2012 - Rebound Rumble Robot

Chassis: Our robot has a tank drive system with four wheels on each side controlled by two motors and a series of chains. The front and back wheels are raised higher than the middle two in order to facilitate getting over the bump in the middle of the field. The sides of the chassis are made out of four pieces of milled aluminum. All the components are mounted on the chassis.

Pickup: The pickup system is made of two rollers at either end of a tower which are connected by bands of polycord fit into grooves in the rollers. Across from the rollers is a sheet of rigid plastic which the balls are pushed against while being rolled up. When the rollers spin, they run the polycord like a conveyor belt, rolling the ball up the sheet of plastic and pushing it over the edge of the tower into our shooter. The pickup functions both as a mechanism for picking up balls and holding them.

Shooter: The shooter mechanism is fed from the pickup system and consists of a half-moon shaped chamber with a big wheel spinning at high speeds in the center. The ball rolls into this chamber and is propelled out the other by the wheel. Through careful control of the speed of the firing wheel using an encoder, the ball can be sent exact distances to fall into the baskets.

C.O.R.BIN: All the electronics on the robot are contained in the Central Organizing Rectangular Bin, or C.O.R.BIN, on the chassis. Our cRio, sidecar, power distribution board, and all Jaguars are mounted in the C.O.R.BIN which is enclosed for protection, with air circulation provided by a fan. Wires for all the different components are grouped into pigtails by component for simple removal of parts of the robot or the entire electronics bin.