Team History - 2011

For RAVEN Robotics 2011 has been a year of growth and stability. This year we once again met at Francis Howell North High School with Mr. Krueger as our school sponsor, however, this year Mr. Stemmermann re-joined the team as a school sponsor after his leave in 2007. In addition to gaining Mr. Stemmermann as a mentor, we also gained two more mentors from Boeing: Tom Brandt and David Harmon, as well as Jon Faulkner coming back to the team as a college Mentor. The team also grew in size due to gaining new students from all the schools in our district. We became more organized than ever thanks to extra meetings and planning. Max Mulholand took over as student president, and David Chapman took over the vice presidency. Dana Faulkner, sister of John Faulkner, took the Secretary's position and Andrea kept her position as the Treasurer. Although the 2011 season is not over yet it has been a ton of fun and we hope to do well at the St.Louis Regional and the newly moved St. Louis Championship.

The Game

Logo Motion is FIRST's 2011 game that, as always, is awesome and full of references. The game is a throwback to the 2007 FRC game Rank N' Roll where 6 robots on 2 alliances compete to manipulate and place inner tubes on pegs to score points. The main difference between these two is that this year the scoring pegs are on each alliances wall. Also the inner tubes this year come in triangles, circles, and rectangles as a reference to the FIRST logo. This part of the game honors Jack Kamen who designed the FIRST logo.

The field for Logo Motion is largely open with very few objects cluttering it. The majority of the action takes place on each alliances' wall. Each alliance wall has two walls of pegs. Each section of pegs on the wall has 3 poles with three pegs each jutting out at different heights. The higher you place an inner tube the more points it is worth. For example, an inner tube placed on the high peg is worth 3 points while the low peg is only worth 1 point. If you manage to make the FIRST logo (Triangle, Circle, Square) in that order on the same height, those pegs' values are doubled; thus encouraging precise inner tube placement. Inner tubes are entered into the field via a tube feeder station in a lane on the opposite side of the alliances' wall. Tubes can be thrown in to be picked up off the floor so the robots do not have to travel as far, or feed directly to the robot at the feeder station.

As always, autonomous mode, while option, is bunches of fun. In this mode robots can come pre-loaded with an Ubertube which is a yellow circle that when placed will give double the normal point value of any peg it is placed on. For example, an Ubertube placed on the top peg is worth 6 points (3pts * 2). In addition to these autonomous mode points if you manage to place another normal tube in front of the Ubertube that piece will get doubled points as well! This can lead to high numbers of points if the FIRST logo is made with Ubertubes behind it.

As customary in FRC games there is a way to earn extra points in the last 10 seconds of the game. This year there are towers in the center of the field. Robots can deploy smaller robots from their main robot. These smaller robots, called mini-bots, are made from FTC parts and must be designed to attach to the pole on the tower and race up. The winner of this race receives the most points by reaching the top first. Any robot that hits the top before the game is over receives points. The point breakdown is below for what place you make:

1. 30 points
2. 20 points
3. 15 points
4. 10 points

The field also has lots of colored reflective tape on the field so robots can track their movements if they choose to using line tracing sensors. The entire game animation video explaining much of the game's details and rules can be seen below:

Our Robot

Although our 2011 robot has yet to compete it is ready to rock! The majority of the robot is taken up by our large arm with two points of articulation. It can bend at both the base (the shoulder) and the middle (the elbow). The wrist of the arm cannot articulate, but it does have an aluminum gripper for picking up inner tubes. This gripper is similar to the talon of a real raven. We designed this arm so it can do anything. We can easily score on any of the pegs, as well as pick up inner tubes from the ground or be feed them directly. The arm is powered by 4 window motors at various points so we did not have to use heavy pneumatics.

This robot is armed to the teeth with sensors to aid our drivers. Potentiometers are on the shoulder and elbow of the arm to measure where the arm is. This allows us, with the help of some creative programming, to hit a button to go to specific heights so we can score faster! We also have line sensors on the bottom of our robot to aid us in movement during autonomous mode. Lastly we have sonic sensors on the side to help us align to the tower at the end to deploy our mini bot.

In addition to our awesome arm we have a simple mini-bot deployment system that deploys from the side via stored energy in bungee cords released via a small fisher price motor. We also used a drive system almost identical to last year's robot with mecanum wheels. This year we used 6" mecanum wheels instead of the 8" mecanum wheels we used last year to save weight. This combined with 1/16" aluminium use on the the arm saved us in the weight department and we came in far below the maximum weight (120lbs.) at around 105lbs.

An interesting thing about our design this year is that we built this arm in parallel to a lift. When push came to shove and we had to attach a mechanism, the arm was further along so we had to use the arm. The lift may be used in the future however so don't be surprised if you see it on another one of our robots.

This is also our first robot to feature a ton of cosmetic additions to make our robot look classy. The most impressive addition was under glow. 180 purple LED lights glow brightly under our robot to make our robot look good while we do well. The robot is also surrounded in plexi-glass that was spray painted purple with our sponsors' names in white on top. The vinyl lettering was supplied by Stone's Signs. Along the forearm of the arm we put purple plexiglass that the team signed in white. Last year we signed the robot's top after competition and to continue this trend we signed this 2011 robot, but this time before competition to show off everyone's hard work during competition.

Although our 2011 robot has yet to compete we have practiced with it and are ready to score some points!

More Media

Even though the 2011 season may not be over we still have tons of media from it for you to check out. Just head over to the 2011 section of our Gallery. Don't be surprised if you find a few YouTube videos in there as well.