2024 End of Season Meeting Notes

Intro

• reminder about U-M robotics event
• Need to clean up - too much stuff in the hallway
  • other options in PLTW Lab

things that went well/improved fom 2023

• robot was built and basically worked
• replaced a swerve drive unit in a few minutes
  • pit team
  • software team

Lessons Learned from 2024 season

Competitions

• spirit award
  • mascot
  • chants/cheering
• Impact (training at middle schools lets you shortcut the entry to states)
  • but it's a really big time committment
• other awards at competitions can get you district points
  • awards
    • innovation in control
    • autonomous
    • engineering excellence
    • engineering inspiration
    • industrial design
  • But is the only way to win these to place well in the competition?
    • better known teams tend to get it
    • good communications with the judges
      • should get our team story straight before we talk to the judges
        • consistent messaging
        • don't talk much about things you don't know, but DO know who to talk to about that topic
      • tech binders to present
      • know your strengths - talk about these particular things with the judges
• have a packing list
  • keep track of it
  • update it every year
    • spares
    • special tools
  • use it every year
  • github long term wiki space?
• have spares
  • ESPECIALLY if we design a sacrificial piece into the design
  • swerve

Marketing

• buttons
• WAPUR table - what's the idea?
  • outreach table
• market to the judges

more testing

• issue at belleville with canspark maxes with inversion due to config

  • could have been caught during testing!

• could've caught issues with intake at lansing - belt

• Set goals for testing (10x matches?)

• if we were really ready for kettering, we would have caught issues

• in between matches?

• we weren't ready because we didn't build the robot in time/follow schedule

• schedule wasn't enforced/adjusted based on progress

  • better status checks
  • add more build time earlier in the schedule?
  • move people around (mentors and team)

• Can we test at Huron?

• more people involved in design in the beginning

  • pick a single CAD platform

software/drive

• this year we used the same laptops for softwrae and the drive team
• but it wasn't a team laptop and we didn't all know the password
• Didn't have all the required tools on the laptop
  • tools to troubleshoot the Pi
  • Driver Station 2024

organization

• someone in charge of check in and out

design

• we didn't think enough about the limitations of our design
• what are the risks of this robot concept?
  • what are the risks of this particular element of the design?
  • the out of bumper intake was a high risk
  • we talked about this risk during original review, but we didn't follow through with everything that needed to happen to manage that risk
• it was really useful to be able to shoot from distance

strategy

• what does the kitbot do?
  • many teams couldn't do the amp, but the kitbot could
  • FRC team 118 builds an "everybot" that they consider MVP that most teams could do
  • 2023: teams put an FRC118 bot on their own swerve drive and went to states!
  • vendors also do this
• didn't consider defense enough
• at kickoff we considered ideal strategy for scoring points, not ideal strategy for winning matches including defense
• who else will we be alliance with in quals? How will we fit into alliances at quals when we are with weak partners
• during testing we can use our old robots - one for defense
• communication with other alliance members
  • how well can we get teams together?
  • but you have no idea what you're getting in partners

scouting

• scouters' phones died
  • batteries
• need more people for scouting
  • shifts
  • tried to do this but people didn't show up
• making sure pit scouting is set up properly

training

• more build/design training
• Maker Works
  • shopbot - much bigger/better/faster CNC than we have

Tech issue lessons learned

• canspark maxes should be reconfigured each time the robot boots
• swerve module not configured/dragging

project management

• the github PM board was useful when it was maintained
  • didn't know what to work on when I showed up sometimes
• need someone working on PM every meeting?
• Have people doing work update things as they work
• avoid the PM being the one to make decisions on the status
• everyone needs to understand the process
• when you are done with your work for the day your status update should include your estimate of the time required
• small tasks - need to break up tasks into bite sized chunks
  • e.g. "machine the shooter" is a really big task
• plan out a driver training/practice schedule at the beginning
  • even a small practice area can be really helpful
  • remember to set driver station away from your small practice area to get used to distance

work days

• enforce the end of the day to clean up the shop

Communication

• move to slack - not blocked on the school wifi
  • can get it for free as non-profit
  • similar features to discord
• team picture
• FIM discord
• washtenaw first discord

what should we buy and/or find?

• laptops?
• swerve drive
  • either replace entire system or or buy a 5th (6th?) module
  • ebay? FIM discords? ChiefDelph
• new radios and network switches on the robot
• labelmaker
• phones - not everyone has a phone
  • put them on a basic plan?
  • just use wifi?
  • hotspot
• plastic for buttons
• toolbox
• hydraulic cylinder and blade for metal-cutting bandsaw
• bandsaw at liam's house (former mentor)
  • AAPS property? Clague?
• fix the woodcutting bandsaw switch
• add another set of shelves upstairs

Summer 2024 tasks

Collaboration with other teams?

• should we collaborate with other teams on summer activities?

choose student leaders

• Recruit incoming 8th graders
• buttons for student leaders

software

• Harsh's list
  • re-do our entire project in command-based instead of iterative
    • everyone
  • vision re-do
    • Jack leading + small number of other students
  • multithreading the swerve code base
    • run the odometry at 100-250Hz instead of 50Hz by default
  • path planner
    • open source tool to handle path planning for auton
  • swerve code cleanup
    • switching raw pointers to shared
    • constants in namespaces
    • similar code hygiene
  • if we switch swerve modules,
    • fix API/tuning for that - re-tune PIDs and ratios
  • if we don't switch swerve
    • re-evaluate PIDs and see if we can get better performance
• focus on training the second level team

marketing

• sponsors
  • send weekly/monthly updates to sponsors
• incoming students

practice & off-season comp

• general driving practice , find a location
• summer and/or fall
• do we want to bring incoming 8th graders onboard for training

Spirit

• train mascots
• better merch?
  • long sleeve T's?
  • hoodies?
  • local folks could be sponsors

Training

CAD

• PICK A CAD PLATFORM
  • Onshape
    • does not require a powerful computer
    • Browser based
      • 4GB memory limit in Chrome
    • Free to FRC with easy signup
    • commonly used by FRC
  • AutoDesk
    • requires powerful computer
    • taught in PLTW
    • Free to FRC with signup but not as low friction
      • Dan got a 1 year license with very little effort using a personal non-.edu email, said i was a mentor for FRC
    • Fusion, AutoCAD have mac versions
      • are these feature parity?
      • are they native Arm?
• standards
  • organization of the project for the robot
  • file naming
• training
  • OnShape is not immediately intuitive but onshape4frc.com
• develop workflow

Design

• for students who already know CAD, let's do design training
  • why FRC robots have certain design features
  • what mechanisms, assemblies, parts do we typically use?
• FRC rules
  • COTS
  • build a new bot every year
    • but can re-use COTS
  • software

CNC

• Training on the existing CNC
• consideration of toolchains and feature sets
• improvements to CNC?
  • Jeffrey suggests that rather than investing in improving this one, it would be better to add another one for increased throughput
• improvements to table & guard & ventilation system?
• Linux software may be more reliable
  • needs a different control interface with a parallel port
  • or possibly ethernet based

Physics/Mechanical Engineeering

• fundamental mechanical engineering/physics understanding
• strength requirements for parts
• drive mechanisms - gears, chains, belts, ratios
  • chain/belt tensioning

organization

• build a better cabinet for taking to comps
  • jeffrey had something in mind that i did not capture
• get rid of junk we don't need
  • how many brushed motors will we ever use?
• add another set of shelves upstairs

Build a competition level robot

• build a robot over the summer
  • citrus builds 2-3 robots over offseason
    • copy someone else's design and build and execute
    • put it together in CAD yourself - copy it - just to get the CAD experience
    • start with a working example - don't ahve to prototype
  • Work on a bot that would work for the 2023 rules? 2025 likely to have a similar pick&place game
  • or a 2024 bot with an elevator for WAPUR

Policy

committment

• we should have people with a committment
• set expectations for members
• here's what we can give you, and here's what we need from you
• we've got a big gap this coming year in juniors
• meet with parents and students before/shortly after kickoff
  • this is not a class with set expectations
  • open ended
  • you get out of the program what you put into it
  • if you come in and play minecraft all day you will leave with more minecrafts skills
  • if you come in and learn to build, you will leave with experiences you will remember, skills you can use, etc.

Safety

• safety captain position in leadership