2471 Team Mean Machine | Behind the Bumpers | FRC REBUILT Robot

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:08]All right, welcome back to another episode of Behind the Bumpers. Today I'm here with team 2471 Mean Machine at the Pacific Northwest District Championship.

[00:00:16]We're going to go through their ball path starting with their intake into their die rotor and shooter. uh they're able to get a really impressive 15 balls per second out of this robot and uh it's a really exciting robot to check out on this episode of Behind the Bumper. All right, why don't we get started with your intake? So, the intake is a rack and pinion over the bumper uh two motor intake.

[00:00:41]It is powered by two X60s with a 3:1 ratio that sit on top of our crash bar.

[00:00:47]This is our crash bar or a spare that we keep. Uh these are the two X60s power with a 3 to1. Like I said, it is the deploy is powered by one X44 P uh per side.

[00:01:01]Again, it can deploy independently.

[00:01:06]Pretty much it. We we were planning this year on having a uh powered bottom roller, but decided against it after seeing teams that were functioning like 254 that were going without it. And after a little bit of iteration, found that this was the best way of deploying. It is a slap down powered by the surgical tubing, which you can't quite see.

[00:01:30]Powered by surgical tubing that just springs it back as it comes over the bumper.

[00:01:37]>> Before we get to our next segment, we'd like to thank the following. As you're getting ready for the competition season, think Antimark as your one-stop shop for all your team needs. Annie's launcher in a box is a configurable solution that so many teams are finding success with for the rebuilt season.

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[00:02:01]Ketaring University's cutting edge programs in their experiential co-op model seamlessly blend the professional and academic worlds, offering hands-on future focused learning that empowers students pursue new ideas and inspires other institutions to follow their lead.

[00:02:13]Don't just be ahead of the curve, create the curve. Get more information at ketarine.edufirst.

[00:02:21]>> And onto the droater.

[00:02:24]So, our die rotor is this mechanism in the center of our bot. You can't see it very well, so I have a spare that we have. Basically, you have 2X60s that sit off the side of it that power this giant hook to spin around the robot and intake balls to help it with in uh like intaking these balls and moving them to the shooter. We have this smaller wheel uh on the side. That means that it just kind of pushes it through here so they don't jam right at this section. And then we also have a uh uptake barrel roller or like drum wheel where it has this one uh X44 that uh grabs the ball and just pushes it up to where the shooter wheels will grab it. Uh we on this back of the diroer we have this 3D print which is a little ramp that just allows it to push the ball out of the basket that they sit in.

[00:03:27]Uh so then we can agitate the hopper and keep the balls moving towards the back holding more from the intake.

[00:03:37]So um before we move on from the die rotor um how you want to talk a little bit about how you get your wiring uh for this >> uh so that it goes around >> when it comes to doing our electrical up for the spindex we use a slip ring. Uh this connects down to the power which gives us a full infinite rotation.

[00:04:03]>> Cool. Yeah. Thank you. All right. So, uh, let's move on to your turret.

[00:04:10]>> So, once the balls are brought up through the, um, up roller, they're brought into our shooter. This is one of the original shooters. That's still, um, similar design.

[00:04:21]>> Um, unlike our original shooter, we have the our fly wheels located on the main wheels here. Um, so it's not the these ones were three times as fast, but we um, located it here, make it more slimmer. And then for our adjustable hood on our shooter, this one is a rack and pinion rather than a beveled gear that our original was. And it has powered rollers unlike these basic standoffs.

[00:04:49]We also it's um the turret system itself works the same and it's powered by a gearbox down on our main drive base here that spins this half uh 1/2 in shaft with the top at a pulley and then um similar to this top one. This giant gear here um is the main pulley that that powers and then we have a tensioner as well here.

[00:05:17]So, what made you uh move from the no backspin rollers to having uh backspin rollers?

[00:05:26]>> Uh we wanted to do a full shot from like uh one side of the field to the other side of the field and that gave us more uplift power.

[00:05:36]>> Yeah.

[00:05:37]>> Awesome. All right. Uh I think you wanted to talk a little bit more about your electrical and the wiring that makes all this happen.

[00:05:44]>> Yeah. Um, so we have a few different ways of wiring up our robot, but one is our uh cable chain right here, which gives us a full 360 for our robot.

[00:05:55]Originally, on our first robot iteration, we had 3D printed uh parts that goes on our cable chain. However, the way that we made this robot with how much we wanted to make it uh spin, make it shoot balls, uh it wasn't reliable.

[00:06:10]So, we ended up going with just cable chain like this. and it's been so far reliable. Uh, another big thing other than the slippering is our intake. So, intake down here, if you can see, uh, you could go to the side over here. Our wires actually go through >> our intake, allowing us to have a easier way of engineering the electrical.

[00:06:35]Uh if you want to see here is a extra rehab that we made >> and it just allows for cleaner electrical wiring up and it's Yeah.

[00:06:50]Yeah. And then one other thing would be our cable blocks. These are a better way of connecting our wiring where it's just screws that you put in together and they've been reliable for the most part and yeah, they help us make sw uh quick switches.

[00:07:09]>> So, uh it's interesting. I see you have a pigeon on your turret. Uh does someone want to talk a little bit about why you put a pigeon on the turret?

[00:07:17]>> Uh because I would >> Yeah. So the reason why we put a pigeon on our gyro is that we found over the offse that um if we use the sync yaw pigeon to yaw on the CTR um configuration we actually get a higher frequency feedback for controlling our turret in field ccentric mode. Um, so we found that when rotating and when translating around, our turret is much more snappier and doesn't require as much of a feed forward to sustain its set point while we're moving.

[00:07:56]>> That's really cool. So, uh, one more question on wiring. Um, >> you've got this like snake here. A lot of other teams are using a more rigid cable chain. Um, how do you kind of manage this to keep it from just flopping around during the match?

[00:08:15]>> Well, to manage it, we have it under our top plate over here, which keeps it put together and flat along this. We have bungee cords that keep it in a specific orientation so that when this moves, the cable moves with it and stays under the top chain.

[00:08:40]in here.

[00:08:41]>> Yeah.

[00:08:41]>> Yeah. But actually >> Yeah.

[00:08:49]>> Yeah. With a lid it's better.

[00:08:51]>> Cool. And was that a weight decision or >> mostly weight? Mostly just size.

[00:09:00]>> Size.

[00:09:00]>> Yeah. Originally, it took up about this much space on top of our shooter, and we just didn't have the space with all the other stuff.

[00:09:07]>> All right, thank you, Mean Machine. This is an incredible robot. It's so much fun to watch it out on the field. Uh, good luck with the rest of your event.

[00:09:16]>> Thanks for watching. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and click the bell to stay up to date on future fun videos.

[00:09:22]Ketering University's cutting edge programs in their experiential co-op model seamlessly blend the professional and academic worlds, offering hands-on, feature focused learning that empowers students pursue new ideas and inspires other institutions to follow their lead.

[00:09:34]Don't just be ahead of the curve, create the curve. Get more information at ketarine.edu/first.

[00:09:41]>> As you're getting ready for the competition season, think Andyark as your one-stop shop for all your team needs. Anyark's Launcher in a Box is a configurable solution that so many teams are finding success with for the rebuilt season. Also available at annark.com, the AMPD Annimark power distribution board that provides 24 40 amp independently fuse output channels for safe, reliable power distribution.

[00:10:00]That's annark.com.

[00:10:03]Byebye.