Project Completion Date: December 18th, 2019
Associations: Mountaineer Area RoboticS, FIRST
Subject Area: Robotics
Mx0.1 is the first in a new generation of FRC robots, built with modularity and reusability in mind. The design was created in Summer 2019 as a teaching experience for incoming Mountaineer Area RoboticS students. Key concepts the design was intended to teach were principles of bent sheet metal design, custom transmission design, and several new space-saving concepts. The project was constructed in Fall 2019.
Mx0.1 is the first MARS robot with fully custom drive transmissions. 100% of the transmission design was created by me specifically for use on this robot. The transmissions were designed to be the lightest, thinnest, easiest to assemble and remove from the robot ever used by MARS. The design was rigorously tested for flaws, and it was found that this design succeeded in almost all design objectives. Some minor oversights were identified with the assembly and disassembly process, and were corrected in the following design present in MARVIN XIII.
Mx0.1 used a new drive train design intended to dramatically reduce the internal space requirement for the drive rails. For the most part, this was successful. Drive rail space requirements were modified to fit within a four-inch total width, a previously unobtainable goal. However, the design sacrificed much of the rigidity present in competition designs. It was determined that for future robots, the more rigid design would be used to improve survivability of the machine.