This Week in FRC

This week, Tech Support has been busy and productive. First, our 2022 Chairman’s Award has been submitted, making us eligible for both the Sacramento Regional and the Silicon Valley Regional. We have also been finalizing the 2022 hoodie and T-shirt designs, both of which implement our new logo. Here’s an unfinalized version:

2022’s game Rapid React challenges us to create a robot that can pick up and shoot cargo into a scoring hub. Additionally, it must climb up as many as four ascending rungs. With a quick recap of the game, here is what we’ve been finalizing and working on this week!

Intake:

Our intake is now working and a video of it will be uploaded on our instagram! This week, we’ve been working on making the intake more stable. We’ve been tweaking the pneumatics and updated the design of our base plate.

Loader:

A lot of items have been shifted around to ensure that everything is in its proper spot, especially the loader. The loader was moved forward and upwards to make more room for the pneumatic system and the new electrical board.

Electrical Board:

We put together a better organized electrical board this week, which significantly reduces the amount of clutter caused by wires. (we need a photo here →)

Pneumatics:

With the pneumatic system, we have been making sure the connections and wiring are secure

Magnetic Limit Switches:

Magnetic limit switches trigger when a magnetic field enters its proximity. In this case, it would be useful in preventing the turret from exceeding its rotational limit. Additionally, we could implement magnetic limits in the elevator, replacing the mechanical limit switches we have previously used. This would be beneficial as the magnetic limit switches do not require physical contact to be triggered. We tested the magnetic limit switch by hovering a small magnet over it. Whenever the magnet got close to the limit switch, it would return a boolean value.

Vision System:

Shooting cargo into the hub is a crucial aspect of the game, so shooter accuracy is of utmost importance. In order to score the maximum amount of points, we utilize a limelight to track the target and aim our shooter. The limelight enables us to automatically align our turret with little to no driver intervention.

App Development:

These past weeks, we have been focusing on sending data from our app to a spreadsheet, which allows us to easily access the information retrieved by our scouters. After we put a few more finalizing touches, we will be able to start doing beta testing.

Drive Practice:

To prepare for driving the robot around at tournaments, we held a short practice, allowing members to drive our 2020 robot through a timed course. The course allowed members to navigate through obstacles and get an experience of how driving would be in tournaments.

Conclusion:

We wanted to take a moment to thank our biggest sponsor, The Quarry Lane School for providing us with the facilities and resources we need to practice and ultimately, grow together as a team. Build season has been tumultuous and hectic, but we're always having fun together. Go Cougars!

Until next week!

-Tech Support's Writing Crew