FRC 2023 Game Bot Design A

Robot Design Concept

This robot utilized a swerve drivebase with Swerve X Modules from West Coast Products. 

The robot uses a complex arm on a lift design. This was chosen so that the roller claw of the robot would have the necessary reach to get to the Top Row of Nodes to score Cubes/Cones for maximum points. Using only a pivot arm or only a lift would not allow for the claw to reach far enough to get to the Top Row given Charged Up's robot starting size constraints. More details on the design of this lift can be found in Macro Design: Preparing for the Game Drop subchapter 9.2.

To allow for greater roll compression, a multi tool roller claw was chosen, so that one mechanism could be used to interact with both Cubes and Cones. This made sense given the Cubes and Cones needed to be placed in nearly identical positions on the Grid. 

Robot Design Learnings

Unfortunately this design was not built for by Team 4817 for the competition season even though it was designed during the first weeks of the competition. The team had decided it was too ambitious of a design, and opted for the simpler design that can be found at Reference 38.

That being said, there are still some design learnings to consider for this robot. 

What Worked Well

This arm on a lift was a first for Team 4817 and getting it done without any obvious design flaws was an accomplishment. 

What Could Be Improved

While the design is believed to functionally work, the required movement of the arm is a bit awkward and not as effecient as other designs that were developed by other teams. To swing the Cube/Cone through the robot, the most effective way is to drop the pivot point of the arm to the bottom of the lift as the arm rotate over the robot to keep the center of mass relatively low. The robot's unfortunate starting position was also awkward, as to keep the claw within frame perimeter the pivot point of the arm had to be kept at a minimum while pointing the arm up. This would have required for the claw to be moved downward during the beginning of autonomous to score points and pick up game pieces. In general keeping track of the position of the claw required using advanced Linear Algebra. All of these complications can be resolved with effective programming, but Team 4817 both wasn't confident in its abilities and there were simpler designs. A more common variation of this design concept was seemingly a double jointed arm which still requries the advanced Linear Algebra. However, an even simpler version was to use a double lift design. With a lift pointing forward, mounted on a vertical lift. This would make keeping track of the claw a lot easier for programming and worked just as well at reaching the Top Row Nodes. 

Charged Up Robot Comparisons

To see the competition design that Team 4817 opted to use for the Charged Up season, refer to Ref 38. To see a tested, full featured robot design, refer to Ref 33.