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Courtesy of FRC Team 118: The Robonauts
FRC Team 118 stands among the most accomplished and respected organizations in the history of the FIRST Robotics Competition, fielding competition robots engineered for peak performance and consistency.
This robot utilizes an omni drivebase, with the back wheels being omni wheels, and the front wheels being traction wheels. This combination of omni wheels and traction wheels allow for the smooth turning. At the same time, as the front set of wheels are traction wheels, the robot can more effectively resist being pushed from the side than if all of the wheels were omni wheels. To counter the inherent unintended sideways slippage that occurs when omni wheels are used in drivebase, additional encoder modules line the drivebase, (made out of an encoder and a traction wheel lightly tensioned to run on the ground), to allow for the robot to more effectively track its position for autonomous runs. While such a drivebase would likely not be seen in current FRC games, it was an effective drivebase for the time.
This robot uses a very wide through bumper intake to allow for Fuel to be brought into the robot. The advantage of using a through bumper intake is that it can be protected from collisions.
Diag. 3.12, Taken from Preparing for the Game Drop
The intake leads into a large moving floor indexer. The top of the moving floor indexer is open so that balls can be deposited directly into the indexer from Hoppers.
Diag. R13.1: Moving Floor Indexer Top View
The moving floor indexer filters balls into a single vertical flywheel with an adjustable hood. This flywheel accomplishes the adjustable part by using a servo to adjust the angle of the final flap of the backwall of the flywheel's hood.
Diag. R13.2: The Flywheel's Adjustable Hood
Additionally, the flywheel uses a heavy flywheel weight to maintain momentum between shots. This is neccesary, as it was common in the 2017 FRC Game, Steamworks, for robots to shot tens of Fuel in a row.
This robot also had a claw to interact with the Steamworks Gears.
Diag. 10.5, Taken from Preparing for the Game Drop
* Further explanation of the various mechanisms in FRC Handbook Volume 1.