My Role on the Team
In 2018 my robotics team and I competed in the FTC Rover Ruckus challenge in Peekskill NY. We ranked 4th place overall, and won the Design Award. This judged award recognizes design elements of the robotthat are both functional and aesthetic. The Design Award is presented to teams that incorporate industrial design elements into their solution. These design elements could simplify the robot’s appearance by giving it a clean look, be decorative in nature, or otherwise express the creativity of the team. Since we won this award, we qualified for the NY-HV championships. This was my second year on FTC, and I was the lead CAD designer. This design was down to the very screw, and even wire. I tried to make is as identical as possible to the actual robot we built. This includes the spring attached to the lever arm, and the can links that I put together one by one.
Lift Mechanism
This was our lifting mechanism. We used a series of gears to lower down the rpm of the motor we used, to get the right amount of torque used to life the robot and carry its weight. The latch on the top was used to hook onto the handle bar on the lander, and when we turn on the motor it will run the gears and lift the robot. Our mechanism was very successful, and never failed us at the competition.
Intake Mechanism
This was our ball and block intake. The goal was to use this to collect the balls and blocks. This was accomplished by putting zip ties on the spoke attached to both sides, and using a motor to rotate this axel which was attached by a chain. When the tiptoes rotated, it connected to the little holes on the objects and aided them to go into this basket, and also helped them release the objects into the lander to win points. This mechanism was also successful, and helped us gain very important points.