Preliminary Design Review

1. Preliminary Design Review WPI / Mass Academy FIRST Team 190: Gompei and the HERD Presented By: Ken Stafford, Team Advisor Colleen Shaver, Director of Support Chris Werner, Director of Operations

2. What is FIRST? • Organization designed to inspire students in math, science, and engineering • Brings engineers and students together to work on a common problem • Introduces students to real world engineering challenges • Over 1000 teams around the world

3. Our Team • One of only 6 teams involved continuously since the program began in 1992 • 2005 Recipient of the WPI University Ambassador Award for our community outreach, including over 40 demos per year • Called “the highlight of their WPI engineering education” by past alums • WPI’s “#1 women and minority outreach program”

4. Operations 2006 Game Introduction Brainstorming Mechanical Controls

5. The Game Game Animation

6. Brainstorming • Discussed strategies as a team • Established an ordered list for gameplay • Score balls • Collect/Contain Balls • Score on platform • Defense-specific • Push Balls

7. Brainstorming • Met in three groups to develop initial robot designs • After three days, groups convened to present ideas • 2 groups designed conveyor systems to a single shooter with an omni-wheel drive • 1 group designed a track system with revolver using a standard drive system

8. Final Design • Six-wheel drive with two speeds • Ability to get balls from the floor and human player • Controlled delivery to shooter • Ability to shoot balls into center goal on-the-fly from our side of the field • Many offensive and defensive autonomous options

9. Mechanical – Driveline/Chassis • Driven by 4 CIM Motors through a two stage reduction • Six 5” rubber caster wheels • Provides both traction and shortened wheel base • Speeds up to 14 ft/s • Ludicrous Speed Drive • Four 3” rubber caster wheels • Powered from main wheels • Pneumatically raised and lowered • Provide velocities up to 16 ft/s

10. Mechanical – Ball Collection • Series of 2” PVC rollers with rubber • Spins at 3000 rpm • Powered by mini-bike motor • Balls lifted into storage area (hopper or directly into single-file tracks)

11. Mechanical – Ball Sorting/Storage • Balls jam themselves very easily • Hopper design is the most advantageous • Quick loading, high capacity • Most difficult to extract single balls from • Sorting balls into single-file as they are received is most efficient • Decreases capacity • Delays floor-to-air time

12. Mechanical – Ball Launching • Ball pitcher on turret to allow for 360 degree shooting • Launch balls in parabolic trajectory from the top of the robot • Ability to score from 6 to 21 feet using same release angle

13. Mechanical – Ball Launching • Contain pitcher mechanism at bottom • Pneumatic cylinder to lift ball into pitcher • Two 4” rubber wheels in series • Second roller geared faster than first roller • Fixed deflector angle allows wide shooting range due to ‘flat’ trajectory

14. Controls • Controls challenge: • Continuously keep the turret/pitcher aimed at the center goal even while the robot is moving • Operate all the other robot mechanisms to ease the human operator workload • Multiple autonomous strategies including scoring balls on the center target during initial 10 sec period • Provide many operator automated operations • Many controls functions have already been prototyped on VEX Robots

15. Controls – Navigation • Distance Measurement • CMU Camera • Computes distance to target using color tracking and calculating based on y-axis • Computes horizontal offset using x-axis position • Wheel Encoders • Provide velocity information for shoot-while-driving function • Robot Orientation • Compass • Provides coarse heading information necessary for robot orientation

16. Autonomous Requirements • No additional programming complexities • Everything prototyped except shooting while moving • Based on our last years’ autonomous engine • Very similar to driver-operated periods • Vision camera tracks light and determines when to shoot • Ability to select delays and different paths to drive for unpredictability and compatibility with alliance partners

17. Controls – Operator Interface • Driver controls both driveline and ball collector • Additional operator station to control ball launching • Switch to indicate offensive/defensive periods • Ability to fine tune the shooting vector • Fully automated or fully manual shooting modes • Robot sensor feedback to operator • Indicator lights to show target acquisition • Considering heads up display to indicate ball locations and accuracy of acquired target (audial tones)

18. Timeline Milestones • Jan. 7th – Kickoff • Jan. 11th – Strategy decision • Jan. 15th – Overall configuration • Jan. 27th – Preliminary Design Review • Jan. 30th – Chassis built • Feb. 5th – Driver try-outs • Feb. 7th – Mechanical subsystems built • Feb. 11th – Systems integrated • Feb. 17th – Critical Design Review • Feb. 18th – UTC Scrimmage • Feb. 21nd – Ship robot

19. Competition Schedule • UTC Scrimmage (Suffield, CT) • February 18th, 2006 • Granite State Regional (Manchester, NH) • March 2nd – 4th, 2006 • Florida Regional (Orlando, FL) • March 10th – 12th, 2006 • Championship Event (Atlanta, GA) • April 27th – 29th, 2006

20. Questions? For more information visit our website at http://www.wpi.edu/~first/ Anyone is welcome to visit us in the HL005 weekdays after 1600, Saturdays after 1000, and Sundays after 1200.