Our chassis features a three-tiered modular design that facilitates swift drive-train swaps. It supports meccanum, tank-drive, and swerve-drive configurations. An insulation layer adorns the drive-train chassis, safeguarding the electronics from electrostatic discharge (ESD). Electronics and the arm are mounted atop this insulation layer, contributing to the chassis’s unique design. This design simplifies the process of dismantling and reassembling the chassis.

Small, robust, sturdy, fast, and easy to automate. We wanted our arm to pick, drop and if possible lift up. After considering many designs and having watched FTC teams, our hearts were set on a telescopic arm and we could not find existing designs workable on a small budget. We set out designing our telescopic arm—we call it Moray Eel—and we made it for under $100! Stay tuned, we will publish the design and the CAD files shortly.

We had several ideas for grabbers, including a 3-D kitagami grabber, but one that particularly caught our attention was the spider legs. Our inspiration came from the way the human hand functions. Our Spider Legs parts are made of PetG Filament, which is lightweight and flexible, making it an excellent grabbing mechanism. 

AI vision camera. When LimeLight introduced an AI camera and asserted that it was FTC-legal, we couldn’t resist purchasing one. The camera powers the Robot’s pose detection, object detection, and sample Color and Outline Detection capabilities. Additionally, it interacts with the Sparkfun-based localization system. Our Auto mode is heavily influenced by the AI Vision camera.

Deadwheel odometry is dead, it is complex and takes a lot of time to get it tight.  Long live optical odometry! We evaluated both and simplicity of optical odometry got us.  In contrast, Optical is simple, fast and accurate.  Also it was awesome we got to use a really cool laser.