Author: Scott Rippetoe

Nema Enclosures is a Houston based company that manufactures powder coated carbon steel, stainless steel, and instrument enclosures. This year, Texas Torque has had the pleasure of having Nema Enclosures return as both sponsors and partners. Rob Bohn, the owner of Nema Enclosures, has been gracious enough to once again support the growth and development of our team. This year, Nema has been particularly generous and was resposible for all of the powder coated sheet metal parts on our competition robot, Apogee, this past season. The donation marks the fourth year of Nema’s sustained sponsorship of Texas Torque, having continued to provide support for the team since 2011. For this and much more, we are infinitely thankful and look forward to a sustained relationship between our two organizations. We have also included a link to Nema’s website: Nema Enclosures.
 

This past weekend, Texas Torque took part in one of the early FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Regionals in the 2015 season: the Dallas Regional. Forty-eight teams were present, including our friends 987 from Las Vegas.

At the start of qualification matches, Texas Torque scored higher than the other sided alliance. By the end of the day, Texas Torque was ranked 4th of the 48 teams at the regional with an average score of 73.3, falling beneath FRC 148, Robowranglers, 987, HIGHROLLERS, and FRC 118, Robonauts. In alliance selection, we were elated to welcome 5431, Titan Robotics, a rookie team, as our first pick on our alliance. The pair decided to pick FRC 457, Grease Monkeys, to complete the alliance.

In the elimination rounds, Texas Torque, Titan Robotics, and the Grease Monkeys lost after a hard match with 5th and 6th seeded alliance. In the blink of an eye, the finals were upon 624, CRyptonite, 118 Robonauts, and 2613, PROTOBOT. 2nd seeded alliance was up against the 1st seeded alliance of FRC 987, FRC 148, and FRC 3802. Both alliances played at their best, but in the shocking turn of the end, the second seeded alliance came out on top.

Texas Torque was glad to bring home the Innovation in Control Award. In addition, Texas Torque congratulates FRC 932, Circuit Chargers for their Engineering Inspiration Award, and FRC 987, HIGHROLLERS, for winning the Chairman’s Award at the Dallas Regional.

All in all, the team is happy with their performance Dallas Regional. We would like to thank all of the Dallas Region administration and volunteers for all of their hard work in making this such an amazing, well-organized event. Of course, we congratulate the 2nd seeded alliance for their well-fought victory and thank our own alliance partners for all of their effort. We can’t wait to see many of these teams again at the Bayou Regional!

All of the Mechanical team members of Texas Torque worked hard finishing the assembly of our robot to get ready for bag and tag. Texas Torque will be competing for the first time this year at the Dallas Regional(Feb 25 – 28, 2015). In other news, the team has been happy that Chairman’s presentation banners came in, and everything is going well as always. Jeffrey and Reagan are practicing the presentation.

The electronics team got pneumatic and electronics assembled to the robot, and the programmers of the team got the hand of robot. In cooperation with the electrical team, the programmers will finish up the code on the robot, as well as tune the motor control loops. During build, the programming team worked with the goal that on the first time the robot is powered on, all components of the robot will work as expected.

Texas Torque would like to thank the following sponsors for their manufacturing support:
Nema Enclosures,
Crow Corporation,
H&R Mfg. and Supply, Inc.

Members of Texas Torque volunteered as judging and setting up the field at the Engineering Design Competition last Saturday, helping out the Sci://Tech community as well as spreading Texas Torque and the FIRST organization.

Texas Torque wishes luck to everyone who will be competing soon!

After CAD being finalized last week, the sheet metal came in. Texas Torque began building and assembling the competition robot. All members of Texas Torque are hard at work in order to get the robot ready for bag and tag this next week.

The metals that were received have been powder coated for use on the competition robot.  Furthermore, any parts that could be made in-house (such as our bearing blocks and shafts) starting getting processed on our lathe and mill.

On the topic of milling, we also began milling out our custom driver station layout. Lastly, the chairman’s group has finished recording chairman’s video.

Prototype of the Drive Train

All prototypes are finished, including Crazy Arms. Data from prototypes was useful for CAD team while designing. The programming sub-team worked on the autonomous code in order to score as many points as possible during the beginning of the game. Everything is going well at Texas Torque!

As prototypes were finished, students from the mechanical team assisted  the CAD team and finished the overall robot design. With the CAD done it puts us ahead of schedule for this competition season. The robot includes all basic parts such as intakes and elevator. Much more progress has been done, and parts have started to be milled.

With the CAD, VersaFrame that will be used for the competition robot are being prepared by the mechanical team. The finalized CAD are being prepared to be sent to our sponsors to be fabricated.