12th Hour

We are part of a larger organization called Aggie FIRST Robotics, a student organization at Texas A&M University. We are dedicated to helping FIRST alumni take their first steps in college, helping volunteer at FRC competitions, and expanding the FIRST family.

The goals for our robot designs are to create a competitive robot on a low budget of roughly 3,000 dollars. We hope to demonstrate to rookie FRC teams that they can create efficient designs with resource restrictions.

For more information about our organization go to www.aggiefirstrobotics.org.

2018: FIRST Power Up

Intake

Our intake used two 775Pro motors with 16:1 Banebot P60 Gearboxes. The final iteration of our design used direct driven 4" marshmallow compliant wheels that were heavily relied on in the 2015 game to intake the totes. Earlier iterations of the design used Colson wheels which did not have enough grip to intake and control the cubes. The intake was articulated on tensioned arms to allow for the intaking of cubes at a 45 degree angle. One of the issues that we ran into with this final design was that it could not reliably lift cubes onto the scale that were gripped on the 11" side. Some geometry modifications that we did not have time to complete could fix this issue. Additionally, the hard stops that held the intake at its minimum width broke constantly. The leverage the intake had on the hard stops caused them to break whenever the intake hit a wall. Some potential solutions include using soft stops, mounting springs that tension the arms in the opposite directions or creating more rugged hard stops.

Elevator

The design of this elevator was a two stage elevator made with 1" REV Extrusion structure and REV 1" Linear Motion Kits. It utilizes a two stage pulley that lifted the intake while the second stage was being lifted. This design ran on a single 775Pro with a 11:1 Banebot P60 Gearbox that powered a 1/2" round shaft pulling nylon paracord. One of the hardest challenges we had with this design was how to wire an intake that moves up and down 7.5 ft without the wires getting caught in moving parts. What we found was that because the second stage and the intake move upwards at the same time, the length that the wire would need to travel if draped across the top of the elevator would remain constant. With a wire guide at the top of the elevator and some simple wire conduit, we are confident that this solution would stand up to the rigors of competition.

Drivetrain

The drivetrain was a simple 4 wheel design that ran a custom 2 CIM 13.5:1 reduction gearbox made with VEX Pro Hex Gears. The wheels we used were two 6" traction wheels in the front and two 6" omni-wheels in the back to reduce turning scrub and put the center of rotation towards the front of the robot. The frame was made out of rectangular aluminum 2"x1" tubing that was designed to be a cheaper alternative to the AndyMark kitbot chassis. We manufactured custom gearboxes for this design because it was a cheaper alternative for us due to our machining capabilities. They are also not the ideal gear ratio to properly play this years game. In our opinion, more speed is necessary and a more appropriate gear reduction would be in the range of 8-10:1.

2018: FIRST Power Up

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