The robot, an unstoppable force/h1>
At last, after several days, he found the perfect weapon: a robot. This unmeasurable force of power would once and for all put an end to the villains' evil reign. However, in order to do so, he had to find individuals with superhuman abilities who would allow him to build such robots. So, he signalled the Marcy Spider-Women from different universes and assembled the perfect team.
THE BASE
The robot's base is comprised of a holonomic drive train which connects all four wheels. Each of their axes is attached to multiple extrusions with the help of bearings. The motors placed in the back of the base maximize space in the front for the robot's other components such as the arm and the reservoir. In order for the motors to work correspondingly to each wheel, we have attached them to sprockets and chains. In addition, the base stands high enough to be able to comfortably roll over game pieces, giving us more maneuverability on the field.
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Tony Stark asked the girls to make sure that they are using Mecanum wheels to guarantee good mobility of the robot. In fact, these wheels allow the movement of the robot from side to side and from front to back.
THE ARM
The arm is composed of multiple extrusions, two motors, two servo-motors and a magnetic disk. The disk is attached to an extrusion which is connected to a motor with the help of chains and sprockets. The two are held together with a 3D-printed piece. The extrusion is attached to another extrusion which does a rotation as well. When working together, the two motors permit the movement of the magnetic disk vertically and horizontally. The disk is composed of twelve magnets which are able to grab a game piece because of its metallic screws. In order to release it, there is an extrusion that propels it forward, using two servo motors. More precisely, these servo-motors generate the rotation of a wheel which wraps a string around it. The string then instigates the translational motion of the extrusion, which pushes the game piece out. This allows us the deposit game pieces in the tower directly from a distance.
THE FLIPPER
This metal extrusion is connected to one of the motors of the base and is tasked to flip the game pieces to the desired colour. Whenever the robot moves forward, this mechanism will automatically be triggered and the flipper will start turning. If a hexagon happens to be at the right spot, it will make a full 180 degrees rotation and fall on the right side.
The reservoir:
The reservoir encompasses a piece of polycarbonate plastic attached to the front of the base. It is tasked to encircle the stack of hexagons in front of the robot. This way, the stack is safely held and can be dragged on the field. Likewise, this allows us to have as many game pieces in our possession as possible. What a great time-saver! Additionally, the robot being equipped with this special component will not need to start a new trajectory to fetch new game pieces every time.
THE LIFT :
The robot is also equipped with a lift which consists of five aluminum extrusions, four of which are doubles. There are eight rollers attached to the extrusions, four on the top and four on the bottom. Next to each one, there is a small pulley that guides the movement of a cord. In fact, this whole mechanism is controlled by this single cord connected to the lift's motor. When the motor is activated, it uses a belt and pulley system to raise the aluminum extrusions higher and higher until they reach the fifth and final piece. This allows the lift to function smoothly and efficiently.
Let's power it up!
Throughout the competition, the programmers worked endlessly to resolve numerous dilemmas. Indeed, they spent countless hours trying to detect the faulty regions in their lines of code to figure out why the robot was making a beeping sound. Moreover, they encountered a problem with the motor controller that wasn't working properly. After several attempts, they discovered that they had used the wrong fuse colour in the fuse box which is ultimately connected to the motor function.
