The 2019 FRC challenge, Deep Space, had a space theme in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Alliances scored points by placing hatch panels on the sides of cargo ships or rockets. Hatch panels must be placed first to score cargo inside the cargo ships and rockets. Unlike previous games, the first 15 seconds were called the sandstorm rather than the autonomous, because human drivers could control the robot directly to score points with limited visibility. At the end of the game, alliances could score points by climbing their habitat (HAB) zones.
Our build strategy was to create a low-scoring robot with a focus on hatch panels, capable of achieving a third-level climb in the endgame. This was because of two main reasons: firstly, hatch panels were required to score cargo. Secondly, the rocket ship ranking point (requiring high goals) would likely be very difficult for any robot to achieve, either by themselves or with their entire alliance. The climbing ranking point would require only one other alliance member to reach the first-level climb (an easily achievable task by any functioning robot), as long as one alliance member was capable of a third level climb. By focusing on low goals and the third-level climb, we could maximize the number of points and ranking points as efficiently as possible.
In the end, our robot (Onyx) had a hatch panel intake powered by a rotary piston, with a cargo chute that allowed us to score both hatch panels and cargo into all the low goals. The two scoring mechanisms were mounted on a lead screw that was synced up with a bicycle cable, and automatically adjusted with a limelight camera. The first iteration of our robot had a third-level climb powered by four lead screws, which were then changed to four pistons.
- Our robot was named Onyx this year in honor of the Markforged Onyx, the 3D printer that allowed for an incredible amount of flexibility to our designs this year. The horizontal lead screw on our robot mimics the lead screws of the 3D printer, and the hatch panel intake is almost entirely constructed of 3D-printed parts.
Hudson Valley Regional at Rockland Community College, Suffern, NY, March 22th-24th:
Despite our consistent and speedy hatch panel placement and cargo scoring, we placed rank 31 at the Hudson Valley Regional. Throughout the course of the game, we worked to tune our third-level lead screw climb, which we found was taking about 30 seconds to complete, a speed far too inefficient to be effective. We hoped that by continuing to modify our climb and reaching the third level during qualifications, we could continue to score ranking points. Unfortunately, we did not make it to playoffs, but we did win the Creativity Award and a better idea for the climb in the NYC Regional.
New York City Regional at Armory Track, New York, NY, April 5th-7th:
After the Hudson Valley Regional, we decided that the lead screw climb was far too inefficient for our purposes. Instead, we considered a piston-powered climb, which we believed could work far more instantaneously. We replaced the lead screw climb with the piston climb during practice day, then split our time in the pit between maxing the efficiency of our scoring with fine-tuning our new climb. During matches, we could consistently score a hatch panel during the sandstorm and ~8 game pieces per match. Unfortunately, the new piston climb had issues with extending all the pistons at the same time, so we attempted to correct it by using our robot’s gyroscope to send bursts of air where the pistons’ extensions were lacking.
Although our climb was not perfectly tuned by playoffs, our consistent scoring and powerful defense (courtesy of our team’s iconic swerve drive) landed us a spot on the 4th seeded alliance, with teams 1880, the Warriors of East Harlem, and team 354, the G-House Pirates! We won against the 5th seeded alliance in quarterfinals, but then suffered defeat against the 1st seeded alliance in semifinals. Nevertheless, we won the Innovation in Control Award for our unique lead screw mechanisms, our signature swerve drive, and our custom joystick.
Onyx’s reveal video:
Onyx scoring seven game pieces and avoiding defense during qualification match 41, at the NYC Regional: