FTC POWERPLAY: 8644 Brainstormers Season & Worlds Recap

This is a recap of our final season, including our time at the FTC World Championship in Houston. Most of the team is graduating and there are no plans to continue. It was a pleasure to meet so many of you over the season and at Worlds. Thank you to everyone for your support and encouragement over the past 14 years.
For those who are interested, here are our design changes and motivations:
Cone grabber: We tried many designs but concluded that having double claws that opened fully and pinned the cone stack against the wall gave us the most room for error. The gripper liner was silicone for stickiness backed by soft foam for compliance. We knocked over some cone stacks mid-season (Chesapeake states) because of a bug where the claws didn't open fully. For maximum grip, we used an adhesive-backed silicone sheet from www.mcmaster.com/9010K43/.
Lift: From VEX and Gluten Free's Skystone robot, we knew that a linkage or double-reverse-four-bar (DR4B) lift design would be faster than string-powered drawer slides. We tried to combine the stability of drawer slides with the speed of DR4B, but could never get this to work well. Prototyping string drawer slides with constant-force springs and a simulated weight convinced us that this would be fast enough. We used these CF springs on every stage of Misumi SAR230 drawer slides: www.mcmaster.com/catalog/129/....
Extension: We had the idea to do pass-through even early in the season to minimize turret rotation, but hadn't solved the sequence problem of having the MGN slides extend before the drawer slides. Instead, we went with a crane design in the first scrimmage, but the cycles were slow as we had predicted because it took time for the crane to settle after the turret turned 135 degrees. When we came up with the locking design to sequence the MGN and drawer slides (Misumi SAR340), we were able to switch to the pass-through design with the turret only turning 45 degrees. We tried some MGN slides from Amazon but these were still affordable and much more reliable: www.zyltech.com/zyltech-mgn9-....
Swinging arm: We used 2 Axon MAX servos to power this. We were not able to use the silver ProModeler DS630BLHV servos that we had used in Freight Frenzy since they didn't travel the required 180 degrees. The blue Amazon 35kg servos couldn't handle the stress of the load and broke frequently. Axons gave us the required travel angle, were as reliable as the ProModelers, and were quite a bit cheaper.
Differential cone-grabber "wrist": Andy came up with this idea after learning about differentials online. Even though the rest of us weren't sure about such a major change so late in the season, he was able to design and program it within a few days and we ended up putting it into the final robot. Late-season scrimmages proved out its durability and usefulness.
0:00 - Introduction
0:10 - Prototyping
0:27 - DR4B prototype
0:54 - DR4B testing
1:06 - Countersprung lift
1:29 - First functional robot
1:39 - Gann scrimmage
1:42 - Switch to pass-through design
1:53 - First teleop and 1+5 auto
2:13 - Lexington qualifier
2:23 - Fallen cone prototypes
2:34 - Optimizations & driving practice
2:48 - Norfolk qualifier
3:02 - Needham qualifier
3:11 - Chesapeake championship
3:29 - Game strategy and differential grabber
3:47 - Driving lessons with Spot
4:03 - Reveal filming & Spot
4:10 - Scrimmages & prep for Worlds
4:24 - Worlds arrival & setup
4:45 - Worlds days 1 & 2
5:14 - Worlds day 3 & alliance selection
5:37 - Worlds final day
5:56 - Farewells
6:27 - Speeches
#robotics #ftc #competition

[@Brainstormers8644]

Why do we have Spot? Our answer is in the comments of our Reveal Video kzbin.info/www/bejne/aabGhpmGg6qMoc0

[@Idklol603]

Congrats for all you have achieved in the past couple years, FTC will never be the same without you. You've inspired so many of us with your amazing bots. Good luck in all your futures!

[@ktm12529]

Absolutely legendary team! You have been an example of perfect team and robot to us all these years! The FTC community will never forget you

[@fasvi1285]

What a class act. You show the rest of us how it's done. Thank you.

[@kotaschan]

They are the only ones who could make such a classic robots

[@user-dj9yk8lu6e]

our captain told us a long time ago that you guys are the best team so far in ftc, his dream was to face you guys once in world🤣🐊

[@screwit11047]

Thank you, Brainstormers!

[@pratiklokesh909]

absolute goat, barnstormers forever

[@spidernh]

sad to see you guys go. you guys were a great team!

[@creepysplatter9260]

Not sure if you remember us from the Norfolk Qualifier, but I'm from Team 293 Medium Builders. Thanks so much for all of the helpful content on the channel, and thanks for carrying us in the qualifier😁

[@nithinsaw]

i love barnstormers, goat team

[@techtigers19411]

congrats guys, killed it as usual. best of luck going forward!

[@happyredmapleleaf]

gg's, we will all miss you.

[@kirtrex]

FTC will miss y’all 🫡

[@andreibalasescu6203]

I love brainstormers

[@williamcardo3080]

Amazing job.

[@skxllywashere]

5:31 Hey, I know those guys in the silver capes! They’re the VC Silver Circuits! Saw them at the NV State Championship 😊

[@owen9573]

🧠🌩♥

[@chiraphatsuwan9528]

Where did you brought a turntable that you put to the below of linear silde

[@Brainstormers8644]

vxb.com/products/350mm-lazy-susan-aluminum-bearing-400-lbs-turntable-bearings

[@davidboverhof2779]

How many pounds of force were each of your Constant Force springs on your lift? Also did you purchase them from McMaster-Carr or another seller?

[@Brainstormers8644]

We ended up using Mcmaster 9293K115 Constant-Force Spring, 3000 Cycles, 22" Extended Length, 2.870 lbs. Load, but it will depend on how much weight you are trying to lift

[@davidboverhof2779]

Did you ever have to replace them? 3000 cycles doesn't seem like a lot.@@Brainstormers8644

[@Brainstormers8644]

We changed from weaker springs to these in the middle of the season so we probably didn't hit 3000 cycles. They showed no signs of wear.

[@stealthhydrac8516]

🫡

[@corinaarnet6392]

beanie moment

[@CircuitBreakers-cd9cx]

our team was at worlds!

[@knackrobotics]

Sad it didn’t end how we wanted, but it was fun competing with you all. Thanks Brainstormers 🫡