Robot in the Bag!!

Team 980 wrapped up (literally!) our build season last night, putting our 2014 robot in the bag:

Robot_in_Bag

Before sealing the bag, we ran some tests with the robot and did a “fit-check” of our catapult mechanism on the competition robot. Here’s a photo of the robot before removing the catapult hardware:

Robot_with_Ball

We will continue to work on the catapult and deliver it to competition as part of our withholding allowance. The catapult is designed to attach to the robot very easily, so we should be competition-ready on inspection day for the Inland Empire Regional (Feb 28 – Mar 2)

Go Team 980!!

2014 Robot Design!

Here’s a CAD rendering of the mechanical design of FRC Team 980’s 2014 robot:

FRC980_2014_Robot_CAD

The catapult is driven by two sets of compression springs housed in the green tubes. A van door motor drives the catapult winch, which is engaged/released by an idler gear driven by a pneumatic piston. The ball pick-up roller is shown in red (design inspired by Team 16’s 2008 robot). The electronics, battery and pneumatics (not shown) are housed in a “belly pan” mounted to the chassis frame below the ball. The robot has a very low center-of-gravity and has plenty of weight margin (and provisions for mounting ballast below the chassis frame).