Innovation / Team 190

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Innovation / Team 190

• introduction of new things or methods

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Why reinvent the wheel?

• Gives team a sense of ownership
• Intellectually stimulating!
• Occasionally very successful

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How to be Innovative!

• Its about creativity more than invention
• Old things in new ways
• Requires input diversity
• Be a risk-taker
• Believe that success is about meeting team goals,
  not about tournament wins
• Challenge team to think out-of-the-box

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Team 190 Methodology

• Establish team goals
• Earning WOW! praise typically ranks much higher
  than winning tournaments
• Challenge team to develop something so effective
  that FIRST outlaws it next season!
• Start each season with a clean sheet of paper

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Example FRC 2004
MOH Goats 15 seconds of Autonomous Glory
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Autonomous Problem to Solve

• Robot had to
• Drive to stairs
• Raise hook (probe)
• Up the stairs
• Around the goal
• To the center of platform
• Winch up
• Hook on bar

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KSD Kamen Straddling Device
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Pre-start

• Initial alignment set with LAD Laser Aiming
  Device
• Speed 40 to avoid jerk on motor start
• Drive for 0.5 sec
• EDL Engaged

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EDL Electronic Differential Lock
Closed drives straight
Opened allows turns
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Long Run to Stairs

• Speed 127 (full speed). Remember only 15 seconds
  for this trick
• Driving until 18 ultrasonic distance
• EDL Engaged

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Ultrasonic Rangefinder
Gets distance for autonomous drive to the
platforms
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Just Before Stairs

• Slow down to 40 getting ready for stairs
• Probe starts to go up
• Drive about 3

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Going up Stairs

• EDL engaged
• Probe still going up
• Drives at 40 for duration
• Ultrasonic and wheel encoders unreliable here
• Driving with one wheel in mid-air

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Canted Wheels
Can drive with two wheels off the platform but
only rests on outer wheels normally for turning
ease
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On the Platform

• Drives forward at 40 until 5 ultrasonic distance
• Probe still going up
• EDL disengages

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Around the Goal

• Turn -40 degrees (depends on field side)
• Drives for fixed distance using encoders
• Ultrasonic unreliable because of angle

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Wheel Encoders for Distance
Homemade and worked pretty well weve
sincestarted bought optical encoders and
gear-tooth sensors
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Straighten out

• Turns back to 0 degrees (straight)
• Speed of 30
• Drives for distance using encoders
• Probe going up

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Drive to Platform

• Slow down to 20 driving for short duration
  (approaching platform)
• Probe fully extended by now, tensionometer for
  feedback

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Tensionometer
White spectra cord is extending cable, steel
braid is lifting cable
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Catch Hook on Bar

• Drive motors off
• Probe starts going down to engage bar
• Triggered by time

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Winch Up and Drive

• Start robot going up
• Drive motors forward speed 20 to help robot go
  over 6 step
• Gyro mounted vertically senses robot swing

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Winch up

• Sequence of running winch up is complex in itself
• Operate anti-back drive device
• Sense latching on bar
• Slow motor
• Allow back drive and lower robot on hooks

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Winch with Anti-backdrive
Ratcheting action on going up and
servo-retractable, sensor-equipped pin to allow
the robot to lower onto hooks
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Touch Sensors for Hooks

• Sensed when hooks were opened by approaching
  pull-up bar.
• Then sensed when both hooks were closed AND bar
  was at bottom of slot SAFE TO BACKDRIVE WINCH TO
  TAKE LOAD OFF CABLE

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The code(for the programming geeks)

• Goals
• Multiple autonomous modes
• Flexibility to make quick changes
• Not have to debug code for each mode
• Solution
• Make a table-driven solution
• Each table entry was a different autonomous set
  (node)

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Autonomous Node

• Each node (table entry) represents a single step
• Nodes have motor and sensor values
• Nodes have triggers to go to the next step

• typedef struct _AutonNode
•       int Distance
•       int Bearing
•       int Speed
•       unsigned int Duration
•       int DesiredShoulderPosition
•       int DesiredWristPosition
•       int DesiredExtenderPosition
•       int DesiredTurretPosition
•       unsigned char Flags
•       unsigned int Trigger
•       char Name
• AutonNode_

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Program

• An array of nodes makes up one autonomous program
• There was an array of arrays (pointers) for
  multiple autonomous programs

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Summary

• Never won a tournament ?
• Buta team favoritewon 20 awards ?
• Engineering Inspiration Award (BAE)
• Xerox Creativity Award (Arizona)
• Xerox Creativity Award (The Championship)
• Fastest Hanging Robot (Wonderland's FIRST Robotic
  Competition)
• Best Autonomous Award (Wonderland's FIRST Robotic
  Competition)
• Finalist (Mayhem on the Merrimack)
• Leadership in Controls Award (IRI)
• Presidents Award (IRI)
• Plus 12 peer awards from other teams!

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Questions?