Overview

Purpose: 2011 FIRST Robotics Comptition

Creator: Harrison Boiler Robotics (FRC 1747)

My Role: Mentor through Purdue FIRST Programs

Lead students through design, fabrication, programming, and deployment of mecanum drivetrain.
Lead strudents through the gripper design and fabrication.
Assisted with programming debugging.
Derived minibot equations of motion; used these to find the optimal roller size (given the minibot's mass).
Took extensive phographic documentation of the final robot, for use in the team's documentation.

Form

Drivetrain:

Four 6" Andymark mecanum wheels.
Each (independently controlled) wheel powered by a CIM DC motors through a 8.45:1 Toughbox Nano gearbox.

Controls: National Instruments cRIO-FRC (400 MHz)

Sensors:

Solid-state gyroscope
AXIS webcam
Shaft encoder
Potentiometer
Limit switches
Line sensors

Frame: Kitbot C-base, welded 1" box aluminum (anodized green)

Function

Navigate the field: Nautilus's mecanum drivetrain and relatively lightweight construction enabled it to score as fast as possible.

Remain upright: The frame geometry and low center of mass allow Nautilus to easily remain upright while moving with the arm in any position.

Pick up tubes: The polycarbonate gripper can pick up tubes in fractions of a second, rotate tubes within its grasp, and withstand the worst collisions in competition.

Lift tubes: Once deployed from the starting configuration, the simple arm can raise tubes from the ground to 10 ft high using a single degree of freedom.

Deploy a minibot: Pneumatic actuators quickly deploy the minibot onto the tower (the pole the minibot must race up).

Minibot: A small robot which climbs a 10 ft pole in 1.2 seconds to win bonus points.