Robotics

Students take the game challenges and break them into individual tasks and movements that the robot must complete to accomplish goals such as shooting balls, picking up blocks, and placing game pieces. These become the robot subsystems and mechanisms are then designed in mechanical design CAD tools to prepare them for manufacturing and assembly.

Students build prototypes and test out different approaches to solve the game challenges. The results of this work are fed back to the mechanical design team to refine the designed parts. Finished designs are machined and assembled using a combination of CNC machine tools and hand tools before being assembled on the robot. 

Students use software development tools found in many technology companies to implement real-time control of the robot mechanisms. Motors must be controlled to provide driving functionality based on an autonomous program or driver input. Game pieces are manipulated through a combination of motors spinning flywheels or pneumatic cylinders to move them through the robot or shoot at a goal. The robot must perform tasks without intervention from a human operator during an autonomous phase of a match, and this is a key responsibility for the software team. The software team also works with vision detection and autonomous path driving algorithms.

The team’s marketing group handles communications with the school, team sponsors and the FRC community. They also document the team’s events and accomplishments with photos and videos for team promotions and recruitment, social media, team website and blogs. 

This is where things get exciting. The FIRST Robotics Competition is a Sport for the Mind, where the rigors of science and technology come together with the excitement of a sporting event. Each FRC competition is a meeting of more than 50 teams over three days in an alliance-based format. Each alliance of three teams works together in a match play format to solve the challenges of picking up/placing/or shooting game pieces faster than the opposing alliance. Matches only last a few minutes and are high intensity due to the limited time for scoring points.