21-22 FREIGHT FRENZY

The Robot



The Team


THe Task

In FREIGHT FRENZY, teams and their robots must navigate a complex transportation system by traversing barriers and racing against time to load and deliver essential items to those who need them most.

Key game elements

  • Carousels

  • Shipping Hubs

  • Freight (cargo, light/medium/heavy boxes)

  • Rubber Ducks

design considerations

  • Freight of different sizes and weights

  • Obstacles to drive over



The Solutions

CAD COLLABORATION

As the team has grown their skills using CAD, they have made changes to improve their ability to collaborate and work quickly and accurately.

Use of "skeleton models" allows each engineer to design their own parts, knowing they will work together with the overall team plan.

3D Printing

With ongoing supply chain issues limiting part availability, the team has designed and printed increasingly large and complex parts to avoid shipping delays and accelerate their build.

The INtake

Highly compressible intake flaps accommodate multiple sizes of freight, and an extremely grippy surface lifts freight into the robot.

The Controls

Controls are adjusted based on drive team feedback to optimize performance. Analog controls from early in the season were changed to preset positions and actions to allow the drive team to score more points in critical stages of the game.

Test software was written to allow rapid design iteration and identification of robot issues. This resulted in increased shooter accuracy and consistency.

The TEAM SHIPPING ELEMENT

Blue Box Bots has signed on to the Freight Frenzy Universal Team Shipping Element standard in an effort to further adoption of a design that allows teams flexibility in implementation while guaranteeing compatibility in stacking during end-game. The standard was developed by team 6832 - Iron Reign and more info is available here. We encourage all teams to consider adoption of this standard. A CAD model of a printable element designed by Blue Box Bots is available here.