Last week the SightMachine crew had the pleasure of meeting with a reporter from O’Reilly media. They just released a really nice write up about how we are helping to build the industrial internet right here in Michigan. This is a follow on to the really excellent piece about SightMachine in the Atlantic a few months back.
We finally got the FIRST Team 830 drive train up an running. We still have a lot of hardware to attach, but this is a good start. currently the control system and battery are just loosely attached with cable ties. This will change once we get the final build-out of the pickup and firing mechanism. We have yet to test the pneumatic gear shifters or a PID controller so in these videos the robot is in low gear and capped at seventy percent power.
This is the first run of the robot.
Once we got used to the control I slipped my cell-phone in a spare cRIO slot and got some video.
I have a few screen captures of our current design that gives the programming team a better idea of what other subsystems we need to code and design controls for. Unfortunately I don’t have a nice overview image of the final cad design.
I have a few screen captures of our current design that gives the programming team a better idea of what other subsystems we need to code and design controls for. Unfortunately I don’t have a nice overview image of the final cad design.
We are down to the final week before bag and tag. Hopefully I will have more cool videos soon.
It took a lot of work, but we finally have a working drive train and shooter. Now we just need to put the two together, add the pickup mechanism, and we are ready for competition.
I am helping mentor with FIRST Robotics Team 830 this year. Here are the rules for the 2013 FIRST Robotics Competition. The TL;DR is that the robot basically needs to collect and shoot frisbees and climbing a really tall tower. The video below describes things very succinctly.
We need to get this done in the mater of just a few weeks. I started looking for a few inspiration ideas.
A personal favorite, the RiSE robot from the KodLab. A little too complex for our timeframe.
I really like this mechanism but I am not sure it will work on the pyramid.
Here is a slightly simpler version of the same mechanism.
This is a similar approach. Not quite applicable to our situation.
Here is a FIRST team actually meeting the challenge.
This design looks like it could be used for our applications with some modifications.
On the subject the frisbee launching this mechanism rules.
Finally, a nice primer on the physics of frisbee launching.
