Team Rembrandts 2023 building season update 2

Kickoff / Reaction Post

Here we go again, Kickoff for Team Rembrandts 10th official season. We are excited to dive into this year’s game and continue the positive momentum from our 2022 season. We will try to keep this thread as up-to-date as possible with posts from multiple subteams and likely a variety of authors.

Right after the reveal webcast, we spent a large portion of the time this weekend reading the manual (RTFM?2), watching the?game reveal video, and watching and re-watching the?field tour videos.

It’s safe to say that it’s about time we get a Pick and Place game after several years of collecting and launching games (though we suspect it’s likely that we will see some teams launching game pieces this year as well). This Pick and Place game, which certainly has similarities to past games, presents its own unique challenges.

Similarities

• Charging Station - reminds us of the 2012 balancing bridge
• Two individual game Pieces - 2019
• Full Field Cycles - 2017 Gear Cycles, 2011 Tube Cycles, ~2013 Frisbee Cycles
• Scoring Locations - 2005 Tetras, 2007 Tubes on the Rack, 2011 Tubes on Pegs

Unique Challenges

• Extension rules and overall extension vs starting configuration
• Tight travel lanes on the field
• Brand new game piece, Traffic Cones

2023 Initial Impressions

Team Kickoff Video

Scoring Breakdown and Skills List

After the first independent read-through of the manual, the team got back together to go over the scoring breakdown for this year's game, and start the robot skills list, the completed list is shown here:

Scoring Locations

Those who followed along with us last season and saw our week 1 robot already know we like to really analyze which scoring objectives are worth it from a points objective. We jokingly talk about doing “the minimum acceptable level of performance” in order to score enough points to win our qualification matches and get those sweet, sweet, Ranking Points (RP). Last year this resulted in us focusing on scoring in the low goal because it was the easier route to increase the volume of scored balls to get the RP and it decreased cycle time as cargo was introduced back onto the field quicker.

We’ve yet to make a final decision on which level to score cubes and cones but have started this analysis process. We were inspired by Pearadox’s scoring chart, but felt that without autonomous scoring also being included it didn’t give us all the information we wanted to know. Unfortunately, this also meant it wasn’t possible to fit it into one simple chart and it became the following 3 charts:

A simple conclusion that can be made from this is that a good autonomous will quickly limit robots that can only score low. Obviously in all cases scoring on a higher level will always lead to more points, but based on the evaluation of our prototypes this week we hope to give better insight into if scoring on a lower level may be able to improve cycle time in a way that leads to higher scoring at the end of the match, either because more links can be made or because enough cycles can be scored to outperform a higher level.

From this came a quick evaluation, if scoring high in autonomous but mid/low in tele-op would be an interesting strategy for us. This led to the following two charts, the first a simple chart documenting how many points it would lead to and the second showing the difference in points between it and scoring mid/low the entire match.

As you can see here, if you don’t reach 3 autonomous cycles there are several situations where scoring mid/lower the entire match outscores scoring high in auto and moving onto mid/lower in tele-op, this is caused by reaching more links.

All of this needs further research but it is a promising start.

Lessons Learned

• This game appears simple on the surface, but the strategy to win may be complex.
• The reach required to score high is deceptively long compared to previous game challenges
• It is not impossible that scoring at a lower level might outperform scoring higher under the right circumstances.

Next Steps

Game Analysis - The Data Driven Design Department (3DM) will be going over the game manual with a fine tooth comb to best understand the game. With an understanding of the game, they will then deep dive into scoring analysis, cycle time analysis, and predict the single robot contribution to win at our Week 1 and 2 events. From there they will help to set the Functional Requirements list for the robot that will be used to down-select prototypes and work towards our robot design for our first events.

Prototyping - The rest of the team will be focused on prototyping and exploring all of the subsystems that we potentially will need for this year’s challenge. At the start, we are not limiting ourselves and the team members are free to explore any aspect of the game they would like. Here is a list of general things we will be exploring:

• Cube collection

1. From Human Player
2. From Floor

• Cone collection

1. From Human Player
2. From Floor Upright
3. From Floor Tipped Over

• Game piece re-orientation
• Telescoping arms
• Rotational arm joints

The Start of Prototyping

You know it’s officially the start of build season when there is no longer a quiet moment in the shop. The chop saw, band saw, lathe, hand tools, and power drill sounds are now filling the air. It’s time to get stuff done, make a bunch of mistakes, and learn as much as we can as fast as possible.

YouTube Playlist of Prototypes

As we make our way through the beginning of the season we will do our best to capture all of our prototypes on video and share them with the FIRST community. We believe that as we learn from our successes (and even more importantly our failures) the community can benefit by following along. For that reason, we have set up our Youtube playlist for the?Build Season 2023 - Robot Development?19.

We hope you enjoy it, and in the world of YouTube … we hope you Like, Comment, and Subscribe!

Notable Prototypes

Here are some of the more notable prototypes so far:

Cone - Dual Axis Star Flipper

Cone - Four Wheels Vertical

Cone - Weed Wacker

Cube - Blue Star Wheels

Lessons Learned

Our prototypes have taught us a great deal so far about the dynamics of the game pieces and how they interact with the wheels and materials we have available in the shop. Additionally, thanks to the field build team we also have the field tape laid out and the field elements have started to be built allowing us to better understand the scale and space on the field. Items of note so far:

• This field is really tight, and the common driving paths will cause a lot of congestion, not only with opponents but also with partners entering, exiting, and playing in the scoring areas
• The cubes are really compressible, and most intakes designed for balls will work on them, it is not necessary to treat them like 2018 cubes.
• We initially tested with a 3D-printed cone, but the tip wasn’t done printing, which caused the unfinished 3D-printed cone to flip easier in front of the robot than the real cone. The real cone needs a significant amount of space in front of the robot if we want to flip it there using an intake mechanism.
• Star wheels and compliant wheels with the outer edge removed have a really good grip on the cones and work great for flipping/intake mechanisms.

Next Steps

We will continue to explore new ideas as we come up with them, and also test ideas we have seen from other teams in Ri3d,?#openalliance, on the FRC Discord server, and here on ChiefDelphi. Additionally, we are working on making higher fidelity prototypes of our most interesting and promising designs, moving them into CAD, with the use of SOLIDWORKS , and having some parts laser cut out of wood by one of our mentors, and from aluminum/steel from one of our partners.

More Prototyping, Yes More

If you’ve been following along, you know we’ve spent all of week 1 working on prototyping while our 3DM (Data Driven Decision Making) team has focused on analysis. To close out the week, here is a recap/spotlight on some of our prototypes.

YouTube Playlist of Prototypes

Remember we post all of our videos directly to our Youtube playlist for the?Build Season 2023 - Robot Development?3. We hope you continue to enjoy, and in the world of YouTube … we hope you Like, Comment, and Subscribe!

Notable Prototypes

Here are some more notable prototypes so far:

Cube - Ri3D Redux Intake

Cone - Ri3D Redux Intake

Cone - Pinch Rollers

Cone - “Verticalizer”

Cone - Pneumatic Pinch With Gravity Rotation

Fun Prototypes

Here are some of the more fun prototypes so far:

Cone - Double Weed Wacker

Cone - Launcher?!

Lessons Learned

Cubes = Balls, enough said on that one.

Cones = One of the most interesting and challenging game pieces we have had.

Next Steps

It’s approaching the time where we start to move from prototyping to living in front of the computer screens. That’s right, it’s time to go from plywood and left over parts to SolidWorks 3D CAD and custom sheet metal and polycarbonate. We will be looking to combine some of our favorite prototypes into a mockup of subsystems on a chassis to get an idea of how it all works together.

Build season 2023 Recap video

Fail fast, learn faster is our motto which is especially true for week 1!

We’ve gained a lot of insight into what concepts work, what isn’t successful, and what the important parameters are for our overall design.

Let’s look back to a very productive but most importantly, a very fun week through our week 1 recap video!

This building season update was written/compiled by:?

Justin Foss ,? Tijn van Bommel & tessel meulepas