Design Brainstorm

Front-mounted ramp intake concept for smooth cycles and minimal jams.

• Ramp guides artifacts into short rollers so the driver can approach at angles.
• Gentle incline plus compression keeps artifacts controlled while entering the robot.
• Fast, reliable pickup with easy integration to feeder and shooter systems.

Design Process

Scrimmage feedback led to reliability upgrades and tighter manufacturing.

• Rebuilt ramp around artifact dimensions to stop bounce-outs on fast intakes.
• Added dead-wheel odometry and a camera for automated alignment and distance-aware shooter control.
• Enlarged intake window to contain artifacts during aggressive driving.
• Shifted from hand-cut parts to laser-cut components for precision and strength.

Chassis

4-motor mecanum drivetrain prioritized alignment speed over pushing power.

• 96mm mecanum wheels (X-pattern), 1:1 drive, tight wheelbase to cut rotational inertia.
• Low, centered mass to reduce pitching while accelerating and shooting.
• Strafing keeps turn corrections short; pushing power tradeoff mitigated with driver practice.

Intake

Fast ground pickup with positive control into the feeder.

• Rubberized rollers pull artifacts via friction to avoid over-compression jams.
• Mid-feeder wheel on a 1000 RPM motor pushes artifacts toward the shooter.
• Tuned belt path maintains wrap and tension through the pivot arc without sharp bends.
• 3D-printed ramp guides misaligned artifacts; tensioner tested for balanced grip and speed.

Shooter

Tuned flywheel with adjustable pressure and fast feeding.

• PIDF control (no integral) for quick target-speed convergence while targets change.
• Distance-to-speed table (10 points) simplified into a linear formula for live adjustments.
• Adjustable contact part balances backspin vs. bounce-outs.
• Grippy feeder wheel on a 1000 RPM motor queues three artifacts rapidly.

Code & Automation

Custom stack for parallel actions in auto and tele-op.

• Wrote our own framework for flexibility and deeper system understanding.
• Phase-based autonomous: main loop runs tasks in parallel (drive + flywheel tuning, etc.).
• Robot entities store geometry/tuning; shared main code carries versions forward.
• FollowPath PD controller accepts waypoints for smooth arrivals.
• Tele-op buttons trigger path moves; auto-shoot when flywheel speed, heading, and position are valid.

Autonomous Strategy

Pattern-aware routines built from modular building blocks.

• Preloaded artifacts stay in order; auto-shoot motif matches without opening the ramp for RP.
• Spike pickup order favors the right spike first to hit counts divisible by three.
• End every routine outside the shooting zone, finishing near the ramp for tele-op handoff.
• “Autonomous maker” composes new autos from menu blocks; preset mirrored routines cover far/close shooting.

Sensors

Vision, odometry, and artifact counting for consistent cycles.

• Moved from webcam to Limelight to offload processing and improve accuracy.
• Gobilda PinPoint dead wheels plus IMU give slip-proof localization when vision is unavailable.
• Distance sensor counts artifacts entering from the ramp and halts intake after three; drivers still monitor holes in artifacts.