2022 FIRST Robotics Competition Game - Rapid React
First Impressions
This looks to be a very well-made game that will play well at all levels of play. Robots will be chasing down game pieces, launching cargo from all across the field, and playing strategic defense while trying to win every match. The end game climb has 4 levels the most of any game (2013 is similar if you count scoring the pyramid goal discs). This challenge will allow young teams ways to succeed early and still provide a very hard challenge for the top teams especially if they want to get to the 15pt rung fast.
The field looks to be designed very well and it seems like more time was put into creating the Team Versions of the field to provide multiple options for teams which is a big improvement.
The new organization of the game manual was a big improvement and executed very well, the new green rules will help the community remember the rule numbers much easier and the layout flowed very nicely.
Strategy
Questions (some answers)
Tall vs short (What is tall? What is short?
Drive under the low bar (sub 48 in), max-height 52 in,
not critical but probably helpful to able to drive under the low bar if can still climb and score at that shorter height.
The placement of each subsystem (intake and shooter on opposite sides? Something more like Gamma 2021?)
Balls
How consistent are the balls going to be?
Can we accurately launch them with a flywheel from distance?
How much compression will we need?
What material wheels?
How much will balls be damaged/deformed, and will this matter?
This we very much need to test.
High goal vs low goal? Both?
Launcher Configurations?
All the same options as 2020/21, flywheel, flywheel+top rollers, side wheels, etc.
Catapult (probably not unless other things don’t work, slow to reload and we can hold two balls)
Ball funneling to the shooter? Tower, indexer, etc.
How consistently feed the ball to the launcher
From what positions on the field should we shoot from?
Fender - Yes
How far back do we go after that??? Field Perimeter shot
Floor intake, feeder intake, or both?
MULTIPLE INTAKES??? Probably not
Velcro intake roller?
How to get the balls to center? Meccanum intake? CD7?
Do we ever intake opposing cargo?
Maybe right before we climb? Or if we are playing D.
Will balls bounce out if we yeet them in too hard? How to experiment with yeet optimization?
Turret Time? What is the value of being able to shoot while driving?
pick up one on route and shoot
Fast shooting once we stop moving is better
Adjustable Hood?
Adjustable angle is more important with the horizontal goal?
Spin ball?
Probably won’t matter but we can test it, backspin is probably best
Are we gonna shoot from the launchpad?
Hold one ball or two?
May score one at a time if needed but the ability to hold two will save time.
Climb
Able to sense shadow line?
How high?
Traversal rung matters? (Only 5 more points than high bar)
High Bar Matter? (only 4 more points than mid bar)
Mid Bar Matter? (Only 2 more points than low bar)
Low bar matter? (Only 4 points)
Should be climb at all? YES
Climb how?
Ideas:
Weight moved with pneumatics to influence swing
Other stuff on whiteboard and slides
Auto
Where is the best shot?
Where should we get balls?
What are the likely auto paths for top teams?
Climber Ideas
We are still going through a lot of ideas but here are some of our whiteboard and cad sketches for our climber ideas.
- Spectrum
2022 Day 2: Dabbling in Prototypes
Photo Gallery
Our 2022 photo gallery is up and will have updated photos and videos of our prototypes and progress this season.
https://photos.spectrum3847.org/2022-FRC-1/2022-Build-Season-1/
Intake Prototype
We used 2" compliant wheels, polycarbonate tubing, and velcro wrapped around the tubing. All of them were able to intake the balls pretty well but the compliant wheels seem to do the best job of grabbing the ball in our limited testing.
Launcher Prototype
Strategy
We've also continued our discussion on strategy and robot goals. At the end of the 1st weekend this is roughly where we are heading, our course could quickly change as we learn more about the game and the game pieces.
- Spectrum
2022 Day 3
The first day of the season with a normal after-school meeting is mostly just a recap of the weekend and discussing various strategy ideas and the road map to each of our mechanisms.
We planned how we would group the various mechanisms on the robot.
We can start allocating some space in the robot as the mechanism designs become clearer.
Much of that will depend on the requirements of our climber; the other mechanism can largely be designed around things and still function well. Since the climber has strict dimensions to get from bar to bar, it will get some amount of priority to space.
We have also begun building our team version of the high hub and will begin the hangar this week.
- Spectrum
2022 Day 4: Design Slides, Recap, and FIRST Choice
Design Slides
Design Recap
FIRST Choice Recommendations Updated for Round 2
Every team gets 710 more credits, and some really great items have been added that will probably help your team be sure to submit your priority list before Jan 20th.
2022 Day 5
Wednesdays are normally pretty slow. We got some more parts cut for our practice field elements, did some manual intake material testing (i.e. rubbed lots of types of rubber and wheels on the balls), and we had an awards meeting this evening to get our Chairman's Essay nearly finished.
We were able to inflate the balls to the proper 3.5 psi, before today all the gauges we had in the lab didn't read that low. We purchased a digital inflator from Amazon that very easily inflates the balls to 3.5 psi automatically and it works great. We were testing balls at various states of inflation since we didn't know what was right, in general, most of our balls were underinflated in any previous test to what degree we don't know (we didn't have a gauge that could read it remember). The balls are very firm when fully inflated to the spec 3.5 psi.
Link to the inflator - https://amzn.to/3Fn329g
The push will be to do more intake and climber prototyping over the next few days.
- Spectrum
2022 Day 6: Climber Model
We made a 1/5th scale model of one of our climber ideas. This one has several issues, and some of them are caused by it being scaled-down, and some of them are likely inherent in the design.
More videos and photos can be found in our photo gallery:
https://photos.spectrum3847.org/2022-FRC-1/2022-Build-Season-1/Week-1/
From playing with this model and doing more CAD sketches, we will likely add another degree of freedom to the system, most likely a motor (possibly pneumatic) to extend and retract the hook on the arm. This should allow the climb to behave correctly across various center of gravity positions and enable us to quickly climb to the mid-bar without fully completing the first curl of the whole climb sequence. We also still discussing if we will use chain/sprockets or a Dyneema cord winch to power the arm joint.
Here is a sketch of the new configuration; this has a 6 in extension and appears to work with a center of mass 6.5" to 15" and roughly centered in the robot. Not shown, but if we needed this climb should be able to curl onto the low bar for 4 pts.
- Spectrum
2022 Day 7 & 8: Intake Testing and a New Climber Concept
Intake Testing
Simple Tests
Climber Concepts
We began working on a new climber concept that uses a double-jointed arm that extends with springs and climbs with a winch. The geometry of this climb appears to work better than some of the others we were working on.
We were able to complete the construction of our practice hangar and run the prototype on it. One of the first attempts with the prototype went one of the more predictable ways.
We will rebuild it this weekend with lessons learned (more perimeters in the prints, more gussets, and bolts/rivets into the tubing) and hopefully future attempts will be more successful. Failures like these are to be expected while prototyping, this is why we often use scrap material or cheap and quick-to-make parts like the 3D printed tube connectors and shaft collars. Failing quickly is one of the best ways to get a robust system in your final robot.'
- Spectrum
2022 Day 9: Bootcamp Build Day & a successful climber prototype
Bootcamp Build Day
We started the day with our 1st Bootcamp Build Day of the year we had students and teachers representing 5 young Houston area teams on site for a few hours to answer their questions, give design advice, and help with the FRC control system. Members of Pearadox FRC5414 were here to help as part of our partnership in the Houston FRC Development Program this year. Our next session is in two weeks and we will be helping teams finish up their drive bases, electronics, and making progress on their robots.
Climber Test
The theory behind the climb
2022 Day 10 & 11: Weekly Recap
2022 Day 12 & 13: Swerve Assembly and Controls Priorities
Swerve Assembly
Controls Priorities
Climber Testing
2022 Day 14 & 15: More Climber Testing
Climber Testing
The first test of the climber chassis did work well. We didn't do a full continuous climb but if you want to watch multiple videos they are all in this gallery. The video below is the prototype moving from the high bar to the traversal mostly by itself.
2022 Day 15 and 16: Full Climb Video
Climber Testing
We added a crossbar between the hooks and moved our string to pull from around the lower arm pivot shaft and pull on the crossbar. This allows us to pull down closer to a straight line from the hooks to the spool. We also added some pool noodles so that if (when) this chassis falls off the bar it won't be damaged as badly.
Launcher Prototype
2022 Day 17 & 18: Design Recap and CAD Links
Tuesday Design Recap
CAD Release
2. Intake
4. Launcher
2022 Day 19: Launcher Testing
Launcher Testing
Ball Pressure
In these clips, two of the balls are from kickoff, and early on, they were underinflated. The rest of the balls are brand new and were inflated today using our digital inflator. We received our official spec gauges today as well, and it seems the digital inflator reads about 1 psi lower than the official analog gauges specified in the manual. Hence, some of our balls were at 3.5psi based on the digital inflator, and some were at 3.5 psi based on the official analog gauge by the end of the testing.
Prototype launcher configuration
- Falcon is basically 1:1 (actually 47:46 cause belt math is hard sometimes),
- 4" stealth wheel main flywheel
- 2" compliant wheels on the top roller are 1:1, so it's about half the surface speed of the main roller
- 2" compliant wheels on the accelerator wheel under the main roller, also 1:1.
2022 Day 20 & 21: Intake Prototype
Intake Testing
We are working on finalizing our intake and ball path setup.
The goal of this current intake is to have limited extension over the bumper and be easily folded into the robot.
The ball path behind the intake is still being worked on but it seems we will be able to have a normal roller without any mecanum or omni wheels and it will work fine. Passive wedges seem to work well to get the balls to center into the ball path.
ProtoCube
2022 Day 22, 23, & 24: Design Recap
Day 22: Bootcamp Build Day 2
We had 5 young FRC teams from the Houston area in our lab to help them get their drive trains started and talk to them about the Everybot design and what they need to do to produce it.
Day 23: Intake/Ball Path
As we show below in the design recap the intake and ball path system was in heavy development the past few days. We had a lot of detailed requirements on how we wanted to make the intake function and getting all those requirements packaged into the robot and functioning nicely wasn't going to be easy. Early on we assumed we'd have a multi-roller deployable intake similar to our 2020/2021 intakes and many of the ones we have seen by other teams. Last week we realized we could base our intake off our 2019 and it would allow us to have our intake not extend as far out of the frame and still let us meet our other intake objectives. The test setup we made this weekend confirmed the single intake roller with a kicker bar deployed on the bumper would bring the ball up onto the bumper nicely but there was a potential dead space before the ball would hit our ball path rollers.
Through conversation, we were able to figure out that flipping out another ball bath roller that stays above our bumper so we can confidently leave it deployed all match will solve the dead space issue, prevent unwanted balls from entering our robot, and allow us to eject balls with the intake down.
Day 24: Design Recap
Everybot Alternatives, Changes, and Checklist
Photon 8515 is building an Everybot
Before we link to the documents we have a couple disclaimers. Please head these warnings, it is recommended that most teams follow the Everybot Build Documentation as closely as possible to replicate the result they showed in the reveal video.
Alternatives
- The listed alternatives are all options that may work but haven’t been tested.
- These are most useful if you already have some items on hand and would like to use them without ordering new things due to budget constraints.
- You will likely need to make other modifications to the build instructions, other parts of the robots, software, etc if you use any alternatives that aren’t listed in the official Everybot BOM. The Everybot team nor Spectrum will be able to support many of these possible alternatives.
- Don’t make substitutions unless you are confident you understand the other changes needed to the design.
Fabrication Ideas
- None of these changes have been tested and they are not recommended by the Everybot team.
- If you choose to make them you likely won’t have support from them since they don’t know how they are supposed to work.
- These changes are thoughts that Spectrum mentors and alumni believe may improve the Everybot 2022 and make it easier for our new students to build. We won’t know for sure until we complete the build which won’t be for many weeks.
2022 Day 29: CAD Updates
We have been working on completing the CAD model of our robot the past few days. We still have a few things to add (intake roller and modifications, the main 4" wheel in the ball path, and ball path funneling) but it's very close to complete.
The full CAD is available here: 0. Infrared 2022 (Top Level Document)
Current Design Specs
- Size: 24.5 x 27.5
- Motors: 15 Falcons: 8 drive, 1 intake, 2 ball path, 2 launcher, and 2 climber (space for 4), 2 Linear servos
- Pneumatics: Intake, and climber, we may add a physical stop to the ball path with pneumatics.
