MECHANISIMS

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The robot for team #10096 this year is a design for intaking and delivering freight into the shared shipping hub as well as the alliance shipping hub. In addition to the Mecanum Wheel drive assembly, our robot has four different mechanisms that are key to the competition. Our first mechanism is an intake system involving three rows of rubber stars controlled by one motor that makes the stars spin to suck up the freight into the robot. The second mechanism is a lifting mechanism which uses one motor on a linear slide to raise the game pieces into any level of the goal for maximum scoring potential. The third mechanism is a basket which uses a servo attached to the lifting device in order to tilt the pieces that have been collected into the goals. The final mechanism is a duck spinner which uses a green rubber wheel on a motor to rotate the carousel so points can be gained in endgame and autonomous.

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The process and objectives

​During the journey of building our robot, we started by using the base system that the team built last year which had the Mecanum Wheels which are chain driven from TorqueNADO motors as well as two Rev expansion hubs mounted between the wheels on the base. Our first objective was to build an intake mechanism. Since our drive system already uses 4 out of our total allowance of 8 motors we decided to build a prototype chain driven mechanism that would rotate the three rows of rubber stars using one motor and sprockets to rotate the stars faster than the motor rotation. We did bench testing of this assembly using a Modern Robotics Power distribution unit and it proved to shoot very well. We then realized that we needed to deposit the freight that we collected, and built a prototype release mechanism to drop the freight into the bottom level for our first competition using a servo attached to a ramp that would stop the blocks before they slid down the ramp. We also noticed that the ducks gained lots of points during endgame so we decided to add a motor on the corner of the robot with a rubber wheel in order to grip the side of the carousel and rotate the ducks onto the ground. After our first event, we changed our deposit system so it could score on multiple levels using a motor attached to a linear slide rig which could raise the blocks in a basket attached to a servo. Once the build was done. Autonomy became a focal point of the robot. A webcam was installed in the front of the robot.

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