FIRST Robots: Aim High

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| FIRST Robots

The design process and competition is not limited to the

mechanics of the machine but also includes the means by

which the robot is controlled. For the

2006 FIRST Robotics

Competition, many robots were created with a drive system, a

ball scoring mechanism, and a ball collection device. The most

successful of these machines incorporated ingenious mecha-

nisms and sophisticated controls to accomplish the game’s

challenges.

Team

190, from Worcester, Massachusetts, stood out among

the competition for the ingenuity and cleverness manifested

in their robot and controls. Mathematical analysis and an

extensive variety of sensors were used to monitor, guide, and

predict system performance. Their work served as a case

study on integrating a control system with a well-engineered

machine to create a superior robot.

ELECTRONICS,

MATHEMATICS,

AND ROGRAMMING

—OH, MY!

TEAM 190

COMBINING

MECHANISMS

AND CONTROL

OPERATIONS

TO BUILD A

BETTER

ROBOT

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Modeling and Matrices

When the FIRST 2006 game was

announced, Team 190 anxiously

watched the details over an Internet

broadcast at Worcester Polytechnic

Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Ideas were generated even before the

kick-off presentation was over. A priori-

tized list of possible strategies soon

emerged, and the team began present-

ing its ideas and sketches for a robot

that would dominate the competition.

With so many ideas, the team’s

designers needed a way to narrow

them into one design. They accom-

plished this through use of an engineer-

ing decision matrix that compared

design attributes for different robots.

Categories covered by the matrix

included the ability to score on the

ramp, power consumption, drivability,

low design risk, attractiveness, speed,

agility, ease of programming, robust-

ness, and, of course, weight and were

weighted for their importance relative to

all other categories.

Each robot design idea was pre-

sented to the team. Team members

evaluated each design for every cate-

gory listed in the decision matrix. The

scores were collected and assembled

to determine which robot would be

constructed. The design chosen

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Industrial Design Award

|

A well-designed control system assists in the

management of the components that make up

Team 190’s robot.

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Sketches were a large part of the initial

brainstorming process, when team members

expressed their design ideas.

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through this analysis beat out the other

designs by a margin of 15 percent. With

a design chosen, sketches that had

been drawn by hand were reviewed,

with more detail added as a clearer def-

inition of the robot came into being. The

hand sketches were next converted into

three-dimensional computer models

using

PTC Pro/Engineer and Autodesk

Inventor

CAD software. Each compo-

nent on the robot was first modeled

separately using

CAD. A robot was later

created with

CAD by assembling the vir-

tual parts into a composite structure.

The computer models allowed the

team to visualize the entire robot before

any parts were manufactured. This

allowed them to examine how the

components fit together and if the size

requirements were being met. This level

of planning avoided problems, saved

time, and conserved resources by

manufacturing only the correct parts.

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| FIRST Robots

An engineering matrix is constructed to

weigh and compare the different aspects of

components. Seen here is a matrix comparing a

holonomic drive with a six-wheel drive.

Computer models provide early insight of the

robot design. Each component is created with

sophisticated, three-dimensional modeling soft-

ware and then assembled to build the complete

robot in a virtual environment.

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