Context:
For the 2023 FIRST Robotics Competition game, Charged Up, robots were tasked with collecting and placing cubes and cones (as can be seen in the background of the photo below) onto a three-level platform. During the first 15 seconds, the robots are allowed to operate autonomously and earn more points than when they are operated by a human. In the last seconds of the game, robots can go to a teeter-totter platform and gain more points if they balance it out.
Shown below was the robot my team and I came up with.
Concept:
The robot's main intake system is an arm that sits at the trapezoidal cut-out at bottom of the robot. In this idle mode, the wheels spin until they intake either a cone or cube. Once the cargo is picked up, the arm rotates around the top of the robot to lift up or down. In the middle, there is a motor to extend it forward or retract it back. The bright camera at the side is used for computer vision processing, as the game field had QR codes for position tracking and coordination.
Electrical:
I was responsible for configuring the DC brushless motors with their respective motor controllers over the CAN bus. I debugged all communications issues and troubleshooted our firmware. I also wired all our electrical components, including pneumatics, the LED signaling system on the side of the robot, and the wireless router.
Programming:
I fine-tuning PID coefficients for the drive train and putting in a feed-forward loop to better control the robot through code for the autonomous period. I also made a control loop for the extension-retraction motor at the top.
