Scout was a good start. Team 2910's small swerve robots are going to assist in taking us to the next level.
One thing to note right off the bat is that we are not going to use a Raspberry PI to control these bots. It was nice to see that the developer had many of the same ideas when it comes to the Raspberry PI as I did. He did the access point stuff nearly the same way but not quite. We should be able to use that team's work to assist us on our bots and the vision stuff. So that is good. However our bots need to use RIO's and we will reserve emulating RIOs with Raspberry PIs and Beaglebones to a later date.
Drive Train
Drive train is really important and there is some indication that we are going to be using swerve quite a bit in the future. For this reason I am starting with Team 2910's swerve module and seeing if I can build out one with the following changes
- Using the nidec brushless motor as the steering drive
- Pros
- The motor controller and encoder are built in saving space
- There may be some built in functionality that can save time (closed loop?)
- Cons
- May not be powerful enough with the 16:1 gearbox that is available
- Output shaft of the gearbox is a 1/2“ hex rod and we will have to find the right mating parts to drive the belt
- Making the drives symmetric - at this point 2910 has a right and left module.
2018-07-19: I've ordered the gearbox and will assemble when arrives.
2018-08-08: Cody will hopefully have a full list of items to order/print for the swerve assembly. I will focus on the controls chassis.
2018-08-16: Cody has come through - Click here for parts break down
2018-08-31: Working off of what we have learned Cody has designed a swerve module that uses a gearbox to assist in the necessary offset to drive the wheel. This lessens the assembly at the bottom and shifts it to the top. We are also discussing putting in suspension. So the short of it, we are going our own direction
- suspension (with or without)
- Gear down at the sim and the gear back up in the lower sub assembly
- make it an all in one (controllers also)
Controls
2018-08-08: Ordered some 10mm extrusion from MakerBeam in the Netherlands with the hopes to create a control cube that compactly holds all of the electronics
2018-08-24: Finished the power cube with good reception tasks:
- CAD the cube
- Create a BOM with assembly instructions
- Co-design a mounting system to the chassis
- Consider improvements (cube lid that makes electrical connections (no lugs), wire routing, etc)