Welcome back to the blog! It's been a while since our last post, so we're going to start with a series of posts getting up to speed with our last few robots. Starting off with our 2024 robot, Toucan. Toucan played there 2024 FRC game Crescendo (Game Animation), with a focus on scoring notes into the speaker and amp.
Overall Concept
As first described in this post Toucan works by sweeping notes under all 4 sides of the robot, and picking them up using a central intake. That intake then feeds them up through a gap in the bellypan up through the launcher pivot and into a storage area before the flywheels. From there the notes are either launched out the front by spinning the flywheels in opposite directions, or scored in the amp by spinning the flywheels the same direction.
If you're interested in following along, here's some links that will make your life easier:
- CAD
- Match Video (2024wasam_sf6)
Drivebase
The drivebase uses modified MK4i's with custom 3D printed top plates, and custom 3D printed risers. This changes the drive gear ratio to the L3+ ratio, and adds a slightly larger wheel diameter to allow for double-dipping in top speed increases. The frame tubes are mounted above the bearing plate in the swerve modules, allowing the drive and steer motors to be high enough to be completely above the intake note path. Everything is connected together with a bellypan, which directly mounts some of the electronics and attaches some auxiliary plates to mount the rest of the electronics.
Intake(s)
There are six different rollers that could bring a note into the robot. There is the rear intake which moves the note directly to the index. The other 3 sides of the robot each have independently driven sweeper rollers. Once swept under the bumper, there is a center roller with omni wheels that pushes the note towards the inward-facing pickup roller.
Index
The robot has two locations it could store notes, the index and the launcher. The index is a set of rollers and belts just after the intake, and was directly coupled to intake rollers 1 and 6. By holding the note here, it doesn't rotate with the launcher and can be spit out of the robot if needed.
Pivot
The entire launcher pivots up and down around the back of the robot, allowing for different distance shots to be made in the speaker, and scoring out the back in the amp.
Launcher
The launcher consists of a feeder section and a flywheel section. The feeder gets the note from the index through the pivot and stores it until the flywheels are ready to launch. The flywheels that are on the same side of the note are connected to the same axle, and the flywheels on opposite sides are driven independently. The flywheels launch the note with no spin, and the top axle can be reversed to score in the amp.
If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! If all goes well we should get posts out on all of our robots from 2022 onwards, with the potential of looking at some older ones too. And as always,
GO ROBOTOTES!!!!