Hey all, I decided to reveal our robot, Glaedr (named after the golden dragon from the Inheritance Cycle). I don’t have any fancy video in the works, but here are some pictures. It was designed to do 100% field scoring, but we can shoot from the home tile to the opposing net for Skills runs. I’m not sure exactly how fast it fires, but from the bar, it is as fast as we can intake (so probably 1.5 balls a second would be my guess).
Specifications:
2 motor 21.4 : 1 single flywheel (two 5-inch wheels)
6 motor high speed chassis with 4-inch wheels
2 motor intake (lower belt turbo, upper belt torque)
Pneumatic Brake
20+ point autonomous routine
Overall, it works pretty well. We score at least 100 points a match, up to 150. Our scoring is just from the field, which is considerable considering that a robot that just shot match loads and high elevated paired up with our robot could potentially score 340 points, which is enough to clinch a match. With a partner who scores more than just matchloads, we could do much better. We have won two tournaments with this specific design, and four tournaments total. But, if you want to know how we’ve done, you can just look us up on vexdb.io or another app or website.
Are you using the pneumatics anywhere else besides the brakes? If not, why not make a 4 motor flywheel with the extra 2 motors instead of pneumatics so that you can have a high enough fire rate that you don’t even need a brake.
No, that is the only place we use pneumatics. Other uses were planned but cannot be implemented. Using motors instead of pneumatics has been strongly considered. I think we would use the extra motors on the base. Our flywheel is fast enough for our needs. I assume what you mean is adding motors so we can increase our gear ratio and shoot from far enough to not need a brake, because I’m not sure why fire rate would make a brake useless. Maybe I’m missing something. Regardless, we have enough range that we can shoot over robots easily and don’t need more range. Shooting full court has been in consideration, but we believe at a high level of competition a brake will be more important.
I don’t know if that answers your question. Feel free to rephrase and I will answer.
EDIT: Part of the tactical advantage involves being able to avoid burning out while holding ground as well. Also, the brake provides resistance in all directions, allowing us to avoid hairy situations while, say, pushing around robots who are trying to get back to high elevate.
Yep, it is extremely accurate. The accuracy from max range on our robot is within a ball width. Basically, if it ever misses, it is my fault (operator error)!
You were there, haha! And we eliminated our burnout problem entirely, and you saw the results last weekend (for outsiders, he was volunteering, we were competing). Look forward to seeing you while volunteering at Desert Ridge.
Programming would be better, but we misaligned every time at our last tournament. Robot has a little room for improvement as well. Our best in practice was 130 programming skills, but of course nothing ever works like in practice, does it?
Check out vexdb.io if you have questions on skills or other scores. It’s a great resource, you can just type in a team number or event name.
Match video is a different subject… I am a perfectionist, so I’d have to 1. have a video of a match and 2. really knock it out of the park. Those are both things that happen, but neither at the same time… So we may have video from State or at least give you guys some practice footage. Either way, I will try to get something for you guys, but I have no promises or time frame on that.
Right, I agree that that is low. That is on a misaligned run, so about 1/3 of our shots went in. Most bounced off of the top of the net and didn’t go in. If it was aligned correctly, it would have been much higher. Like I said, we did better in practice.
We aren’t meant as a full-court shooter, and since Skills is mostly fire rate, we aren’t very optimized for it. But I think we did pretty okay in Robot Skills.
To be honest, we didn’t have to do that much fine tuning; we just happened to go through a lot of design phases. I believe that the single flywheel is naturally very accurate, and we have the feeding very consistent. However, we do have about a 60 degree angle for our shots, so that is one specific design choice we have going for us. We had about a 50 degree angle after rebuilding the whole intake, and any variance in battery or speed would make us miss. With a 60 degree angle, it is hard to miss.
I can at least upload a Skills practice run that was our first time shooting from that location into the near net. It’s not very polished, but you can get an idea of the accuracy. Bear in mind that I didn’t always let it get the exact same amount of recovery time, and our recovery time is higher from longer range because we can’t just boost the speed to get a better recovery time.
Like I said, operator error is the cause of misses. But I will work on getting that video uploaded, flaws and all.
The advantage of having a higher fire rate, in terms of avoiding defense, is that you can shoot off all your balls before they have the chance to push you. But, like you said, there are other places that brakes can be used, outside of shooting, that can make it more useful than a doubled fire rate.
Oromis would be proud! What launching code do you use? (PID, TBH, etc.) for operator error in aligned I would suggest laser pointers (plural) that go in niches in the robot that can be removed. 1 would be fine but 2 would give you more accuracy and correct distance. Also laser pointers are awesome if you shoot a little to the left or right.
I wouldnt try this as it has to be done in a timely matter and I know for a fact we will be running quick turnarounds at state, which will make it hard for even 1 laser
