History & Traditions

Game Summary

Robots raced counterclockwise laps around the field while herding trackballs over an overpass. Each lap was worth 2 points, trackballs scored 8 points when knocked off the overpass. At the end of the match teams earned 12 points for trackballs positioned on the overpass.

D-Fence 3.0

After much discussion about whether or not to have our robot go fast and score points by racing around the track, or to have it hurdle the trackballs, the team finally came up with a “compromise” robot. It was designed to be a very fast robot, but have the ability to herd and lift the balls up to score at the end of a match. The robot base was custom designed to fit our needs. It had six wheels, with the middle two offset a little, to make turning easier. The axle that the arm was on is a double axle, meaning that there were two axles, one going through the middle of the other. The outer axle rotated the manipulator at the bottom, through capstons and cables. The inner one raised the whole arm. The manipulator made use of a four-bar linkage allowing the wrist to stay parallel to the ground no matter how far up or down the whole arm moved. That way, the trackball wouldn’t fall off while the robot was placing it on the overpass. The claw was not mechanized, the robot would scoop the ball up and the claw would cup it.

D-Fence 3.1

At the competition the team discovered that the “claw” designed to hold the trackball often got in the way when the robot was screaming around the track or going through tight spaces since the claw was wider than the robot. It was also found that, since there were only two trackballs and our partners’ robots would often be able to handle the trackballs better than us, our mechanism for herding and placing balls was never used. A decision was made to cut off the claw and to allow better agility. The ping pong balls were moved from the end of the claw to the remaining parts of it to make it look like antenae.

D-Fence 3.2

After some experience at the competition, and observing other robot designs, the team felt it was advantageous to add “pin wheels”. To do this the arm was completely removed and the double axle was repurposed to raise and lower the pin wheels. The point was to be able to knock balls down from the overpass, allowing us to either keep our opponents from scoring at the end of a match, or to gain points by knocking a ball down during the hybrid period. The “pin wheels” would hit a bar of the overpass, spin, and knock a ball down.

D-Fence 3.3

At our first off-season competition, BattleCry, the robot was beat up pretty bad in a match. As a result, our chassis was bent out of shape. The robot couldn’t even be driven because the bent part got in the way of the chains connecting each wheel. To prevent this damage from happening again, the team put a metal bar in front of the indent left from where when the manipulator was. A bumper was also added to the front, which was, by accident, painted upside down.