Aside from wheels which we are waiting on from REV, we got our drivetrain done. I think this is the fastest we have ever had a drivetrain built, and it is a custom swerve drive.
Initially we wanted to go with a four bar and wrist to score game pieces. That long of a four bar was scary and it didn’t allow for easy and safe pickup from the human player station as it would have to be extended when driving into the human player station. We definitely see us crashing with the arm out into the wall so we switched ideas. Intake with handoff and some sort of arm. We looked at both a Pink arm and a double jointed arm. The pink arm requires a lot of pieces and is quite complicated to build. A double jointed arm is fairly simple to build but complex in software. Luckily we have 3 mentors who have taken robotics classes at Lake Superior State University and are familiar with the controls for a robotic arm. With this info we decided a double jointed arm is the best route to go.
For our end effector our thoughts were couple of wheels and the ability to open and close. Opening and closing allows us the ability to quickly drop off game pieces and account for the size difference between cube and cone. The rollers will help with the handoff and give us the ability to softly launch game pieces onto the scoring platform.
When discussing our arm design changes, we discovered that actually, intaking standing up cones is the red herring. If you have the ability to score off either side of your robot by flipping your arm over (like a 2dof arm or pink arm) the orientation doesn’t matter as long as it comes point side first or flat side first. You just flip your arm over to flip the cone over and score off the other side of the robot. This led us to developing a roller intake that is touch it own it and then funnels the cone to the center where it can only be in one or two orientation. We built a prototype of this and really like it so we will continue the development if it.
