Lego Robotics
VEX is an arm under Robotics@ Apex in SST.
I spent the first 2 years of my time in Robotics@ Apex in the Lego arm.
Starting off with IDE Series in 2021 and participated in the 2021-2022 FLL season.
This was where I learnt the basics of robotics and programming.
It was also the time where I learnt concepts that were more applicable to other systems.
For Example:
- Line tracking (PID Control)
- Building Best Practices
- Basic Programming Logic
IDE 2021
My team had a few iterations before this final design.
We started off with a very basic design and slowly added more features as we went along. It seemed like a gimmick at first but the slanted design actually helped with functionality like the turning of the robot and swapping batteries... well apart from looking cool of course.
Battery Hot Swap:
The video shows the brain bot swap mechanism that we had. Just pull out two pins and the brain comes off. It was the first touch at a hot swap system that I had come across in my time in Robotics.
Line Tracking Test:
This was one of the first Line tracking tests that we did, not on the slanted version of the robot.
Reflections
I do not remember much from this competition.
But I do remember that we had a lot of fun in the process.
FLL 2021-2022
FLL was one of the competitiosn that required building a bot with modularity. This is due to FLL needing the robot to complete multiple very different tasks in a short amount of time. Ranging from Pulling to Pushing to Lifting and collecting or moving objects around the field.
A challenge or us was the Center of Gravity of the robot.
It messed with our turning and made the robot very unstable.
We had to add a lot of counterweights to make the robot stable,
and it took up valuable time we could have spent on completing the required tasks.
These are some of the iterations that we went through. Most of the changes revolved around the turning axis of the robot and how we could make turning more consistent.
Iteration III was the final iteration that we had before the competition.
Reflections
These formative years in SST were really important for me. They allowed me to learn the basics of robotics and programming.
Some takeaways:
- Project management is always a work in progress
- Iteration, not perfection is key to success
- Always have fun, that way you learn and don't burn out. :)