Pushback S Bot

This was my robot for basically the entire Push Back season except for the small bot, and I kept improving it the whole way through. It is an S path robot that routes the balls up through the machine. The drivetrain is 450 RPM on 3.25 inch wheels with a center traction wheel, and because I run a center traction wheel I did not need odometry. The robot took a lot of tuning with different compression settings for the mesh.

The top of the S curve is the part I am happiest with. I used hexagonal gussets for the top mesh, so the mesh only needs to be supported at 3 points instead of the roughly 30 points a true half circle curve would need. I wanted the lower stage to be the fastest, so it has the most compression and moves the balls through quickly. I wanted a holdable capacity at the top, so it has less compression and the rollers can continue spinning while the system is full. That lets all the balls fit inside. The lower intake is 11W at 900 RPM, the top roller is 5.5W at 600 RPM, and the hood roller is 5.5W at 600 RPM. There is a wing on the robot along with a wing aligner that is not in the CAD.

The wing aligner took time to tune because its height mattered a lot. In the beginning, when I drove into the goals, the wing aligner made the robot ride on top of the goal and sometimes got stuck there. The structure takes some inspiration from snacky cakes, with my own additions. I run a vertical half cut 3 wide that the wing mounts off of, which supports the wing much better. Snacky used a hood that moved the hood roller up and down, and I left that out because it is heavy and complicated.