by Ben"Jamin" Hermon
At my FIRST (no pun intended) robotics competition, I didn’t know what to expect from the robotics teams participating in the Centerline competition. The sound of teams screaming nearly deafening, as every square inch of the gymnasium was bustling with team spirit, prompting many (including Mrs. Reickert) to wear ear protection. Speaking of team spirit, the mascots were full of it, cheering and supporting their robots. The robots were also impressive, performing the desired tasks with varying amounts of difficulty. Some had incredibly smooth movements, like silk, but others moved with less fluidity. Either way, the robots were impressive creations, and the variety of the robot designs and functions made my jaw hit the floor. Overall, the first competition I attended was interesting, and I’m looking forward to the next.
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words by Hannah O'Grady, photos by Ben Uznis and media, renders by Design Team Throughout build season, our robot and team has undergone tremendous growth, from a collection of new and returning members whose handful of great ideas are converted into plans to a recognizable team whose core has been working seemingly non-stop for the past 6 days straight to complete a bag-ready robot. One major advancement is the Gear game-piece handling mechanism. Only a few weeks our gear mechanism was a rough prototype of plastic, tape, and scrap aluminum; but now, through the hard-work and dedication of our build and fabrication teams the gear mechanism has become a reality. The gear mechanism is a top-loading gear receiver, in which the gears are delivered from the hopper and brought to the airship to fix the rotors. Originally, the gear mechanism had aluminum lead-ins conceived to help the gears feed into the mechanism correctly, however throughout the testing process it was discovered that even without the lead-in the gears were fed in correctly 100% of the time. To save on time and materials the lead-ins were scrapped. Build team worked together with our mentors to design and create supports of plexiglass to further stabilize the gear handler mounting to the robot. These supports are heated then bent into shape by members of build team, a process which takes hours to complete correctly but will greatly benefit the stability of the mechanism. The gear mechanism is made mainly of plexiglass with some metal supports so that the camera can see through it for accurate loading. The gear retention gates are also made of plexiglass which does render them breakable, so build has made several replacement pieces for the gates for repairs at competition. The gear loading mechanism is placed on the side of our robot across from the battery for strategic reasons, in addition to aiming to optimize power and weight distribution. The build and fabrication teams have also completed a climbing mechanism which is assured to be strong enough to raise our robot. The climbing mechanism has been tested several times and was found to work reliably. The climbing mechanism is built off of a spinning, ratcheting winch system to assure that our robot will remain in the air once raised. The team has high hopes for this lifter. Last but not least is our fuel shooter. The parts of the shooter have mostly been fabricated and the position of the shooter on the robot has been established. What build is currently working on is deciding on the motor configuration for the shooting mechanism as well as attaching the top of the shooter to the shaft of the shooter. Fab is currently working on fabricating the last few pieces for the shooter. The team has decided on not creating a ground loading system for the shooter due to time constraints but we still have six inches of space once the bumpers are attached so build team has plans to develop a ground-loading system in time for our second competition.
Design has been busy trying to stay ahead of the physical prototype with reproducible CAD renderings of the improvised robotic parts. There are more images of the CAD design in the latest Gearheads Gazette (volume 5 issue 2) . Be sure to read the entire issue.
Contributed by "Jamin" Benjamin Hermon Build Season is entering the last weeks before BAG DAY, and all Gearhead sub-teams have been hard at work, putting the finishing touches on their respective projects. All progress has been impressive, but special mention goes to the accomplishments of the Build and Controls teams. From what I, a member of the Media team, have seen so far, they’ve made a wiffleball (fuel) launcher with a 7 out of 9 efficiency rate and found a way to mount the robots winch so that it can scale the Airship rope. The combined efforts of all these teams continues to amaze me, I’m certain that there is even more to what they have accomplished than what I’ve posted here. I’ve talked to the mentor of the Control team, Mr. Rodgers, about what he’s doing, and he said,“We are modifying the controls we used for the prototype, and transferring them to the new robots.” However, they’re still putting the finishing touches on the coding and movement with their “Duct Tape Prototype.” What is this duct tape prototype, you ask? Why, it’s exactly what the name entails.
Members of the team were thrilled to be able to visit Art Adlam and the RAVE CAVE this pre-season to enjoy virtual touring of outer space, the human body, manufacturing plants, and other virtual worlds thanks to Virtual Reality and ESI | IC.IDO. This week before break ended and the game was announced and all the hard work would begin. The RAVE CAVE is a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to increasing awareness and excitement for Virtual Reality. Members of the team took their turns interacting with Virtual Reality models of the ISS, manufacturing environments, toured inside the human body, and played VR games. They learned that VR is used professionally to let engineers and designers experience their designs before the products are made. By using VR a designer can "play" with their work and see if it will fit, how users can reach or work with new products, or what can be seen from the operators position. AND it was FUN!!! The team was able to apply what they learned about VR immediately as the next day, they were able to tour the new Steamworks game field in VR using Mr. Kam's software. 6 weeks before competition, the team was able to walk, fly, and move around the Steamworks field youtu.be/r3IwrBywC7g
Ever since I joined the Gearheads in 2014, we have always participated in a special event called The Bloomfield Girls Robotics Competition, where 32 FIRST robotics teams face off requiring that their robot drive team, pit crew, and human player must be High School aged girls. Male team members can only be there to support their team. Male team members cannot interact with the robot by any means. This event is primarily to show that girls are just as capable (or more capable) of doing robotics as guys are. This event this year will take place at Bloomfield Hills High School 3456 Lahser Rd, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan 48302 Saturday, November 12, 2016 from 8am - 6pm. Host teams:
FRC1189 Participating members:
Personally, I love the idea that this event shows careers, such as robotics, are options for girls and guys alike. It also gives me another chance to see last year’s robot in competition one more time. - contributed by " Computer guy #5" Egan KIine The Gearheads came into the March 4-5 FIRST in Michigan Waterford regional qualifier full of hope after a strong 2015 season. Although the Gearheads were able to score many points & help other teams on the field, we were only able to win 4 out of 12 of our qualification matches. Narrow losses by gaps of less fewer than 5 points, where a single boulder through the low goal might have made the difference. The Waterford competition hosted several hall-of-fame teams and past world and state finalists and we struggled to show our skills amid such a strong field. Even so, the Gearheads were able to make it into alliance 5 with teams 308 (The Monsters) & team 2075 (Enigma Robotics). Sadly, alliance 5 was eliminated during the quarterfinals against the 4th Alliance by a match score of 0-2. Submitted by- Egan Kline (Computer guy #5)
If you have somehow managed to miss all the buzz about the new game for 2016 it looks like it will be a very exciting game for this First Robotics Challenge. The new game is called STRONGHOLD and features a variety of firsts (no pun intended) for game play.
A dynamic field that will be set based on both audience selection as well as alliance picks for the outer works defenses. Also, very exciting is the fact that this game is strikingly similar to the game presented by The Gearheads during their FedEx sponsored game pitch last July. To see the full game reveal check out the FIRST YouTube Channel. Featured below is just a few snippets from our Game Pitch and the similarities to the Stronghold reveal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqOKzoHJDjA We hosted two executives from FedEx this past week as part of our prize for winning the Feb 2015 FedEx Technical Challenge. Russ Wheaton and Cisco Sanchez paid us a visit in preparation for our Pitch for a new game idea for FRC. We'd love to tell you more about it but we are sworn to secrecy about the pitch. The 4 Team members and Two mentors will present the final came pitch to the FRC Game Design Committee later in July, when they will also meet Dean Kamen and attend his birthday bash at this house.
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