Team 2658 Σ-Motion

As we enter the second week, we have been designing the main structure of this year’s robot. Working over the week and going into the weekend, we’ve made many sketches and calculations along with dimensioning and optimizing the alignment of mechanisms. Starting from the base up, we have the drivetrain. This year we have decided to use a Tank Drive because this fast pace game challenges us to have speed in our driving rather than accuracy. We saw many advantages to a Tank Drive than a Swerve drive in that testing a swerve drive would be very risky for our software team. We have never used a Swerve Drive for our robots before, although arguably useful, the better alternative is the Tank Drive. Additionally, our drivers are already familiar with the controls that accompany it. This simple design allows us to maximize the spacing on a 29.5x29.5 square inch drivetrain and reduces the spacing issue we’ve had in the past between mechanisms and electrical designing.                            

What better way to start the first week of the season, than to start with a full week of finals! Even with finals on our schedules, we have worked after school to prototype, design, build, and test potential mechanisms that we may implement this season. As the week progressed, we prototyped, worked on essays, and surfed the internet for new ideas and other feedback. Our build team has completed a vast majority of the practice field. It was great to see the Upper and Lower Hubs completed. On the same day, we finished building a shooter prototype so we were able to extensively test that in terms of compression and angle adjustment. As we prototype, we start to hold multiple design reviews. In these critical design reviews, we essentially have broken down profiles and ideas of the soon-to-be robot. Making sure we follow guidelines from our season-strategy priority list, we take into consideration the benefits and necessary improvements our robot must have this year to compete vigorously i

Day two of the season went by in the blink of an eye. Great discussions were made, and our priority list started to finalize. Finishing off day two and starting day three, here’s a recap of what happened. Our build team worked hard to finish most of the practice field. The Hangar Zone has practically been completed, but some minor adjustments for the Low Rung still need to be made. As we continue to vigorously work, we will hopefully see the whole Hub and Terminal Area finished in the next couple of days. Thanks again to build for getting our practice field done. Now, we can better visualize as we begin prototyping.                 With our priority list finalized after day two, our team has done much research and looked into shooting in the Lower Hub this season. Having to understand that point values are very valuable this season, we think that there is much value in having a fast cycle time, so targeting the Lower Hub would best meet our needs. In terms of the game and how we want t

Time for Season Welcome back! The season has started. Everyone has been so excited for this 2022 season and our team has been anticipating this game for quite a while. As we wrapped up off-season training over the past few weeks, our team closed out 2021 with 2 off-season competition wins, and a 7th place in the recent 11th F4 Cad-a-thon . Closing up the off-season, today was a special moment for our team - finally getting to have a season in over a year! The Winter Cad-a-thon took us to new heights. Great job to our designers for accomplishing such a feat. It was not an easy task, having to model the full robot in the course of a week! Nonetheless, placing 7th out of the 45 teams that competed has been our best record yet. Our team number was 566, instead of our FRC 2658, and the name was Σ-motion's Uprising. It was good practice and overall a fun competition to take part in.   Meanwhile, all of our other subteams have been busy finishing up their curriculums and learning the most