Setting Up Time

week 5

I imagine the school hallways look like this.

Something I've noticed, well, everywhere - work, robotics, family, etc during the pandemic, is that we no longer have "hallway conversations". Given we're remote, outside of immediate family we never encounter anyone in hallways, and this seems to make sense. But ad-hoc, spur of the moment meetings can be pretty defining. This year, we constantly have to make specific time to set up meeting time.

With the burndown list ever shortening and the CAD wrapping up, it was time to get mechanical, software, and electrical together to make sure everyone was once again on the same page. This is not our full robot review, but our controls, power, and sensor review. How does each system move, operate, what feedback does software have to control it.

Birds

The most important discussion we had this week was about birds. (It was pretty close with the sensors/controls discussion.)

Many robot mechanisms, either intentionally or accidentally, look like other things. Then they get nicknames - usually for means and reasons of quick and easy communication. Or fun. The "pneumatically actuated secondary roller to create a contact point on the ball between the intake and the indexer" is a bit wordy to say in conversation. Stealing nomenclature from other teams happens, as does making up your own. (The aforementioned part got its name from 987 - "the donger".) (I called it the dogtail.)

This year, our revised intake to meet the skills challenge needs looks a bit like... a bird beak. Now, some teams would say "hey great - a beak, or bird beak". Not us. We need specifics. (It's been a rough year, ok?)

Very bird-beak-like.

Robin beak? 

No. In CAD its blue, and the shape is wrong. Maybe? (I don't know anything about birds.)

Canary?

A crow is a bird.

Blue bird! Those are real things! They live around here!

Pigeon!

Nope, that name is already in use.

We're printing it on the Onyx, clearly it should be a Blackbird.

What if we paint it red? (Definitely not an Alice in Wonderland quote...)

In the end, we settled on blue jay. If and when we see this machine start eating up power cells, we can reflect on a blue jay gobbling down some food. Was this a super important conversation? Partially, yes definitely. (For the purposes of this writing, definitely.) Communication and semantics are important. If we get a robot in the pits and a part is broken, we need things clearly named and globally understood so that we can quickly and effectively transfer knowledge for different teams to do their jobs. Pit crew - the dog-tail is overheating. Immediately someone can grab an ice pack and place it on the correct bag motor. (2020) Drive team - The beak works, but we don't have an elevator. (2019) Our drive team now knows the only scoring they can do is ground level hatch panels.

Go nuts, name every part of your robot. Make sure your names make some amount of sense, and are globally understood by all team members.

Someone Set Us Up the BOM

As an OnShape newb, there are more and more cool things I learn about each week. I know most of these CAD programs have BOM settings, but to actually see them in use was pretty cool. This year especially (I wonder how many "this year" items are going to carry over into next year...) we will use the built in BOM features to drive our manufacturing schedule. Now, normally, we do this, to a lesser extent. Once a subsystem is "done" in CAD, and we review it and start to manufacture, we use the BOM to make sure we have all the parts ordered, material stock in place, and etc. However, this year - the whole of the robot will be finished in CAD before we start any manufacturing. With the BOM available to download to CSV and import to Excel - we can do much more "playing around".

Filters and macros are amazing. (So are pivot tables, but I'm not entirely sure we'll use those for this particular assignment, but who knows!) With the whole BOM available, and the materials and subsystems correctly assigned, we can do very specific checking on a per material basis of the whole robot. In the past, we'd cut enough parts on a sheet for a complete subsystem. This year, we'll be able to run every piece on a given material on a single sheet. This means less waste, one single parts and materials order, so shipping can/will be less expensive. This season is taking "longer", however, fortunately, we will get some benefit in cost and simplicity.

Power is Nothing Without Control

This was a pretty short and straightforward controls and sensors meeting this season. With so much carryover functionality from last years robot, common motors and sensors, most of the discussion surrounded specific placement of beam breaks, and buttons on the driver controllers. One major change in the overall system is the lack of pneumatics - which simplifies the software, but (again) we had to make sure the little details were communicated. Our intake deploys differently now - these small details can add up and cost more time later in the season.

Random Musing of the Week

Next week we'll start seeing some Formula 1 car reveals for the 2021 season.

What will the new ones look like...

Like FIRST and FRC, they have new rules and regulations each year, and also like FRC during the pandemic, this year they are carrying over a large majority of rules and components from 2020. However, the rule changes they have applied to 2021 and the brand new regulations for 2022 will provide a challenge for all the teams.

The name of the game every year, and more obvious this year, is trade-offs. There are many variables and considerations for making a race car go quickly around a track. Aerodynamics, mechanical grip, packaging, cooling, weight and more factor into the car. Teams can specialize parts for specific track layouts or features. Teams can use their resources to develop their car throughout the season and improve any of the above items. Most years, around halfway through the season, teams begin to focus their testing and development towards evolutions to support the following years rules. This year, the dramatic rules change for 2022 leaves almost no opportunity for development and component evolution. (Most teams will start with a clean sheet of paper.)

So, where and how does one spend their energy and resources? Adding more downforce adds more drag, which can impact top speed. Producing more power from your engine may require additional cooling needs, which then adds a dependency to what bodywork openings are required. For each change and iteration, there are one or more trade-offs that teams will strategically balance, to meet their overall goals. From a higher level, when and where does one apply resources to improve this year, versus adding additional time and development to next year?

Some of this sound familiar? Speaking within a season, most decisions FRC teams need to make are trade-offs - spend all your time and resources one on part of your robot, and the rest will suffer. Spin a roller too fast or too slow, and you won't acquire a game piece correctly. Teams should balance their resources to best meet their overall robot priorities and requirements. (Other parts of teams should focus on the long game. Someone should write about that...) Most often, the best solution will lie toward the middle of two extremes.

I like race cars.

-B