In RAPID REACT presented by The Boeing Company, two competing alliances are invited to process
cargo for transportation. Each alliance is assigned a cargo color (red or blue, based on alliance affiliation)
to process by retrieving their assigned cargo and scoring it into the hub. Human players assist the cargo
retrieval and scoring efforts from within their terminals. In the final moments of each match, alliance
robots race to engage with their hangar to prepare for transport!
Each match begins with a 15-second autonomous period, during which time alliance robots operate only
on pre-programmed instructions to score points by:
• taxiing from their tarmac and
• retrieving and scoring their assigned cargo into the hub.
In the final 2 minutes and 15 seconds of the match, drivers take control of the robots and score points by:
• continuing to retrieve and score their assigned cargo into the hub and
• engaging with their hangar.
The alliance with the highest score at the end of the match wins!
Our Robot – Something Completely Different
Due to the omicron spike we were unable to go to the robotics workshop for the first month of the competition. Nevertheless, we were able to produce an effective robot, whose main goal was to shoot as many balls as possible. Shooting balls is the most effective to score points, and also secure the ranking point for scoring twenty balls.
The intake for our robot uses mecanum wheels to pull the ball into the center of the robot, after which two rows of squishy wheels pull the ball into the robot’s hopper. At the crux of our robot is our rotating hopper chamber which is made from three pairs of carbon fiber rings mounted onto four carbon fiber rods. Attached to these rings are three shafts that run our belts. The top and bottom axles are live shafts connected to a motor, while the middle acts as a passive shaft. Our compact hopper design stems from our inability to freely prototype a consistent high goal shooter. Because of this limitation, we wanted to guarantee that our robot could consistently score the low goal while also leaving room to evolve into a high goal shooter. At our shooter’s apex, the flywheels rest close to the lip of the low goal shot in order to increase our odds of hitting the shot.
Taking into account our limited ability to prototype designs this year and our analysis of the game, we decided that our time would be best spent designing a reliable shooter mechanism instead of a complex high or traversal rung climber. However, we proactively incorporated adjustability in our design to support the possible addition of an additional climbing mechanism later in the build season.
Our main mid-rung climber consists of two telescoping arms positioned over the robot’s center of gravity. Each telescoping arm consists of three stages made of square aluminum box tubing: the bottom stage is 2 in. x 2 in., the middle stage is 1½ in. x 1½ in., and the top stage is 1 in. x 1 in. The tops of the bottom and middle stages are attached to carriages containing constant force springs. The free ends of the springs on a particular stage are bolted onto the bottoms of the next stage, such that when a higher stage is pushed down into a lower stage, the springs apply a constant upward force to the higher stage. Attached at the apex of the final stage is a hook consisting of a central 3D printed block and two carbon fiber plates. The entire climber is mounted onto a mounting plate, which contains two rows of ¼ in. holes spaced ½ in. apart for adjustable mounting onto the chassis. This adjustability allowed us to mount the climber directly over the robot’s center of gravity after approximating its position with a fulcrum, ensuring that our robot can hang in a stable neutral position.
NYC Regional 2022 – Semifinals; won the Industrial Design Award presented by General Motors
NYC Offseason Event @ John Dewey HS 2022 – WINNERS!!!
RobotCode2022-20221223T214523Z-001 – Robot Code for 2022
2022 – CAD for our RAPID REACT Robot
2023 – CAD(s) for offseason projects (prior to 2023 season)