SkillsUSA

Apart from FIRST robotics, I compete in a SkillsUSA competition called Mobile Robotics Technology. We compete in these competitions with 2 man teams, and my partner was Sanjai Bashyam. Sanjai and I have both worked together on robot-related things for 3 years, and have been good friends since 4th grade. I find that the communication between us is extremely effective and efficient, and I wish we could model this relationship with all members of the club.

Anyway, SkillsUSA is unfortunately at the same time as FIRST, and we always elect to prioritize FIRST over Skills. For this reason, we are always on a time crunch, and are never expected to perform well. However, this year went a lot better than we expected it to. We got 1st place at Districts, and then went on to get 3rd at the State Level!

Alamo Regional

So, we recently competed in the Alamo Regional! Here is how things went down :
In FIRST, every round consists of a 3v3 match up, with teams randomly selected. The winning team gets a certain number of ranking points, and the losing team gets none. Which means that no matter how good your robot is, you would still get 0 ranking points if your teammates sucked.Our ranking score was very low because our teammates were mostly rookies or subpar robots, despite our team having a good robot.

When elimination rounds start, the teams with the most ranking points become team captains, and choose teams to make their alliance of 3. So for a robot like us, we wouldn’t be captains, but we would be chosen because we were one of the best robots there.

HOWEVER, on the last day, we found out to our dismay that the processor in our cRIO(The brain of our robot), was faulty and had loose bits. So during the final rounds before elims, our robot couldn’t move. So all the teams in the stands looking for robots to choose, saw us as a robot that couldn’t move. So no one picked us. Also, we got a new cRIO right before elims started, so we work working elims started.

Our robot can consistently score about 30 points by itself. 95% of the elimination rounds had total scores of each team below 30. We could have easily turned all of those matches around, and placed really highly in the tournament, possibly qualifying for internationals in St. Louis.
This was really a depressing moment. Easily the best robot this club has made, the best drive team we have ever had, and yet, probably the worst performance at a regional. Due to a lack of funding, this was the only regional we competed in, and thus ended our season.

"Napkin Drawing"

So during the time after we bagged the robot and we made plans to make new pulleys. I was asked to draw a quick sketch to communicate to another member the dimensions of the pulleys he was to make. Here is the drawing I gave him :

This is the drawing my mentor, Kevin Mundt, drew in about 15 seconds

Obviously, his drawing was much better and much more thorough. I'm sure the member would have understood mine as well, given that he already knew what the pulley looked like, but a simple, yet overlooked, skill such as "napkin drawing" can go a long way in being able to communicate ideas effectively. I think this draws from Mr Mundt's ability to visualize things in his head quickly and precisely.

Definitely a skill to work on.

Robot has been completed!

Robot was just finished and bagged! This year, all of the state competitions are "Bag and Tag", meaning that we bag our robot, as seen below:

This ensures that all teams finish building at the same time, because there are several competitions, each at different times. So, it would be unfair if some teams had more time to build than others solely because they were competing later. To prevent this, all robots are bagged on "ship date"(Which was today), and signed off by a mentor. They are then unbagged at the state competition.

Lift prototype

As we proceeded to build our conveyor belt robot (Detailed in the CAD shown), we split up into two main teams. 2 of our main members led the chassis team, and I led the lift team.

Our first step to making this lift was to decide what materials we were using, and how they were being mounted. We decided to use elastic for our tubing, and a combination of garage pulleys and plastic ones that we would make, because not all of them were directly powered by a motor, as each pulley pulled another.

The final prototype can be seen here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyr3TwyTQBY&context=C3b9123fADOEgsToPDskLDHmZoGkpAjNtZp2OKRFMt

After we made that, we made a list of improvements :
1. Improve the PVC pulleys - Elastic popped off numerous times
2. Make elastic more tensioned
3. Move elastic closer together
4. Add guards at the bottom to ensure the ball is centered while traveling up

On our actual robot, we used a lathe to turn plastic pulleys, as opposed to the PVC ones shown in the video. This kept the tubing from popping off several times. We also changed the spacing on the elastic from 2 inches and 6 inches to 2.5 and 5.5, and are planning to add foam guards at the bottom to keep the ball centered.

During the prototyping phase, we kept a drawing of the lift on the board, and a todo list next to it. This way anyone who came to a meeting could work on it regardless of how much they knew about the design. It also meant that the core members working on the chassis could keep track of how far the lift had gotten.

Our design phase

For our design phase, the 2 designs we narrowed it down to were
A. Arm - Rollers at the end to collect balls when the arm is angled down, and to shoot them when the arm is angled up.

B. Conveyor belt - A conveyor belt located at the bottom of the robot, which feeds the balls up to a shooter that rotates left and right.

For both designs, we made detailed drawings, calculations, and prototypes. The arm seemed like a better design, because it could change its height, and could never collect more than 3 balls(which would be a penalty in the game - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13HpbFjZWto). However, it was quite heavy, and would be quite difficult to move up and down. Also it could lead to a lot of tipping, and could make crossing the bumps in the middle significantly harder.

After we thoroughly analyzed both designs, our club came to the consensus that the conveyor belt design would be better. Even though my arm design was ruled out, it still feels good to know that our club decided together, and with everyone informed. I am positive that both designs were adequately modeled and explained to the group, and that the decision we made was a good one.

Communication article recommended by mentor

http://www-cdr.stanford.edu/ICM/

This article outlines the four main steps to an effective communication process. Propose, interpret, critique, and explain.
Propose - This phase occurs early on in our season. During our first week, we brainstorm ideas, simply by drawing basic sketches on the board and outlining the key components to the design. Usually by the end of the first week we have heard about 10-12 designs, and have narrowed it down to 4-5.
Interpret - Many of our members are very adept with programs such as Inventor, and proceed to make very detailed drawings and CADs of the 4-5 designs.
Critique - This is the phase where we move from the paper into real material. This second week is about narrowing it down to 1, maybe 2 designs. We do a lot of calculations, (torque, angles, force), and make prototypes to test our designs in realistic conditions.
Explain - After we have made prototypes and are ready to move on to the "final" product, we make a list of things we should improve on the protos, and make amendments to the design that will improve its performance on the field.