FRC 2017 — Steamworks

Place gears on a peg as fast as possible, play defense, climb a rope. The team chose narrow scope on purpose — three things, done well, beats five things done badly.

Most of the year was spent prototyping gear-placement mechanisms. We landed on a polycarbonate gear holder with compliant flaps — flaps deflect to let the gear push out under load.

For the climber: a motor with a 100:1 gearbox, sized for the rope load.

The pusher was the part I designed end-to-end. Same tooling constraints as 2016 — water jet and off-the-shelf only.

Robot competed strongly at three DC-area events and won an award for Quality. My role had shifted from solo modeling to scaffolding sketches and standards so other students could move faster — the first time I led a sub-team's CAD.

• Picking three things to do well over five things mediocrely was the most important early-design decision. Every team that diluted scope lost autonomous routines we kept.
• Compliant mechanisms were a discovery this season — using material flex instead of a hinge cut part count and made the gear release reliable at speed.