Vision team has successfully created a working vision system on our classbot and are continuing to clean up the code. The Scouting team is currently working on the Team display and they have created a fully working Match Display. They are also working on a way to receive scouting data without the use of Wifi. Additionally, the Game Piece programming team has merged their code for the elevator and Four Bar subsystems into the main branch. They are continuing to work on revising code based on feedback on general code structure from our mentors and Programming Director. The Mechanical team has been working hard to fabricate parts for our robot. The Machining team has finished making the Battery Bellypan. The team has finished fabricating the rails and are currently working on the hexshafts and Gearbox mounting plates using the CNC router. Though the Machining team is waiting for the Aluminum Stock to arrive and is experiencing minor issues with the CNC router, they have finished machining most of [...]

Week two was another successful week with progress across all of the team.  Our prototyping groups continued researching and testing different designs. We are prototyping a variety of designs that can be used to pick up the game pieces of the 2023 FRC Game Charged Up. Our groups consist of a 971 Arm, Extending wheels, Layered Intake with Fixed Bar, screw extender and elevator (Four Bar Arm), Ri3D Grabber, and a Rotate and Extend arm. Extending wheels is a design incorporating an orienter and linear slider and implements wheels to intake the object. The Layered Intake with Fixed Bar uses a bar to reorient the cone in a position that intakes the object with wheels in a layered design. The Ri3D Grabber is able to pick up fallen and vertical cones and cubes in certain angles and uses pneumatics to clasp onto the game piece. Meanwhile, the 971 Arm, Four Bar Arm, and Rotate and Extend arm are still in the progress of CADing. This week, the prototyping groups will present their design to the team so that we can decide the best way for our robot to hold and carry the game pieces. We are planning to determine different combinations of these prototypes and decide which designs work best with others. Moving over to the mechanical section [...]