8059 Blank. - 12 years of history

VEX V5 General Discussion VEX Robot Showcase
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HI all…

We will be releasing our video on 23 Apr, 5am SGT.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_SLiGpB08w/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Firstly, let me say that due to Covid-19, the students were not allowed into the lab since mid-March.
We really have problem getting the necessary footage to do a proper reveal of our worlds robot.
Guess you will just need to believe me that our worlds robot is much much better than our nationals robots (which were revealed earlier on - VEX Tower Takeover - 8059 SingVEX Reveal 2020 - YouTube )

So this video is mainly about the 12 years of history of our club.

For the robotics purists, you will need to “search” and pause the video along the way when you see some interesting stuff.
So do look out for those old, but still interesting gadgets or robot designs, and also for the current robot, look out for the trapdoor, the descorer, the slider roller, etc. But sorry, we didnt have the opportunity to take a video or photo of our cage (which personally i am most pleased with and think it is a potential gamechanger) :frowning:

For the history buff or those interested to know how we have grown or setup our club (which I do think we are doing a pretty good job so far), then it is a dream video for you :slight_smile:

Edit: link to video - 12 Years of 8059Blank. - YouTube

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I may not be a history buff, but this is certainly a dream video! I can’t wait!

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Thanks! I will definitely watch the video.

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I love the sleeping bag pic. That’s epic.

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lol… and recently someone is asking how much time the students spent in the lab? well… guess here’s the answer :joy:

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True.
I don’t think any ever slept in our lab over night, but midnight was a common breaking point for coaches.

-ed: correct to “ever slept over night” (of course some of the team slept in the lab)

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Will you reveal your tt bots next season when you can get back to the lab? Those gadgets sounds awesome.

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I don’t think any are allowed to sleep in our lab

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Who needs sleep when you’ve got robots right there?

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Are these anything at all like some things that our alliance designed a while back? The names sound kinda similar.

image

We called this a “flicker”, but “trapdoor” would work too. It was basically designed to flop a cube into the high tower from the top of a tray. Image credit to @Got_a_Screw_Loose.

In our alliance reveal, there’s a clip of what we called “Cable cars” but “slider rollers” would also be an apt description. They were the regular roller intakes, but instead of being on arms they were mounted on sliders on the tray. Chain pulled them up and down the tray, as a way of raising up to score in towers. It offered the compression of hard-mounted intakes, and the tower-scoring of arms.

One way or another, I’m excited to see what 8059 has to show.

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Wow! I just watched it. You guys never cease to amaze me! Good luck next season!

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I just watched the video, and it’s something like this, just inverted the other way. Looks very cool.

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I have just added the link to the video in the original post as well.
(might as well blonk it here too… 12 Years of 8059Blank. - YouTube )

I will use this post here to talk a bit about the mechanisms.

Regarding the trapdoor - i would say it is about the same concept (it is in 0:48min of the video).
Just that in the video, it was a prototype that we were testing on a 2-section tray. For the actual robot, there will be another about 1/2 section on top - which means the trapdoor will be about 1/3 down from the top of the tray (and not at the end).

This will save us some time without the need to move the cube all the way to the top before dropping off.

We had a descorer attached to the back of our trays in the Singapore Nationals (SingNat).

You can see how effective it is over in this short video that i pulled out…

And after our SingNat, we were exploring combining the descorer with the trapdoor.
Here’s the hastily and badly drawn image of it…

trapdoor and descorer

As for the cage, as mentioned earlier, we didn’t even have the opportunity to take a pic or video of it.
So again, relying on my badly drawn image…

cage
cage720×454 48.8 KB

It is not a “full” cage, i.e. it does not wrapped around the entire tray or cubes. It is just a frame that covers half of the cubes. So it will be light weight.

2 advantages to this cage:

  1. To provide a bit more protection against defensive plays… so that the cubes will not fall out so easily.
  2. To enable 1-second stacking speed.
    Some of the things that we notice is that most of the time, it is actually the inertia of the cubes (that still keep moving forward) during stacking that caused the stack to topple. And that’s the reason why so many teams are using PID or some form of motion control to slow down the tilter when it is about to be vertical.
    And we also tested and realised that as long as the top cubes are pressing down, the middle section cubes will mostly stay in place (and not topple).

So that’s why our cage is only “half wrapping” the top section cubes.
And with the cage holding the top cubes in place, we don’t even need to slow down the tilter when stacking.
So it is really a case of - (i) drive over to goal, (ii) tilt the stack vertical, (iii) opens up roller, (iv) entire stack drops vertically into goal, (v) opens up cage and (vi) back off.

And essentially, (i) to (v) are all micro-programmed into 1 press button.

As for what happened to SingNat… for the 2nd time in our 12 yrs history, we didn’t clinched the HS tournament champ. And for both times, 8076 beaten us to it.
Many factors came into play… we were a bit complacent to not implement all these ideas or mechanisms that we have during SingNat… of course many unforeseen incidents happened, etc.
but eventually, i must give credit to 8076 that they designed and built their robots to be a lot more consistent than ours. They are worthy winners.
In fact i feel kinda sad for them… finally winning worlds spots but worlds got cancelled.
And they can be assured that 8059 will be hitting back hard in the new season :slight_smile:

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Really enjoyed watching that video! And as a lifelong F1 fan, I particularly enjoyed that comparison. F1 pushes many of the same buttons as robotics for me, but with huge budgets and a massive global fan base - I’m surprised more robotics participants aren’t F1 fans.

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Wow.
Absolutely amazing video @meng
8059 has and always will have my respect for the strong ethos, dedication, and work ethic you have always shown year after year. I remember from my first world championship back in Toss Up my teammates telling me how teams from Singapore were good - oh how times haven’t changed :smile:

One of the top organizations in VEX history, no question.

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Wow… this is really high praise, especially coming from you that has achieved so much in VRC.

PS… still wish we could have alliance together during Skyrise… lol…

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My student found a short vid that was taken in Nov 2019… when they were conceptualising how this descorer will work…

Of course the final version is more than just a c-channel (for easier aiming), but it still worked the same manner.
Something so simple to add on but so quick and effective in removing cubes from tower.
#SimpleGadgetWorksBest

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Seeing 8059 at world’s every year will ultimately be one of the biggest things I miss. Hope you all are able to continue forward!

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