Northern Knights 2024
FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Team 296, the Northern Knights, is a high school robotics team based in Montreal, Quebec. Every year, we participate in the FRC competition, where we design, build, and program a robot to compete against other teams. This year, our robot, Bilbo, was designed to tackle the challenges of the 2024 game, FIRST Crescendo.
My Role
I volunteered as a mentor for the team, helping the students with the design, build, and programming of the robot. I also provided guidance and support throughout the competition, as a drive coach, programmer, and strategist.
The Game
FIRST Crescendo is a music-themed game that requires robots to perform a series of tasks to score points. A overview of the game can be found here (opens in a new tab).
The game this year has a very open field with a lot of space to move around. There is also a single type of game piece to interact with. For these reasons, we decided to make a very simple robot, but quick and reliable to allow us to score points quickly and efficiently, without the need for complex mechanisms.
The Design
Bilbo is a simple robot with a single mechanism to pick up and shoot the game pieces. The robot is designed to be fast and agile, allowing it to quickly move around the field and score points. The shooter mechanism is a simple top-bottom flywheel design, made to be accurate and consistent, ensuring that we can hit our targets reliably.
After working on swerve in the offseason, we decided to implement a swerve drive on Bilbo. This allows us to move in any direction without turning the robot, giving us more flexibility and control on the field. The open field this year allowed us to take full advantage of the swerve drive's capabilities.
These design choices were made to optimize our robot for speed and reliability, allowing us to perform well in the competition.
After the first regional in Montreal, we installed a T0 pneumatic climber. Allowing us to climb very quickly at the end of a match, with a simple piston and hook design. That being said, some weight had to be shifted around to balance the robot once it was up.
The Build
The build is focused around the 4 swerve modules and 2 x 1 aluminum bar stock. The idea here is the same, simple and consistent. Which led to no major mechanical breakdowns during the competition.
The Code
Bilbo has odometry and a vision system. The odometry is used to track the robot's position on the field, allowing us to accurately navigate and score points. The vision system is used to detect targets, ensuring that we can aim and shoot accurately. The use of these systems, along with the swerve drive, allows us to have great autonomous periods and precise control during teleop. These automations also allowed us to have a single driver vs the traditional two.
The odometry is tracked using the swerve modules' encoders. The vision system uses a Limelight (opens in a new tab), which is mounted on the shooter mechanism. Lastly our autos are controlled by PathPlanner (opens in a new tab), which is a open-source library that allows us to create complex paths for our robot to follow.
Scouting
New this year, we used 8033's scouting app, Lovat (opens in a new tab), to help us during the competition. The app was a great success, allowing us to track and analyze other teams' performance, and make informed decisions throughout the competition.
Experience
I love being a part of the Northern Knights and helping the students learn and grow. The competition was a great experience, and I'm proud of what we accomplished with Bilbo. The team worked hard and performed well, and I'm excited to see what the future holds for us.
Picture of Bilbo
Made By Marcus Lee.