FIRST Robotics 2024 - Week Two Report

Week two started with sub zero weather and a delay in delivery of key components.  That's the bad news.  On the flip side, we are at a stage of needing components for the final build far earlier than usual.  If this design "works" we'll have it rolling with a bit of time left to practice.

Ah, but that big "if".  The current design had three complicated things.  An intake/launch device that reminds one of a pizza box with powered rollers.  A pivoting elevator to move the box up and down/in and out.  And a second elevator for the grand finale climb.

Elevator two has been replaced with something simpler and more fun.  Elevator one is a known mechanism with only a few quirks due to not being upright most of the time.  It will work with modifications.  The pizza box is going to need several iterations.

A few pictures from early in the week.

We had all the elevator parts in stock.  You need precision for this, so the connecting brackets are carefully lined up with these expandable through clips.  They are called Cleco clamps.  I just like to say that word.  Powder coating is lookin' sharp.

Howard, last year's robot, had already been taken apart down the the drive base.  With a new base likely in a few days it was time to pull the motor modules off, clean them up, add new grease and replace a few bearings.  The robot had to live in my garage for a while over the summer.  An unfortunate consequence is a bit of rust here and there.  I'm not sure if robot deconstruction more resembles Nascar Pit Crew or Hyenas versus Antelope Carcass.  Bit of both I guess.  In past years we sometimes held a mock serious Robot Funeral but Covid put us all in a more somber mood.

Software is working with one of our other test bed robots.  It cruises around orienting by these sort of bar code signs.  They are called April Tags.

We got our batch of team designed, laser cut parts in this week.  Here's the base and an elevator mechanism.

The base will stay bare metal, but the other lasered parts....

Of our three weekday sessions, one was OK, two were very good.  Saturdays are when we get about half the work of the week completed.  Wonder what we'll see then?

Saturday started slow but built momentum as the day went on.  We now have three robots "live".  One is just a test bed for shooter mechanisms.  One is our competition machine.  The drive base is done and seems rock solid.  Here's a pic with several of the mechanisms at least laid into place.

It's coming along.  The third machine is the software development base.  The team has made considerable progress on this one.  Watch it lock into its launch location using the bar codes on the field elements for orientation.  This is with no human hand at the controls.

Basically we are on track.  There's now only one mechanism that concerns me and it has at least been started.  Onward.