Freight Frenzy (2021-2022)

2021-22 was my final year competing in FTC. That year's challenge was called Freight Frenzy. Much of the design took the same route as previous seasons. The robot for that year was named Jounce (the third derivative of velocity) as it was our third year in FTC.

This was the first year we used SLA-printed parts. It came to be because we needed high precision and high durability racks (think a verticle gear) for the rack and pinion system. I had recently purchased an inexpensive (>$200) resin printer from a Chinese manufacturer and it was time to put it to the test. The racks stood up to our durability test and earned their place on the robot. 

Many other parts were printed on FDM printers. At this point, a large number of students had learned to design 3D printable parts in Fusion and I only needed to make small tweaks. However certain parts were reused, including the phone mount and verticle motor mount I had designed the previous year. 

I'm particularly proud of the final rack and pinion claw I designed (see the picture on the right). The CAD looked beautiful and though the prototype pictured in our portfolio was still covered in tape (cable management was done later) it worked really smoothly. It also withstood the beatings our drivers gave it during testing, never necessitating the spare parts I had printed for it. 

We competed once again in an online competition to do another spike in COVID cases. We ended up scoring slightly above average in qualifiers which isn't enough to progress further.