Innovation / Team 190

“introduction of new things or methods”

Why “reinvent the wheel”?

• Gives team a sense of ownership

• Intellectually stimulating!

• Occasionally very successful

How to be Innovative!

• It’s about creativity more than invention– Old things in new ways– Requires input diversity

• Be a risk-taker– Believe that success is about meeting team

goals, not about tournament wins

• Challenge team to think “out-of-the-box”

Team 190 Methodology

• Establish team goals– Earning “WOW!” praise typically ranks

much higher than winning tournaments

• Challenge team to develop something so effective that FIRST outlaws it next season!

• Start each season with a clean sheet of paper

Example: FRC 2004

“MOH Goat’s 15 seconds of Autonomous Glory”

Autonomous Problem to Solve

• Robot had to:– Drive to stairs– Raise hook (probe)– Up the stairs– Around the goal– To the center of

platform– Winch up– Hook on bar

KSD – Kamen Straddling Device

Pre-start

• Initial alignment set with LAD – Laser Aiming Device

• Speed 40 – to avoid jerk on motor start

• Drive for 0.5 sec• EDL Engaged

EDL – Electronic Differential Lock

Closed – drives straight Opened – allows turns

Long Run to Stairs

• Speed 127 (full speed). Remember: only 15 seconds for this trick

• Driving until 18” ultrasonic distance

• EDL Engaged

Ultrasonic Rangefinder

Gets distance for autonomous drive to the platforms

Just Before Stairs

• Slow down to 40 getting ready for stairs

• Probe starts to go up

• Drive about 3’

Going up Stairs

• EDL engaged• Probe still going up• Drives at 40 for

duration• Ultrasonic and

wheel encoders unreliable here

• Driving with one wheel in mid-air

Canted Wheels

Can drive with two wheels off the platform but only rests on outer wheels normally for turning ease

On the Platform

• Drives forward at 40 until 5’ ultrasonic distance

• Probe still going up

• EDL disengages

Around the Goal

• Turn -40 degrees (depends on field side)

• Drives for fixed distance using encoders

• Ultrasonic unreliable because of angle

Wheel Encoders for Distance

Homemade and worked pretty well – we’ve sincestarted bought optical encoders and gear-tooth sensors

Straighten out

• Turns back to 0 degrees (straight)

• Speed of 30

• Drives for distance using encoders

• Probe going up

Drive to Platform

• Slow down to 20 driving for short duration (approaching platform)

• Probe fully extended by now, “tensionometer” for feedback

Tensionometer

White spectra cord is extending cable, steel braid is lifting cable

Catch Hook on Bar

• Drive motors off

• Probe starts going down to engage bar

• Triggered by time

Winch Up and Drive

• Start robot going up

• Drive motors forward speed 20 to help robot go over 6” step

• Gyro mounted vertically senses robot swing

Winch up

• Sequence of running winch up is complex in itself– Operate anti-back

drive device– Sense latching on

bar– Slow motor– Allow back drive

and lower robot on hooks

Winch with Anti-backdrive

Ratcheting action on going up and servo-retractable, sensor-equipped pin to allow the robot to lower onto hooks

Touch Sensors for Hooks

Sensed when hooks were opened by approaching pull-up bar.

Then sensed when both hooks were closed AND bar was at bottom of slot: SAFE TO BACKDRIVE WINCH TO TAKE LOAD OFF CABLE

The code(for the programming geeks)

• Goals:– Multiple autonomous modes– Flexibility to make quick changes– Not have to debug code for each mode

• Solution:– Make a table-driven solution– Each table entry was a different

autonomous set (node)

Autonomous Node

• Each node (table entry) represents a single step

• Nodes have motor and sensor values

• Nodes have triggers to go to the next step

typedef struct _AutonNode

{

      int Distance;

      int Bearing;

      int Speed;

      unsigned int Duration;

      int DesiredShoulderPosition;

      int DesiredWristPosition

      int DesiredExtenderPosition;

      int DesiredTurretPosition;

      unsigned char Flags;

      unsigned int Trigger;

      char *Name;

} AutonNode_;

Program

• An array of nodes makes up one autonomous program

• There was an array of arrays (pointers) for multiple autonomous programs

Summary• Never won a tournament • But…a team favorite—won 20 awards

– Engineering Inspiration Award (BAE)– Xerox Creativity Award (Arizona)– Xerox Creativity Award (The Championship)– Fastest Hanging Robot (Wonderland's FIRST

Robotic Competition) – Best Autonomous Award (Wonderland's FIRST

Robotic Competition) – Finalist (Mayhem on the Merrimack) – Leadership in Controls Award (IRI) – President’s Award (IRI)– Plus 12 peer awards from other teams!

Questions?