It didn't fail, it just needs more work

I noticed this sketch on the Robotics team captain's notebook. He was planning the organizational structure and is apparently blissfully unaware of the negative connotations of the term "pyramid scheme". Either that or he has a sense of humor and sarcasm that I wasn't aware of until now.


One of the interesting aspects of working with a team of students on robotics (or perhaps on anything for that matter) is they seem to be free of idea censorship. They lack a filter that stops people from trying things because the probability of the idea working is too low. I'm lucky enough to work for a company that is not paralyzed with 'initiative deficiency', you may have seen idea censorship at work or even during volunteer activities; a sense of risk aversion so high there are no new ideas with enough chance of success to get implemented. So instead nothing new gets started. Its the old way or no way at all.

On the flip side, the robotics team tries out some ideas that fail. They pick themselves up, dust off, adjust, and try again. They never really consider these missteps a 'failure', just something that just needed a bit more work.

It's that kind of thinking that might be what a lot of organizations need.

Beyond the Robot

FIRST Robotics isn't just about the robot, it isn't even mainly about the robot. It is about hands on experience showing students that careers in engineering can be fun and rewarding. Along the way the students pick things up, like how to combine whatever resources you have on hand to solve (sometimes complex) problems.

One of the programming students set up a camera to take time lapse photos of a build session. He had worked out the system outside of robotics, cobbling together pieces from Ubuntu Linux, gPhoto, Python Scripts and cooked it all together to capture pictures from a digital camera.

But one problem remained. Occasionally the camera would freeze up. Some more scripts were put together to detect the camera hadn't sent photos in a particular time frame and triggered an Arduino board to cycle power using a relay hacked into an extension cord, forcing the camera to reboot. More scripts renamed the last cycle of files (to prevent overwrite) and the entire system was underway.

Robotics - Trebuchet Contest

It was time to warm the students up for the FIRST Robotics FRC build season. The team decided a fun way to prepare would be to have teams build trebuchets to throw a tennis ball.

Trebuchet building would let the students get some practice researching, designing, planning materials and building. It was quick, and was also something that could be opened up to non-students involved with the program; everyone from the team's sponsor companies to the school's custodial staff great guys, they have keys that get everywhere in the building, allow the students to transform the lunchroom into a robot test drive track and perhaps most importantly are tolerant of crazy robotics students tearing around the building at odd hours (insider info you may not be aware of; robots get built at night).

The company I work for is a sponsor of Team 2220, and I mentor the programming subteam (robots need code to go). So a small contingent from my company decided to play along in the trebuchet challenge. The attached video shows the small pyramid design we implemented really does work. While the custodial staff loaded 45 pounds of counterweight to clean up the field with their 43 foot throw, our little 5 pound power pyramid chucked the tennis ball over 14 feet. So I'd say our "foot per pound" ratio was looking pretty good.

Robotics Team Structure

Getting Close to Robo-Time...

Robot Shipped, one last pic

This was taken well before the robot shipped but I didn't get around to uploading it. It's one of my favorites, so I thought I post it anyway. It shows the chain drive that powers the shooting column. As the moon rocks travel up the shooting chamber, each roller it encounters is moving faster than the previous set, thanks to the gearing shown here. With the creative routing of the chains, a single motor is able to power both sides of the rollers (one rolling counter-clockwise, the other clockwise).

Robot Construction Update, Integration Test

The robot subsystems are getting close to being integrated. As a visualization exercise, we stacked the parts close to where they will be on the finished bot.

Starting from the bottom, the drive train assembly (this was taken a bit ago but provides a good "baseline")


Next comes the electronics board "drawer". This was originally conceived to be a slide out drawer for easy access, but has since been redesigned with doors around the robot allowing access to reach in to the components rather than sliding the drawer out.


Next comes the Collector. This subsystem picks 'moon rocks' up from the floor and lifts them into a storage area. The rollers seen here will be underneath a band of material the 'moon rocks' (Orbit Balls) cling to.


Finally, the shooter. Still mounted in the plywood prototype, the shooter is a geared assembly, with each roller increasing speed, propelling the 'moon rocks' out of the top. Not shown is the hood and turret assembly, controlled by a camera to target the direction the moon rocks are thrown.

Robotics Drive Test

Just a quick note on robot construction.

The team hosted a programming workshop for 5 other teams. 4 hours of coding hands-on and idea sharing followed by tours of the construction process; everyone seemed to have a good time.

Build on the robot's test frame wrapped up with a quick drive test. The programmers were testing out several different acceleration algorithms to cope with the slippery surface the 'bot will see in competition.

Robo Prep Continues...

Preparation for the FIRST robotics build season continues. A test board has been assembled and refined. Tomorrow the game will be announced, then the plotting, planning, designing, constructing and revising will begin.

For now, this is how the test board looks. The actual robot is not expected to look anything like what is seen here, this is just a test platform.

Quit Procrastinating

While procrastinating doing some MBA research, I decided to quit procrastinating copying the pictures from last week's robotics competition in Milwaukee. Most of the photos were blah, but this one seemed to sum things up nicely. It is an action photo showing the Eagan Blue Twilight (Team 2220) Robot reaching for a ball on the overpass (blue robot to the right in the photo, arm extended upward) while the Edina Green Machine takes a dive backwards. The Green Machine ended up disabled and laying on the ground, but the team made repairs and the robot recovered nicely in later matches at the competition.