Swept Away Challenge

For our third challenge in the robotics course, we were tasked to build a remote-controlled robot to compete on the “Swept Away” field, hence making a robot that will throw or push foam balls into the opponent's side to earn points. The goals of this challenge were to learn how to make a remote-controlled robot and to learn to make a robot for a specific, dynamic purpose.

Below is an image of how our robot looks like:

As seen above, our robot had four wheels that allow it to move at a fast pace to obtain the balls in each corner of the field. The claw is specially built to have a long chassis so that upon lifting the ball over the robot, the chassis will extend over the wall in the field, hence allowing the balls to enter in my opponent's field, thus with a long channel, there it is more efficient as it saves time as we didn't need to move the robot so close to the wall in order to throw the foam balls over. In addition, the claw that is attached to the end of the channel has several steel plates & rails attached together. The thin metal rails are responsible for the scooping motion of the claw, allowing the balls to fall inside the claw which is supported with the steel plate and is then used to lift the ball in the claw to be thrown over to the opponent's field. Furthermore, the steel plates are also responsible in helping our robot to push the foam balls through the holes in the metal walls in case of a situation in which lifting the foam balls is a struggle. To help aid with the lifting of the claw, we incorporated a simple gear train, a big gear against a smaller gear which helped carry the foam balls off the ground through the claw.

In terms of programming, we incorporated a program in which allowed the robot to move accordingly by using the joystick on the VEX controller and by clicking the buttons in the left portion of the controller such as the “R” button which lifts the claw, and the “U” which lowers down the claw. The program is first downloaded to the controller which can be done by following these commands:

Go to Robot > Download Firmware > VEXnet Joystick Firmware and select Standard File to download the latest VEXnet Joystick Firmware to the controller.

   

Once the Download Progress window closes, the VEXnet Joystick Firmware download is complete. We then moved on to the next section to create a wireless link between the VEXnet Joystick and VEX Cortex. To do this, we tethered the USB port on the VEXnet Joystick to the USB port on the Cortex using a USB A-to-A cable. Then, we powered the Cortex ON. After a few seconds, ROBOT and VEXnet LEDs will blink green, indicating that the Cortex and VEXnet Joystick have successfully paired. After this, we inserted the VEXnet USB Keys into both the VEXnet Joystick and Cortex. The next step was then to power the Cortex and Joystick ON. After roughly 15 seconds, the ROBOT and VEXnet LED’s will blink green, indicating that the VEXnet communication link has been established. Hence, our VEXnet Joystick and VEX Cortex were able to communicate over the VEXnet USB Keys.