FLEXO destroys practice day

PREP & PRACTICE DAY!

song recommendation of the day: Last Resort – Papa Roach

Per yesterdays results, Flexo had DESTROYED the tracks, DEMOLISHED the time, and had a dashing time with benders girlfriend
😃

The S.A.R.T teams YouTube page provides insight on the ability of the 2022’s FLEXO robots ability to navigate courses, as well as previous teams bots. The following link will take you directly to the designated FLEXO playlist or search up the channel: Semi-autonomous Rescue Team

Flexo’s abilities are tested on several various tracks. These include the center track, step-fields track, crossing ramps, pin wheel ramps, continuous ramp and line course.
The center track is a flat course designed to calculate how many runs the robot can get without any obstructions. the step-fields track is designed to mimic harsh terrain and debris. This is built with blocks with varying heights and slants that are then placed randomly. Crossing ramps – fairly self-explanatory, the course is sprinkled ✨ with debris such as mulch, gravel or other corresponding material, then the robot must travel through the debris and use the slopes to cross to the other side of the course. The align course is set up with narrow pieces of track that robot must travel across.

With each new team constantly working on improving every robot we are glad to see that Flexo has outdone its predecessors in many of the courses.
Comparing the 2021 Robot ‘Bender‘ to ‘Flexo’ we get the following improvements accordingly;
(Bender | Flexo)
Centre Course:  38 |  76
Crossing Ramps:  29 |  43
Pin Wheel Ramps: 31 | 44
Continuous Ramp: 26 | 45
Align Course:  2 | 3
All of which have been improved upon since previous years, though coming short with the ‘Step Fields’: 20 | 17

Here are some examples of the tracks used:

Step fields track

Align course

crossing ramps

Not only can these achievements be attributed to the combined effort of the team to create a new robot but also the ability of the driver to navigate the course. Shout out to our SDD Cooper and everyone on site 😁🙌

Despite Bender being the faster robot in terms of moving speed it was considerably hard to control slowing down course runs significantly as it would continuously run into the walls and sides and was difficult to turn as it only really moved at top speed. Flexo on the other hand though a fair bit slower than its predecessor had substantially better ability to be controlled allowing for overall smoother turns and run even with the additional arm, thus, allowing more runs to be completed without the constant battle of dodgem cars Bender went through.

We are currently practicing the dexterity of the arm, and its ability to inspect, touch, rotate and/or extract an object – there were some difficulties with aligning the robot to be able to execute the full move however by working with the two cameras, the driver was able to properly align Flexo.

Bye 😃

 

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