Pluto, named after the well known animated dog, is Team 484’s 2019 robot. Taking inspiration from previous robots this robot featured a cascading elevator and west coast drive, like CubeBert (’18), and a near-replica of Fluffy’s (’14) ball intake. The robot also featured numerous custom 3D printed parts including: bearing blocks, a two-sided camera mount, and a linear slide. Pluto’s ball intake pushed game pieces through the middle of the cascading elevator and into the the end-effector used to store and shoot balls into goals. This end-effector also included a pneumatic grabber to pick up “hatch panels” from the human player station and attach them to the “rocket ship”. With the help of quadrature encoders and computer vision systems, the process of picking up and deploying hatch panels was completely automated.
DESTINATION: DEEP SPACE, Presented By The Boeing Company, was the 2019 FRC Challenge. In this challenge, we join two competing ALLIANCES collecting samples on Planet Primus. Unpredictable terrain and weather patterns make remote ROBOT operation essential to their mission on the planet. With only 2:30 until liftoff, the ALLIANCES must gather as many CARGO pods as possible and prepare their spaceships before the next SANDSTORM arrives. T-minus 2:30: A SANDSTORM limits DRIVER visibility so ROBOTS independently follow pre- programmed instructions or are operated by human DRIVERS via video from their stations. ALLIANCES score points by:
- 1. Deploying ROBOTS from Habitat (HAB)
- 2. Preparing ROCKETS and CARGO SHIP with HATCH PANELS
- 3. Loading CARGO pods into their ROCKETS and CARGO SHIP
- Preparing ROCKETS and CARGO SHIP with HATCH PANELS
- Loading more CARGO pods
- Returning the ROBOT safely to the ALLIANCE’s HAB