ICED JAVA
FRC Team 6894
Icespresso Shot, 2023
Icespresso Shot is the team’s fifth robot designed to tackle the unique challenges of the Charged Up season. It again featured a Mecanum drivetrain. An added secondary jump drivetrain system was incorporated for added traction on the Charge Station. Icespresso featured a pneumatic cylinder system to shoot a cube off a small platform during autonomous to increase scoring potential. Our cargo intake was a telescoping tube with a claw utilizing flexible wheels to grip the cubes and cones for transport to the energy grid.
Cold Brew, 2022
Cold Brew is the teams fourth robot that was built for the Rapid React season. The robot again features a Mecanum drivetrain that shot large tennis style cargo into a hopper. The team also decided to add a climbing system to increase our robot's versatility. Our robot's intake featured Arms that drop down to pick up cargo from the ground and feed it into the elevator, our intake could only carry two cargo.
Below Zero 2020-2021
Below Zero was our third robot that we built just before the COVID pandemic hit. This robot featured mecanum drive. The robot had an intake which picked up and dropped nerf-type balls into a hopper area using a conveyor belt system. With as many as three balls in the lineup, the robot then could shoot the balls out of the shooter to targets as high as a basketball hoop.
Zamboni, 2019
Zamboni is our second-year robot for the Destination Deep Space game. For this game, we decided to build on our knowledge from the previous year and attempt two of the challenges: place cargo and hatch covers. Like the previous year’s robot, we opted for a 2-speed gear system that would allow us to shift between high and low gear. This was beneficial if we wanted to move across the field quickly or if we wanted to use low gear while the robot was in defense mode. The drivetrain included two CIM motors mounted on each gear box which helped give the robot increased torque. Our team decided to go with eight wheels for this season. We mounted four Omni wheels (two on the front of the robot and two on the rear) and four Colson Performa wheels in the middle of the chassis. Using Omni wheels gave our robot increased mobility from our previous year’s robot. We had the ability to turn the robot 90 degrees in tight spaces. This was a big change from our previous year’s robot that used six pneumatic wheels. Our hatch mechanism used a piece of proprietary equipment from one of our sponsor’s FIPA Inc. in Cary, NC. This equipment created suction that could hold the game piece (hatch) and release it to place it on the appropriate area of the field. Zamboni’s last attachment was designed for shooting. It could pick-up the cargo game piece and place it in the cargo ship portion of the game field. The shooting attachment used two 775-Pro motors that would spin in two different directions in order to pick-up the ball and spin in reverse in order to release the ball into the cargo ship. Zamboni turned out to be an effective defense robot helping us win the Finalist Award at our second event in UNC Asheville and the Alliance Winners Award at the season off-season event THOR.
Cappafrio, 2018
Cappafrio was the robot that we built our rookie year as a robotics team. This robot featured a 6 wheel tank drive, with a 2 speed transmission. The robot had two attachments, one being a bucket for placing cubes, and the other attachment being an intake that could maneuver cubes around the field. Our focus with this robot was to be fast and efficient, and play counter defense on the other team. This robot utilized pneumatic wheels, a robust custom vex chassis, and 6 cim motors to drive. Using 6 cim motors enabled us to have lots of torque and speed, accompanied with a low and high gear in order to give pushing power when facing off with another robot, or speed up to get to the other side of the field. This robot was one of the best counter defense robots in the NC 2018 Power Up season.