MEETING CHAT TEXT
00:48:43 James Newton MassMind.org: It’s been a slow week. Sorry.
01:04:36 James Newton MassMind.org: yeah, a differential drive is a good idea.
01:14:42 James Newton MassMind.org: I’ve made a tiny bit of progress on this old project… new version of it is showing promise. It’s an Arduino / pico IO language to complement systems with an OS that needs to talk to a bunch of devices. Human readable codes to control pins and connected devices… and it’s a tiny programming language as well, for things like feedback loops, sensor processing, alerts, etc…
01:39:17 Estu(“S2”) Ramos: What CAD do you guys use? does FIRST provide you with licenses?
01:39:56 Sohum Gupta: We get an educational license from onshape
01:40:20 Doug Bell: Can you test your design in a simulator that includes a physics engine?
01:41:33 Sohum Gupta: Replying to “Can you test your design in a simulator that includes a physics engine?”
You could, and people have developed similar simulations for optimizing robot pathing, but all of this has generally been very new to FTC so we’ve not tried this out yet
01:43:52 Steven Kaehler: Can the robot expand beyond the 18x18x18 envelope on its own once the contest starts?
01:45:45 Raaghav Komethagan: Yes, the robot must start out inside the box, but after the match, it can expand.
01:47:38 Steven Kaehler: https://pedropathing.com/
01:47:50 James Newton MassMind.org: Reacted to “https://pedropathi…” with 👍
01:50:57 James Newton MassMind.org: I LOVE that focus on Failing Fast! So important and valuable.
01:52:11 Raaghav Komethagan: Thank you!, We also prioritize that since in our experience, you never get the most optimal design first, and failing and learning from that is one of the best ways to gain more knowledge and make better robot designs.
01:52:23 James Newton MassMind.org: Reacted to “Thank you!, We als…” with ❤️
01:54:44 Estu(“S2”) Ramos: you guys are awesome! keep it going!
01:55:03 Sohum Gupta: Reacted to “you guys are awesome! keep it going!” with ❤️
01:55:38 Raaghav Komethagan: Reacted to “you guys are aweso…” with ❤️
01:56:26 Sai Sandhra: Reacted to “you guys are awesome…” with ❤️
01:56:36 Sai Sandhra: Replying to “you guys are awesome…”
Thank you! We really appreciate it!
01:56:44 Steven Kaehler: About how much does a robot like yours cost?
01:56:45 James Newton MassMind.org: The cost is a very difficult part of it. I wish less expensive parts were made available. I hope more automated mfgring in the future lowers costs.
01:58:33 Sohum Gupta: Replying to “About how much does a robot like yours cost?”
Because last season we incorporated more off the shelf parts, our bot was around $1500
01:58:51 Sai Sandhra: Replying to “The cost is a very d…”
Yes! Our parts are mainly from a parts company called GoBilda, but we hope to grow with our CAD skills to allow us to 3D print our parts to make them much cheaper for us. This will also allow us to grow our stem skillset. We can always reuse parts that we can’t manufacture though.
01:59:06 James Newton MassMind.org: Reacted to “Yes! Our parts are…” with 👍
02:02:19 Steven Kaehler: How do you aim the shooter? Do you use vision or other methods to determine distance and height of the target relative to the robot’s position/location?
02:03:43 Steven Kaehler: What were the balls made of?
02:04:52 Raaghav Komethagan: The balls were mostly Plastic, 5 in diameter wiffle balls and our robot could have 3 at a time inside, but the field had more.
02:05:15 Steven Kaehler: https://nextftc.dev/
02:06:24 Doug Bell: What does PIDF stand for? Proportional-Integral-Deriviative-Feed-Forward.
02:06:40 Raaghav Komethagan: Also, many teams use different designs to aim the shooter, we use a limelight 3a camera and code to position our robot toward the shooter, but many teams have shooters that can move around as a turret, and use a limelight camera and other tools to figure out where the robot is on the field, and then control their velocity and distance using that info.
02:07:22 Steven Kaehler: https://limelightvision.io/products/limelight-3a
02:08:09 Raaghav Komethagan: PIDF(Proportional – Integral – Derivative – Feed- Forward) is a control algorithm to move our robot mechanisms with precision
02:10:35 James Newton MassMind.org: Wow thats really cool
02:10:47 Steven Kaehler: Wow! What an amazing outreach!
02:12:45 Steven Kaehler: What is the typical FTC competition timeline (contest announcement to robot completion)?
02:12:47 Raaghav Komethagan: Thanks! We try to make an impact as much as possible, and help kids learn and get the opportunity to even learn what Robotics is, since often, they don’t even get the chance to learn what these things are. Seeing the kids send us videos of their robots working and winning competitions makes us feel like we are actually improving our community and motivates us to do more.
02:13:07 Sohum Gupta: Replying to “What does PIDF stand for?”
Proportional Integral Derivative Feedforward Controller
02:14:27 Sohum Gupta: Replying to “What is the typical FTC competition timeline (contest announcement to robot completion)?” [SDK: September to January and beyond].
FTC challenge gets announced every September, and we compete in multiple league meets (around 16 teams per league) from November-December. After that, competitions starts in late January.
02:14:38 Sohum Gupta: Replying to “What is the typical FTC competition timeline (contest announcement to robot completion)?” Worlds happens mid April.
02:14:42 Steven Kaehler: Do the robot operators wear VR headsets?
02:15:49 Raaghav Komethagan: No, but that would be cool. We just use controllers to control our robots and a driving coach. A person on our team helps the 2 drivers drive and tells them what to do on the field.
02:16:25 Steven Kaehler: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/garage/about/
02:18:40 Steven Kaehler: Can the driver helper(s) sit around the side of the contest arena or does everyone need to stay on the same end?
02:20:36 Raaghav Komethagan: So the driver coach/helper stays with the drivers on the side of the field, and the rest of the team cannot be on the field, only the 2 drivers and the coach can be on the field during the match. Everyone else has to be on the bleachers or somewhere outside.
02:32:40 Steven Kaehler: https://firstwa.org/
02:33:37 James Newton MassMind.org: I gotta run thanks, for sharing!
02:33:48 Sohum Gupta: Reacted to “I gotta run, thanks for sharing!” with ❤️