DEWBOT XI

In contrast to last year, the team went to kick-off this year with no terrible oath hanging over our heads. Our only goal of real significance is to continue to improve; improve our processes, our design skills, our engineering, our fabrication capabilities, our service to our students and to our community. All very nice. But will nice win competitions? Will we have the drive and perseverance victory requires? It remains to be seen.

DEWBOT XI is designed to compete in the 2015 FIRST Robotics Competition game, Recycle Rush^SM.

Notable events & accomplishments:

• 3^rd seed and FINALIST at the Hatboro-Horsham MAR Qualifying Event
• 1^st alliance captain and CHAMPION at the Seneca MAR Qualifying Event
• Received the Motorola Quality Award at both Hatboro-Horsham and Seneca
• 2^nd seed alliance captain and FINALIST at MAR Championship
• Qualified for FRC Championships! (5^th consecutive year)

DEWBOT XI Build

This is the time of the year that all good roboteers and mentors most love and fear.

I love build season. It is the very heart and soul of the robotics year. I love the challenge, the close team work (yes, even the friction resulting from teams working hard under pressure), the prototyping and testing, the false starts and finally finding resolutions to tough design problems. The hard work. The tough decisions. The pressure. The building itself; bringing everthing together and getting all of it working just right. Build season is my favorite time.

I hate build season. The sleep depravation. The angst born of trying endlessly to reconcile seemingly unreconcilable design demands. The fear that this year's robot will not live up to expectations. The parts that just don't come together and the systems that refuse to work reliably. Why do I do this to myself every year?

An old wise guy once said to me: Nothing difficult is ever easy.

Design Details

Drive Train

We made the decision to stay with swerve drive for the 2015 robot. In view of the fact that blazing speed and acceleration seems to be detriments in this year's game, concepts to increase speed were not adopted and Mini-CIMs were used in lieu of CIMs to drive the robot.

With the departures of Ben Kellom as mentor and Edgetech as sponsor, we redesigned our swerve module to significantly reduce the machine time requirements and to bring as much of the machining in-house as practical. New sponsor AMS Filling Systems provided the parts we could not produce in-house.

Internal Stacker

Our main scoring system allows us to build stacks of up to six Totes under a Recycle Container and to score these. This stack is built inside the robot chassis and we score by simply dropping the stack and backing up. This led us to design a U-chassis, the scariest design element of DEWBOT XI.

Intake System

Pulls Totes into the robot and automatically aligns them for stacking. No fuss, no muss. When open, presents a 23.75" Tote Acquisition width. When closed, the pointy ends match the Landfill spacing.

Official Events

Kick-off - 3-January-2015

Hatboro-Horsham - 27-Feb - 1 March-2015

The team got off to a good start for the season at this week 1 event. Finishing qualifications as 3^rd seed, we accepted 1403's (Cougar Robotics) gracious invitation and joined the first alliance. Together with 3637 (The Daleks) we finished as Finalists. Sab-BOT-age also received the Quality Award (sponsored by Motorola). The team earned 61 MAR qualifying points at Hatboro-Horsham.

Seneca - 20-22 March-2015

A good second competition for us. We finished qualifications as 1^st seed and invited 1218 (Vulcan Robotics) and 5113 (Combustible Lemons) to join the 1^st alliance. Together, we won the event. Sab-BOT-age again received the Motorola Quality Award. The team earned 73 MAR qualifying points.

MAR Championship - 8-11 April-2015

FRC Championship - 22-25 April-2015

Other Events

DAR FLL Scrimmage - 22-November-2014

Downingtown's third annual FIRST LEGO League Tune Up, the D-Town Dust-off, at the CCIU TCHS-Brandywine in Downingtown, PA.

This non-qualifying event was hosted by Downingtown Area Robotics in cooperation with the TCHS to help area FLL teams gain experience and prepare for their Qualifiers in this year's game, WORLD CLASS^SM! 15 area teams participated.

Downingtown Area Robotics-TCHS-Penn FLL Qualifying Event 2014 - 7-December-2014

Downingtown's third annual FIRST LEGO League Qualifying Event was held on 7 December, 2014 at the CCIU TCHS Brandywine Campus in Downingtown, PA. This competition was hosted by Downingtown Area Robotics to allow area FLL teams to compete and qualify for the Penn FLL Championship in this year's game, WORLD CLASS^SM!

MAR Team Day at Dorney Park - 11-July-2015

Media

In light of our recent competition performance, the team continues to receive media attention. Summarized below, together with the team's media output.

Philly.com - Best of the Bots

Dana was featured in a photo from the Seneca competition.

Photo for 2015 FIRST Championship facebook page

DEWBOT X is featured in FIRST's 2015 Championship facebook page.

2014 FRC Photo Gallery

Five of the 63 marketing tool photos in FRC's 2014 gallery show DEWBOT X and/or our drive team.

Team Sab-BOT-age made the photo banner on the FIRST website

Patrick Curran, Abbilyn and Siri Maley at the 2014 FRC Championship. Photo at right.

Teams

Welding - UPDATED!
Design

People

Team Sab-BOT-age is what it is only due to the efforts of the people involved. DEWBOT XI's success will be in the hands of the students, mentors and parents engaged. The team's very existence is possible only through the gracious generosity of our sponsors.

DEWBOT XI Students

DEWBOT XI Mentors

Sponsors 2015

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See our other robots in the Robot Archives.