Introduction
The preseason of Robotics is an extended time period that provides training for the team along with important skill building, strategy development, and testing. During this time, the team focuses on improving their skills in CAD modeling, manufacturing, code development, and branding.
Each of our team's departments has been working on specific skills related to their field. In the design and manufacturing department, the team modeled robot parts in a CAD program and stocked inventory for the upcoming build season. Meanwhile, the software team worked on modifying and adjusting the code of a smaller robot to simulate and learn coding for the team's future robot.
The Team
The Charge robotics team is an award-winning team at Cherokee High School that competes in the FIRST Robotics Competition. The team consists of three major departments, Design & Fabrication, Software, and Branding & Marketing. Each of these departments works toward a common goal of designing, fabricating, and programming a competitive robot. Close collaboration between these departments helps to ensure the team’s overall success by making sure that each department is communicating with the rest to achieve success within each department.
The Departments
Software:
The focus of the software team is to build usable code that will run for the robot during the main build season. Within software, the two main modes of operating the robot are teleoperated and autonomous. Teleoperated mode consists of code for allowing the user to control the robot with a remote control. Autonomous mode consists of code that allows the robot to carry out tasks based on the code.
There were various different systems that we have been working on. These systems include an automated timer in the robot that can control movements identifying the range of an object and responding to that using inbuilt sensors. The team has also been working on changing the color of the LED lights incorporated into the larger robot. The team has also worked on moving the robot a specific distance.
These projects build skills as well as learning problem solving, cooperation, and important skills that will be needed in the future. In this type of environment there are bound to be challenges. Most of these were errors in code and getting them adjusted. However, there were some errors that required getting parts and other external issues. Due to the preseason, this will help the team in software for learning valuable code, problem solving, and other important features that will help the team and make an easier transition into the main build season.
Design and Fabrication:
The responsibility of the Design and Fabrication department is very important for the robot. In design, parts for the robot are modeled and are sent to Lenape High School or a shop that produces custom-made parts. The fabrication team is also vital due to their role which is to actually build the robot and is a very hands-on position.
Design:
Our team has been working on overall improving our CAD modeling skills. We have been remodeling the entire robot from scratch, making a one-to-one replica of our robot from the 2022 season. Remodeling allows the team to grow and improve the skills that will be necessary for the build season. Design also gives a vision for the final product and any future changes. Additionally, this gives support for the Fabrication team.
There has been a large improvement since last year in the design team and thus has resulted in less errors. Additionally with replicating parts this does not create a lot of problems. However, only a few such as fixing CAD errors but nothing major that caused an issue. CAD modeling is very important and to get a fundamental foundation is very useful and will ultimately improve the build season process.
Fabrication:
Our Fabrication team has been working on managing inventory, wiring and rewiring swerve drive modules to gain a better understanding of how they work. Exploring this type of drivetrain can be very helpful in the build season, as it allows us to choose from different drivetrains. The fabrication team is also taking apart and rebuilding different subsystems to understand how they work, and can be used.
Collaboration
In the software department, team members split up into teams to work on getting the XRP robot to execute basic commands. Additionly, in the Technical group there are multiple people from various groups collaborating such as software and Design and Fabrication
Growth
The software team was able to use a small robot called XRP to practice the programming language known as Java. This allowed the team to learn new skills and grow the ones they had in order to use them to program the FRC robot for the competition. These skills will be used during the length of the competition as the main robot will use similar code.
The Impact
The team has made major growth since the beginning of the preseason. Gaining these technical skills will ultimately help us in the future and allow us to get involved with the main robot. The software team has been able to use its new found skill with sensors, controlling autonomous and teleoperated mode, and problem solving skills when building the new robot as it will operate under similar commands. Some lessons we have learned from this experience is to make sure everything is plugged into the right socket, the battery has watts energy, and to recheck program code.
