Robot Architecture

This occurs the Monday following kickoff

Agenda

Time Duration
9:00 am 30 min Review weekend insights
9:30 am 30 min Re-watch game animation/field tours
10:00 am 30 min Run a “robot” doing cycles on field
10:30 am 30 min Finish feature importance list if not complete
11:00 am 2 hr Rank feature importance list
1:00 pm 1 hr Lunch
2:00 pm 1 hr Continue Rank feature importance list
3:00 pm 2 hr General Robot Architecture Creation
5:00 pm 2 hr General Robot Architecture Rankings/Decision
6:00 pm 3 hr Variable prototyping
9:00 pm - Meeting end
  • General Robot Architecture Creation (Details next slide)
  • General Robot Architecture Rankings/Decision (Details next slide)
  • Break Architecture into Mechanisms
  • Begin prototyping(Details next slide)

Philosophy

  • Say, this scoring element is similar to a past game
  • Say this climb is similar to this past game
  • Come up with a robot that does all of these
  • Each mechanism has video behind it, ex 2020 bot with, a 2019 climber
  • When they present the robots structure, “we are doing a 2020 style robot, with and under the bumper intake, elevator climber, and shooter in center with turret”

What is an architecture?

  • General 2D view
  • Bounding boxes
  • Types of motion (ex pivots/degrees of freedom)
  • Example: This is where the intake will be, this is where shooter will be. Intake is arm intake is elevator etc...
  • Base structures - things like arms, elevator, drivetrain

General Robot architecture rankings

  • Present them, give descriptor name, 2-3 people present
  • Go in depth about each mechanism

Whole group discussion

To decide on designs, look at feature importance list, and see which easily accomplish the highest features are - add complexity (Quantified via fundamentals list), failure modes

  1. Which architectures are super similar? Which to combine?
  2. Ask about mechanism mergers/ideas, “ie this is a better version of what I found”
  3. Does it meet all requirements? (offseason only)
  4. How many 5 features, how many 4 features, how many 3 Features, 2 Features, 1 Features does it satisfy
  5. Add them up (Test)
  6. Add complexity rating to architecture, (test)
    • Define complexity, Ex # of pivots/motion
  7. Compare features vs complexity ratings
  8. Reduce down to two architectures,
  9. Make new groups
  10. Tailor this architecture to this game even more
    • Think additional functionality, pass throughs, etc to save cycle time
    • complexity reductions, combine mechanisms
    • Steal ideas combine mechanisms
  11. Present again
  12. Total up the complexity and feature totals
  13. Narrow down

Fundamentals List

  • What’s quickest
  • What’s most reliable
  • What are failure modes
  • Invalid geometry
  • Collisions
  • Out of frame
  • What is simple
  • What are failure points
  • Motors
  • Chains
  • Pneumatics
  • Sensors
  • Durability
  • Size/packing/weight/volume (extension limit/bumper rule)
  • Does it meet feature importance list criteria
  • Susceptibility to defense

Research Recommendations

How to research robot designs (suggested order)

  1. Find similar old games (FRC, FTC, VEX)
  2. Find successful robots from that game (TBA, champs)
  3. Match footage
  4. Watch robot reveals
  5. Behind the bumpers
  6. Look at Ri3D