7580A 2015 Robot Reveal.

Robot name: Sharknado 3
(3rd robot this year, our robots are named after a famous “vortex”, and this year’s name is Sharknado)

After our state championship, our robot needed some changes to compete on a world level. We decided to build our current robot, and we are so glad with it’s performance, we decided to share it with all of you.

It is a very uncommon design which will give it a competitive edge against all the other robots competing at the world championships.

Here is our video reveal of Sharknado 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yedhYdeiLM

Thanks for watching and enjoy. :slight_smile:

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Come see our pit at worlds. (7580A)

I’m not quite sure if that would be legal, as the licence plates are not on 2 opposing sides. Although that might be made up for with the blinking warning light.

Are you going to do a reveal of your RD4B robot in the background (if that’s the right robot)?

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Omni wheel technology is not very efficient for this type of robot. In fact, it’s an outrage, an affront to humanity’s quest to rise above bare subsistence. :mad:

I strongly suggest that you switch to Mecanum wheel technology for this design.

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That is not my RD4B in the background, it is another team from the same club. Whether they will do a reveal, I’m not 100% sure.

Currently our cortex is being used (by the robot in the reveal), and is not on our robot obviously.

Also, I was not kidding when I said we took our robot apart after our state championship, because we decided not to compete in any more tournaments this year for a number of personal reasons.


For any of you who didn’t know, this robot is a minimal robot, using the least number of parts to compete in competition.

http://puu.sh/gErLb/81f5b4fbcd.jpg

It was inspired by my favorite teaser from last year. Seen here

But I wanted to make a teaser for the least number of parts allowed. And still legal to compete. (minus the entanglement risk, and the number plate placement)

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Thank you for the suggestion. Like all robots, this one has room to improve. (even though very few improvements can be made since this machine is almost infallible).

We plan to, once the robot is finished and autons are tuned.

I believe that whichever alliance this robot is on will win Worlds. Too bad we can never be in the same division. :frowning:

We might be able to, if 4 teams between 7580A and 7581 appear suddenly, and qualify for worlds ;):smiley:


S - 7580A
T - ?
E - ?
A - ?
M - ?
S - 7581H

Thanks for reminding me of this amazing robot! I think you have greatly improved on this concept, instead of having one side slower than the other, just get rid of it completely!

For some reason it took me a moment to realize why it said “TEAM” in between 2 letter S. :stuck_out_tongue: Then I noticed it represents the divisions…

To my knowledge it is just STEAM, but anyway, AJ, your robot is amazing!

Yes, assuming there are 5 divisions at worlds. Science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. I abbreviated it as STEAM. Unless there is 6 or something. Then there would need to be even another team added. :rolleyes:

Thanks. I put in a lot of effort, CAD models, math, and of course hours of manual labor to achieve this product. :wink:

How much calculus did you have to do in order to program the robot to drive so perfectly straight? Seems very difficult :smiley:

Also, surprised that CAD model didn’t crash your computer (it being so complex and all). You must have many gigabytes of RAM. :stuck_out_tongue:

He probably had 1,000,000 Tesla K20s to do the computation for the insane Linear Algebra needed to compute the intense gravity system. Of course, this was all done in MATLAB

Well, at first it was STEM, but then the arts people felt left out, so now STEM is being morphed into STEAM or MEATS. But, of course, that leaves out the sports kids, so now there’s a push for SMEATS. But that acronym seems to discriminate against Homeschooled kids, so very soon we’ll have SMEATHS. But all of this talk about school-related things leaves out those kids involved in the Unschooling Movement (Unschooling - Wikipedia) so then we’ll have to change it to SMUTSHEAS or MUTHSEAS or HUMSEATS (SHUTSEAM, MEATHUSS)???. But such acronymynous labeling is discriminatory against ------ so then we’ll have to include ----- which then means we must have------

It will eventually only be one division, V for vex, so equality for all. :stuck_out_tongue:

Add 4 Titan Xs to that because that will also need a lot of graphics power to run that very complex frame not to mention its on a 128p tv.

What about SOMETHING AMAZING? science, operations, math, engineering, technology, home-school, independent-study, neurology, genetics, arts, mechanics, aeronautics, zoology, information, nuclear, genealogy.

That’s just too many divisions though.

That acronym, by itself, is truly amazing.

I like the idea of combining a few of those categories, though. For example, I’d like to see what “nuclear genealogy” could crank out.

My whole team has been watching this on replay since the video went up. It’s refreshing to see someone who will be a real challenge to defeat. But I do wonder why you chose omni-wheel rather than mecanum wheel. But then again, I’m not very familiar with the gravity-powered lift. I look forward to seeing the bot in action no matter what wheel you choose.

Aeronautics zoology would be interesting too.

Flying zebras;)

How about genetics arts technology?

Also, this is one of the most impressive machines I have ever seen in VEX. It looks like you put so much work and testing into the Gravity lift. Looks like the go-to design for next year, that’s for sure.

How did you manage to fit all of those extra features into the 18 inches? It almost looks like it’s out of spec upon first look.