design.build

Final Assembly

Scott — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 05:21:29 +0000

After assembling the parts from Vertec and those made in-house, the manipulator was finished and added to the chassis of the robot.

Machining and Fabrication

Scott — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 04:19:35 +0000

We’ve started doing more fabrication for the robot, this includes modifying parts on the lathe, building gripper segments out of carbon fiber, creating tapped holes for bolts, building fused deposition modeling inserts, and machining tubes using the CNC mill.

Sheet Metal Parts and Initial Assembly

Scott — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 04:52:08 +0000

We received the sheet metal parts from our partner Vertec and have begun physical construction and assembly. One part was not made due to our sponsor’s time constraints and it is being redesigned.

Manipulator CAD Design

Scott — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 07:10:08 +0000

The design was CADed based upon the dimensions used for the kinematic sketch and designed to be built almost entirely from sheet metal. Four motors were used (types/quantities of motors and gearing was decided upon using CG data supplied by CAD software after inputing material properties for all constituents). Two BaneBots 700 series 18 V motors power the shoulder, each with a 256:1 gearbox and further 6:1 chain reduction to the axle. One BaneBots 550 motor powers the elbow joint via belts, and the fourth motor, a Banebots 395, powers the gripper via a series of belts.

The gripper design hasn’t been decided yet, it is very modular and various designs will be tested in gameplay.

Each structural component was stress tested under their maximum theoretical load (from gravity) plus 5x to account for robot motion and collisions. Greatest predicted deformation was less than .1 inches for any part.

Preliminary Kinematic Study

Scott — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 03:18:55 +0000

A quick drawing was made to illustrate needed dimensions for the arm and demonstrate compliance with the rules. This was then used to create a more precise model.

Kinematic Sketch of Arm Motion

Manipulator Decision Matrices

Scott — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:43:39 +0000

Instead of a single decision matrix the decision was made with two decision matrices because the gripper system in this robot is independent of the system that gives the gripper motion. The top gripper design and the top motion design were then combined.

Decision Matrix

Robot Design Strategy

Scott — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 05:05:22 +0000

After the first day the team has completed preliminary brainstorming, presented important rules, and decided that the robot’s design strategy should focus both on being able to pick up and place tubes on the racks and on creating a successful minibot. To accomplish this a new minibot team has been formed so that the manipulator team can focus on the apparatus to pick up and place tubes.

Day 1 Strategies

Day 1 Rules

Day 1 Brainstorming

2011 FRC Kickoff

Scott — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 19:00:19 +0000

This year’s FRC game is live! Our robot this year is tasked with picking up inner-tubes and placing them on 9 foot high pegs to create the FIRST logo. The end game involves a mini-bot climbing a pole. More info on usfirst.org.

Christmas CD

Scott — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 04:34:16 +0000

Miles Roth and Scott Von Thun

Every year I make a trumpet Christmas CD. This year I teamed up with a student that played with me in the All-State Jazz Band. The first song we played is an arrangement I wrote of Joy to the World. The rest of the tracks were other Christmas duets played on flugelhorns. I then completed all the digital compositing, mastering, photographing, and editing (both image and audio) to create the CD with it’s original album artwork. I gave the CDs as gifts to my relatives.

You can download all the tracks by right clicking here and selecting download linked file. The first track is in the video below.