So here is our robot! We are competing tomorrow (well, I guess it’s now today) at San Antonio and thought we would post a really late reveal.
Our drive is a standard four 393 mecanum at 1:1. We have a low skirt around our robot to prevent sacks from getting caught underneath everything. There is also a plate over the wheels on either side to prevent sacks from falling on top of them.
Our lift is an 8-bar powered by two 393’s and two 269’s at a 1:15 ratio. It has the power to lift our intake plus ~11 sacks. (picture slightly outdated)
Now the most interesting part of robot, the intakeS! We have two intakes on our robot, one mounted on the arm and the other stationary between the towers. The first one is a chain-and-standoff chainsaw-style intake, powered by one 393 at a 1:7 ratio (for the main sprocket). It can score and descore all goals relatively easily. Our usual load is around 5 sacks, although more can be stacked onto the back using the other intake explained below.
The stationary intake uses tank tread and standoffs on top of a lexan sheet to bring sacks up to the back of the other intake. This one has multiple elastically-tensioned rollers, and is powered by a 393 at a 1:1.
(See image 1 in part 2)
As far as sensors go we have 4 integrated encoders on the drive, 2 potentiometers, 2 ultrasonics, 3 line followers, and an LCD screen for selecting autonomous routines.
Awesome robot! What advantage does having the two separate intakes give you over the wheel leg-conveyor combo seen in robots like 24C, 1615A and 4886A since they are very similar?
Well the ability to intake from both sides of the robot is really nice for driving because you rarely have to turn the robot around to pick up sacks, which saves time. Another cool feature is that the fixed intake can continue intaking even while the arm is off the ground (although it can only hold a few sacks before it starts pushing them out the other side), which means that we can start to pick up sacks while we bring the arm down after scoring, shaving small amounts of time off here and there.
Just so you know everything here is now outdated. After San Antonio we completely rebuilt our robot from the ground up, making it a more “mainstream” efficiency bot, but with a few additional ausTIN CAN bonus features ;). Pics will be posted near competition.
