Snailhood Robot First Attempt, named "Kobe"


Here it is, the robot I have been working on. I call it Kobe because it’s made sink every shot it takes, no matter how many robots are defending, just like my guy Kobe. Anyways it’s a very rough CAD because I stopped being able to cut c channels so some are poking out, and I didn’t know how to change it to look pretty so you guys could see it better (Sorry).

First, the intakes are made to flip out. I wanted them to be able to go deep into the goal to get a ball and this wasn’t happening unless they flipped out.


Too save time I didn’t CAD the axel but the intakes are meant to turn over the point where my mouse is in the bottom picture. I think I’ll just have a rubber band hold them there, that will be connected to a screw popping out of an iron collar so when it moves the rubber band falls off of it and the intakes fall down.

I really struggled with where I should put the motor because before the intakes were on the outside of the c channels holding the indexer, but after I put them inside I feel like I made it work pretty well.

Another point of interest is the way I have the rollers chained.


Its a big sprocket on the bottom chained to a tiny sprocket on the top so that will hopefully make the ball shoot out farther. I feel like this is an awkward setup, thoughts?

I also don’t really know how I am going to make the ramp flip out. I am thinking that I will have it connected to hinges and those will be rubber banded somehow. But if I do that I may have to lower the whole roller system because if I lay the ramp extension on that it would be too tall.

Also I spent a lot of time working with how the ball would interact with my robot.


I didn’t want to have so much space between the rollers and the ball, so the ball is always very close to the rod of the rollers. However I am worried that in actual practice the balls will hit the roller rod and be prevented from flowing smoothly. I may move the ramp back to account for this.

One last thing is securing the roller extension part.


I just planned on having a few c channel bars running across. I was really debating whether to have that or one long c channel piece slanted across it because I wasn’t sure which was stronger. I also plan on attaching something on the inside of this support so the ball has less room to move to undesirable places.

So thats just some of the things I was focusing on. Of course all of the robot needs improvement so if anyone sees something they feel could be built better/ more efficiently, please don’t hesitate to say something.
I am relatively new at this because while I’ve had much experience with vex it has only been competition in a county sanctioned competition that is not at all vex. The building doesn’t really start until a few weeks after school starts… most people don’t even know what the new competition looks like until then. But this year I became the president of the robotics team and I’ve been able to do really well in these simple competitions so I am looking to make the jump to real vex competitions with strong teams this year. I say all this to say that many things that seem obvious to veteran members is not to me so I would really appreciate any insights people have.

Sorry for the poor quality, this is my first time using Fusion 360 so I am still getting the hang of things. In order to save time I didn’t sketch most spacers, axels, standoffs, chain, rubber bands and other things so please bear with me.

From,
Athan Wright
I don’t even have a team number yet haha.

25 Likes

looks very good. Major improvements from your last design for sure.

main thing I see that you’ll want to be aware of is the bracing of your towers. You’ll probably want to have some triangle bracing connecting the towers to the base in other places, especially because your back towers are not connected to your base, so they need to be super stable.
the drive looks very good though, and so does everything else really, just a bit more bracing on the tower mount could be good.

EDIT: what is that gear at the top for? also keep in mind that your hood angle doesn’t look perfect, you might want to be shooting a bit steeper.

3 Likes

Just for next time, you can hide the visibility of all the constraints and points leaving behind only the hardware. You could also press on the “DESIGN” tab and press “render”. You can make visually appealing renders that way. You could also share a viewable link of the CAD and capture renders more quickly that way (not full on renders, but similar lighting). The latter is the easier option of the two.

Overall, nice job. Don’t forget to change the appearance of the metal, gears, and polycarb to make them appear more realistic.

4 Likes

Well one tip I can give you is that instead of using an axle on your intakes’ flipout joints, use a screw joint because they are way better for things like that. Generally the best rule is to avoid axles where possible.

4 Likes

Thanks man, thats what I am doing now!

Yeah I watched the second video, good improvement.