2020 – Ultraviolet and Foam Ball Shooter
Background
In my fourth and final year of high school and FRC, I had the opportunity to be a lead designer and take charge of the ball shooter subsystem on our competition robot, Ultraviolet. The objective of the shooter was to launch foam dodgeballs from our robot up to a 6ft tall goal while accommodating a variety of shooting angles and distances. The final design was a high-powered ball launcher, capable of shooting all five balls in under one second with a high degree of consistency. Although this season was cut short by COVID-19, our team won the first event of the season while only dropping one match! Even now, this design is one of my proudest accomplishments and showcased all the skills I had learned in high school robotics.
Design Stages
2019 – X-Ray and Rubber Ball Intake
Background
During my third year on the team, I was a co-lead of the ball intake for our robot. The balls, or “Cargo” in the game were the major source for scoring points, which meant this subsystem would be crucial for the success of our robot. Using the engineering design process, I designed, fabricated, and tested many versions of the intake. This was my first exposure to the iterative design process, and I found great satisfaction in striving for constant improvement. The images below show the many iterations of the intake, starting from 2D geometry sketches to determine the optimal range of motion, low-res and high-res prototypes, fleshed-out 3D CAD, and finally the fully assembled intake. In the end, my first experience as a full mechanical design lead was extremely fulfilling and I was proud to take ownership of a subsystem and create a strong mechanism for our robot.
Design Stages
2018 – Infrared and Partner Climb Forklifts
2018 was my first year contributing to robot design on the team. Having the chance to work under more experienced students on the team and learn about the engineering design process from them was valuable and prepared me for future seasons. Although the subsystem was never manufactured due to the weight limit being reached on our robot, I still had a great experience developing my CAD design skills and learning how to contribute to large assemblies.
