Swerve Webinar

April 2, 2023April 12, 2023Leave a comment

Us presenting during the webinar.

This season we created a differential swerve drive to use in competition. Throughout our creation of the drivetrain, we were constantly experiencing new challenges and discovering new concepts that we could use to improve the design. Because swerve drives are a very rare drivetrain to see in FTC, we decided to host a webinar to teach others about swerve drives and share what we learned from creating ours. The presentation covered a multitude of topics including: What is Swerve, How it Works, Types of Swerve: Coaxial and Differential, What We Learned, and Swerve Programming. We thoroughly enjoyed creating and giving the presentation as well as answering the many questions our viewers had. It is our hope that this presentation, our robot, and our team’s impact all inspire the next generation of teams to use swerve drives.

We recorded the webinar and posted it on YouTube so those that couldn’t make it could view it as well.

Droid Days Demo

December 30, 2022January 10, 2023Leave a comment

One of our team members discussing the robot with Bakken Museum visitors

Our team was invited to the Droid Days event at the Bakken Museum. There, we let kids drive our robot around and stack cones onto a low junction. After they finished, we gave each kid a robot driver’s license. We also explained our swerve drivetrain to some of the staff at the museum. A few of our team members knew them from previous experiences, such as the Form 5 Prosthetics Workshop, so it was pleasant to see them again. We really enjoyed demoing our robot at the event and would like to demo there again.

Mentoring Warrior Robotics

November 27, 2022December 30, 2022Leave a comment

Showing Warrior Robotics how to drive our robot

We heard of a rookie team in our area who had a tournament soon and didn’t have a field to practice on so, we invited them to our HQ and offered to do a couple of practice matches with them. When they arrived we showed them around our HQ and let them drive our robot since theirs was not fully finished. Afterward, we explained how judging worked and answered all their questions. We also gave them suggestions on how to improve their robot. It was really fun helping them out and we hope they do well at their tournament!

Meeting with Zeus

October 16, 2022November 15, 2022Leave a comment

Discussing the robot with Bob and Duane

We met with Bob and Duane, two of the engineers from Zeus Electric Chassis. When we were meeting with them, we voiced our concerns about our robot tipping over when the lift is extended. They suggested that we use Matlab to calculate the center of gravity so we can anticipate if it will tip. We discussed how to keep our drivetrain stable and prevent it from cantilevering. One of their recommendations for this was to connect tension lines to the tops of the motors to prevent them from moving. We also explained our prototype of the swerve pod and our issues with finding the best way to attach it to the drivetrain. They are going to put us in contact with a company that specializes in creating bearings. Hopefully, they will be able to help us find an attachment solution. Besides giving us feedback on our robot design, they also gave us lots of general life advice. They suggested that we come over to their company sometime to talk to their engineers. Overall, they were super helpful and we hope to see them again soon.

Alumni Engineering Review Night

October 5, 2022November 19, 2022Leave a comment

Discussing the lift with our alumni friends.

We first discussed rules and scoring for this year’s game and let them become familiar with the field layout before we showed them our robot. While showing them our lift, they were concerned about a possible wobble in the lift and they said we should add reinforcements. They suggested that we should move the lift closer to the center of the robot and make the grabber longer to make sure the robot does not tip forward when extending. When they noticed the servo gearbox they told us that not all of the servos may start at the same time which could lead to issues. For the drivetrain, they suggested a different mounting material for the odometry, such as TPU. We discussed possible strategies and came to the conclusion that we should focus more on junction scoring rather than completing a circuit because most teams won’t be able to do it. Overall, it was really fun meeting with graduated FTC members and they were really helpful in giving a different view of our robot.

Library Demo

July 26, 2022July 30, 2022Leave a comment

Showing the kids how to drive our robots

Every year our local library hosts several “storytimes” where they read stories to kids in the community. This is our fourth time doing this demo, and we were excited to return again in person. We were able to demonstrate our robot to the kids and have it dance with them. We also let the kids drive our Skystone robot and pick up stones. We had a lot of fun, but sadly this will be the last time we can do this demo since our team will be graduating. We invited Potential Energy to shadow us and see the demo so that they can continue the library’s Robot Storytime in our place in future years.

TRANE Industries Tour and Demo

July 14, 2022July 27, 2022Leave a comment

One of the Trane employees showing us how the system works

We invited some of our mentee teams to tour a building automation company called TRANE Industries. During the tour, we learned how TRANE manufactures the printed circuit boards used in their building control systems. We got to see the machines they use to place the components onto the board as well as the machine that solders the parts onto it. In their testing room, they test new software and maintain old versions of their products so they are able to help their customers if a product breaks. Finally, we received a demonstration of their control systems in which they showed us how all the sensors, lights, doors, and HVAC systems work in conjunction with each other in a building. After touring their company, we told the employees at TRANE about FIRST and youth robotics as well as demonstrated our robot’s capabilities. They had the opportunity to drive our robot and many of them asked questions about it and our engineering notebook. Some of them were interested in getting involved so we encouraged them to volunteer at tournaments. We had lunch with some of the engineers at TRANE and they gave us lots of good advice for our future careers. The event was really fun and we would love to go back and learn more.

FedTech Tour

April 30, 2022June 28, 2022Leave a comment

During the tour of FedTech, we learned the differences between using water jet cutters and laser cutters, the two types of cutting machines they use, and what effect they have on the materials. For water jet cutters, the water is mixed with garnet of a specific size, called abrasive, to help with cutting. The pressure is kept at 60,000psi by large pumps that are taken apart for maintenance daily because of the potential damage from the high pressure. The inside of the nozzle is shaped like a funnel to help prevent it from clogging, and the end of the nozzle is about the width of a hair. Water jet cutters can cut very thick material, while laser cutters are used for cutting much thinner sheets of stainless steel and hardening the edges of the cuts. Water jet cutting also prevents warping due to heat because the material is cut by the pressure and abrasive. It was a very interesting tour and we are in contact with FedTech to set up a demo.

Coding The Cosmics Mentoring #2

August 28, 2021September 21, 2021Leave a comment

We invited Coding the Cosmics over to our workspace and showed them around. We talked to them about what they needed to start and how much space they needed. After showing them around, we helped them attach a battery mount and the REV Control Hub to their robot. We also showed them how to setup Android Studio and program a basic starter robot. When they got their robot working, they were super happy and excited seeing their robot drive for the first time. We had a ton of fun and plan to continue helping them with the upcoming season.

Aaron showing Coding the Cosmics how to drive their robot.

Twin Cities Maker Presentation

September 30, 2020June 11, 2021Leave a comment

For this event we presented to members of Twin Cities Maker’s board to get a membership to their workshop. There were three FIRST teams in the zoom call to present to the board members. In our presentation we discussed the FTC games this season and our last season’s robot along with what we want to do this year. We talked about how we want to create custom metal parts along with a custom chassis.