FRC 2010: FIRST Robotics Kickoff - Join the Robotics Revolution!

[Chi Meson]

The FIRST Robotics Kickoff for 2010 was today. This year's game is "http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/content.aspx?id=16209"."


This is my first year as a coach for our school's Robotics Team. We now have six weeks to design and build our robot to do this task. If anyone wonders where I've gone over the next two months...

Any other FRC people here in PF-land?

 

[Evo]

The FIRST Robotics Kickoff for 2010 was today. This year's game is "http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/content.aspx?id=16209"."


This is my first year as a coach for our school's Robotics Team. We now have six weeks to design and build our robot to do this task. If anyone wonders where I've gone over the next two months...

Any other FRC people here in PF-land?

I hope you are planning to keep a photo record to share with us.

If I'm not mistaken, Integral was involved in a robot project last year

 

[Alienjoey]

I did FIRST as a student the past two years (which was our rookie year), and as the team captain last year. This year I'll be too busy studying at college and whatnot to help much, but I'm still involved with my team to an extent. I didn't go to the kickoff this year, so I only know what the video showed about the game, but it looks interesting. Not sure if I love the soccer balls idea, but I do think the bumps will be a fun challenge.

Last year our main power switch was faulty and the robot kept turning off in the middle of matches, and the year before our design really made it so we had no way to score points, so we'll see how our luck fares us this year.

Hopefully you know what you're in for. It's a lot of fun, but a lot of work too, even for the coaches. When we were putting in six, seven hours a day after school, so were they, but it really is a good time. Plus, for the students who really participate, a lot can be learned (and actually, I'd say the same goes for the coaches as well).

 

[ideasrule]

This is my first year as a coach for our school's Robotics Team. We now have six weeks to design and build our robot to do this task. If anyone wonders where I've gone over the next two months...

Any other FRC people here in PF-land?

Yup, I'm a programmer for our school's robotics team. I joined in grade 11, but this is my first "real" year on the team because I was too busy last year to dedicate 4 hours a day to FRC.

Hopefully, we'll get to use the camera more than we did last year. Image analysis is the most challenging aspect of programming--and in my opinion, the most interesting.

Which team do you mentor, and what do you think of the game? Good luck to you and your school!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I assisted last year and was recruited again this year by a customer who sponsors several teams [actually, they may sponsor dozens if not hundreds of teams]. Integral has been heavily involved for two years now.

 

[story645]

I hope you are planning to keep a photo record to share with us.

Photos are also good when presenting for the various awards and fund-raising.

I did it as a senior in high school, but was mostly an odd jobs person and pr, (and I got to take our mascot home after the guys decided to put it in a noose in the workshop.) The guys at my school were horribly possessive of the project, but they seem to have gotten more relaxed over the years.

Watch out for the girls on your team; one of my favorite comments from a teammate was "you're not a girl, you're useful." It's gotten better since I was involved in FRC (lots of all girls teams and the like), but judging from the college robotics competitions it's still not awesome.

 

[Chi Meson]

Which team do you mentor, and what do you think of the game? Good luck to you and your school!

We are team 2168, the Aluminum Falcons. This is the fourth year of robotics at the school, but we are for all practical purposes a rookie team. I "helped out" last year, but took over as coach at the end of the season. I know what I'm in for. I mean, I thought I knew.

 

[Borg]

I got an email from my company last week looking for volunteers. I sent them an email asking for more info and I'll see if I have any skills that they can use.

 

[Chi Meson]

I got an email from my company last week looking for volunteers. I sent them an email asking for more info and I'll see if I have any skills that they can use.

I can tell you that the most important input a mentor can have is making the team stick to a schedule! After that... any form of knowledge in drive-train mechanics, electronics, pneumatics, carpentry (that's me), metallurgy (not me), and general understanding of physics (me again) is extremely helpful.

If you have at least a dozen dedicated students on the team, and at least 8 mentors altogether, then that's a good size for a smallish team.

 

[Borg]

I can tell you that the most important input a mentor can have is making the team stick to a schedule! After that... any form of knowledge in drive-train mechanics, electronics, pneumatics, carpentry (that's me), metallurgy (not me), and general understanding of physics (me again) is extremely helpful.

If you have at least a dozen dedicated students on the team, and at least 8 mentors altogether, then that's a good size for a smallish team.

Thanks Chi Meson, I'll keep those in mind. I'm good at schedules, carpentry and programming. I've got some self-taught knowledge of microprocessors. My electronics and physics are both rusty.

 

[Chi Meson]

Build season, day 1:

Already, I'm exhausted.

 

[Dembadon]

I saw this comic today and thought of this thread.

http://xkcd.com/689/

 

[Chi Meson]

Cool. This will be at the meeting tonight!

 

[glueball8]

I saw this comic today and thought of this thread.

http://xkcd.com/689/

I bet Randall Munroe look at PF for ideas.

 

[TaylorRatliff]

I'm now in my third year of undergrad studying physics, but in high school FIRST was my main activity, it had a huge influence on me.

I went to the Dallas kickoff last week to support me old team, see old friends, and encourage the students to stick with it over the next six weeks. This will be the first year I don't volunteer a significant amount of time.

I think FIRST is doing a great job of growing and changing, most importantly learning from years past. They're doing a better job of making the game easier to spectate. Maybe now they can get it picked up by a better channel than NASA TV.

They re-worked a lot of old challenges in this game too, I think the idea is to reward veteran teams.

I loved the xkcd comic, back in the day there were some dirty tactics that were perfectly legal, like deploying screens to block drivers' view, etc.

 

[Dembadon]

How are things going? Any pictures/schematics to share?

 

[Chi Meson]

OK, in short, we spent the first two weeks working on a elastic-pneumatic kicker. WE had it so a pneumatic piston retracted a lever against surgical tubing elastic. WHen triggered, it kicked the ball beautifully.

Problem was, we couldn't get the piston out of the way; the robot needs to be able to go over this bump on the field.[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEmrZyr3O9M"]. THe piston in the undercarriage didn't allow for clearance as the robot wen to over the bump. This was getting to be a problem, because the higher you put stuff, the more tippy the robot was.

So we just abandoned the pneumatic reset, and started Thursday on the mechanical reset. One of the mentors posted http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbt-iGiwzQ4" of the initial prototype. WE improved it yesterday, and we've selected a solenoid trigger.

 

[Dembadon]

Fantastic! Can't wait to see more.

 

[logickills]

Sweet! Nice to see more FIRST members. I am with Team 1742 Shockwave out of Moore Oklahoma. Everything is going pretty well. I am a first year Pre-Engineering student so this is my first year on the team, but I have a lot of previous electronics and programming experience so I am trying to help out as much as I can.

Good luck everyone!

 

[mcknia07]

I've never been apart of FRC, but I was a judge for NRC 2 years ago. I was asked if I would like to, it was an awesome experience, and next year, a friend and I are going to be building a robot for it. We are thinking about him doing the internal aspects and me doing the external design and style. I'm super stoked to do it. It also helps that it's in the same town where I live!

 

[logickills]

I have been involved in smaller competitions and they were a blast. The only thing I don't like about FIRST is the cost. It is fairly expensive for a team to get started let alone compete yearly.

 

[ideasrule]

OK, in short, we spent the first two weeks working on a elastic-pneumatic kicker. WE had it so a pneumatic piston retracted a lever against surgical tubing elastic. WHen triggered, it kicked the ball beautifully.

Problem was, we couldn't get the piston out of the way; the robot needs to be able to go over this bump on the field.[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEmrZyr3O9M"]. THe piston in the undercarriage didn't allow for clearance as the robot wen to over the bump. This was getting to be a problem, because the higher you put stuff, the more tippy the robot was.

So we just abandoned the pneumatic reset, and started Thursday on the mechanical reset. One of the mentors posted http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbt-iGiwzQ4" of the initial prototype. WE improved it yesterday, and we've selected a solenoid trigger.

Our team used exactly the same kicker design, except we used a lever with a plastic foot (a small piece of plastic) on the long end and the piston & surgical tubing on the short other. We haven't tried mounting it yet, so I don't know what problems would be associated with that.

One problem we're having--and programming just discovered this a few hours ago--is with the drive system: it keeps on turning at some random rate when it's supposed to go straight. By comparison, last year's robot can drive forwards at full speed for 3 seconds, drive backwards for 3 seconds, and return to within a centimeter of its original position.

 

[logickills]

Regarding the kicking system: some teams are having trouble meeting the requirements for the mechanism not going past the bumpers. This can be solved by different mounting positions and different positions of the actual driving mechanism.

Are you using labview, C++ , Java to program your robot? I may be able to help figure out what the issue is.

 

[ideasrule]

We're using Java, but I doubt it's a programming issue. The exact same code deployed from the same computer, when run multiple times, makes the robot turn at different and seemingly random rates. The robot turns left as often as it turns right and turns quickly as often as it drives relatively straight.

 

[logickills]

So possibly slippage in the drive train? That is strange I will say. We were having trouble with the right side of our robot and all it was was a servo that wasn't rotating at the same rate to change gears.

 

[Redbelly98]

This is my first year as a coach for our school's Robotics Team. We now have six weeks to design and build our robot to do this task. If anyone wonders where I've gone over the next two months...

Good luck Chi, I wondered why you disappeared from the PF trivia game. Nobody is challenging Integral now, you are missed.

 

[Chi Meson]

Yeah, it's strange that I don't have time for a 42-second trivia game each day.

Maybe 43-seconds.

 

[Integral]

I am with team 957 this year. Due to budget cuts and teacher reasignments team 1130 has combined with the cross town high school. We have lost the project manager lead mentor from last year and have a former student from team 957 leading the effort. I am again the software, electronics and pneumatics mentor.

I am afarid that too many students do not feel the need for speed yet. Looks like they are going to do a super effort in the last week. I my mind this is not good way to build a robot.


Good luck Chi. See you in Atlanta?

 

[Chi Meson]

I am with team 957 this year. Due to budget cuts and teacher reasignments team 1130 has combined with the cross town high school. We have lost the project manager lead mentor from last year and have a former student from team 957 leading the effort. I am again the software, electronics and pneumatics mentor.

I am afarid that too many students do not feel the need for speed yet. Looks like they are going to do a super effort in the last week. I my mind this is not good way to build a robot.Good luck Chi. See you in Atlanta?

957? OOOOOOH, a 3-digit team!

I'm the overall coach and coordinator, and also the carpentry mentor. We've just built the tower and bump, and we ordered a roll of the carpet. We're putting off building the complete goal structure, right now opting to have the target and goal cutout. We are close to the Lyme-Old Lyme TechnoTicks, team 236, (They won the overall Chairman's Award last year), and they have invited us to use their goal when we get our bot together.

They had the entire field built by the end of the first week. Sheesh!

In the last three years (I only joined at the end of last season) the robot was essentially thrown together in the last week. I was determined to get things on a time line. Weeks 2 and 3 were spent on prototyping the kicker and lifter. Our programming crew starting working on the vision program.

This week's goal is to have the chassis put together, leaving two full weeks of tinkering and practicing. Once we crate the robot, we don't see it again for 5 weeks! So my other goal is to make a secondary robot to play with.

Atlanta? I doubt it. We will need to "find" another $5000 lying around somewhere, and then I'd need to arrange transportation. I'd rather do the three "post-season" events that are close by (WPI "Battlecry," Walcott CT, and there's another near Providence RI). Total cost <$1000.

 

[Borg]

I got an email from my company last week looking for volunteers. I sent them an email asking for more info and I'll see if I have any skills that they can use.

I can tell you that the most important input a mentor can have is making the team stick to a schedule! After that... any form of knowledge in drive-train mechanics, electronics, pneumatics, carpentry (that's me), metallurgy (not me), and general understanding of physics (me again) is extremely helpful.

If you have at least a dozen dedicated students on the team, and at least 8 mentors altogether, then that's a good size for a smallish team.

They originally tried to get me to help with teams that are nowhere near where I live. I asked about the teams near where I live or work and finally got an email last week saying that there was no need in the northern Virginia area at this time. They didn't even bother to ask what skills I have and I was again suggested to help with the same teams as before.

 

[Chi Meson]

The Beast is in the Box!

The robots are all in their crates now. Tomorrow (Tuesday, Feb 23) is ship day.

Then we have to wait five weeks for our first competition.

And the robot was never fully working yet!

Luckily they allowed 65 pounds of the robot to be "withheld" from the shipping crate, and that's half of the robot!

So we are going to be finishing our lifting device over the interim.

Now for some sleep.

 

[story645]

And the robot was never fully working yet!

So? That's standard for the robotics competitions I've gone to. Back when I did FIRST (team 1155), almost everybody was working on their robot between rounds. Even when I got to college and did IGVC, there were teams asking around for motors and we were working on our bot in the hotel room. (Crashed that bot into a car in the parking lot during testing.)

 

[ideasrule]

I'm curious: what did you do for autonomous? Because of how things turned out, I was the only person coding autonomous and everything related to it. I wrote out the code in full yesterday and scrambled through today to debug it, working through two spares, the lunch period, a class that the teacher allowed me to skip, and two hours in the evening. I didn't finish; the robot could find a ball and kick it in the right direction given good lighting conditions, but there were still major problems. I was rather disappointed, to be honest.

 

[story645]

the robot could find a ball and kick it in the right direction given good lighting conditions, but there were still major problems.

That sounds really really good for high school level autonomous programming (hell for college level), especially considering you only spent two days on it. Don't beat yourself up over it.

 

[Chi Meson]

Autonomous mode: we are planning to have the robot sit still for 15 seconds and stay out of the way. heh heh.