Catapult Puncher

The above is a picture of our powerful catapult puncher. Powered by two motors, a slip gear and a rail that is also missing a few rubber bands to power it up. 

There are also two standoffs which are the two cylinder pieces on top, on each side of the rail. These standoffs moved either up one level or down one level can determine the power of the puncher. The rubber bands would be connected to these standoffs and wrap around the rectangle plate at the bottom of the catapult. 

https://youtu.be/GJRABXCFKgs

This is a link to a video of a linear catapult puncher that is being tested but designed a little bit differently. Enjoy! 

Joseph Palezyan 

PDR of our bot for VEX WORLDS

A PDR is a Preliminary Design Review (PDR). The Preliminary Design Review (PDR) is a technical assessment that establishes the Allocated Baseline of a system to ensure a system is operationally effective.

Usually, during a PDR, we ask the question why, not how. Questions like why we could use a catapult instead of a flywheel to shoot balls during a VEX robotics competition are asked instead of how the fly wheel works. We don’t want to waste time during a PDR, by asking how. After meeting with my team CSUN Matabots, we decided to calculate the points we could score while hitting flags, turning caps, and parking on the platform, then designed our bots based on the type of strategy we agreed upon. After agreeing on a strategy we started to CAD a bot based on this strategy. Before any manufacturing is done, we had to design the entire robot on #solidworks and present this design to the rest of the team, to then start the production. This saves us time, money, and most importantly, helps us design something to the fullest capability rather then building by hand.

CSUN, Mount Sac, Berkley and USC compete for VEX Worlds 2019

2019 Turning Point Competition Robots at USC

CSUN Matabots face USC, Berkley, and Mount Sac at USC during the 2019 VEX robotics competition, to ultimately decide who will be qualified to head to VEX Worlds in Louisville Kentucky on April 23, 2019.

Final Match Platform Standoff

With the final match between USC and CSUN both fighting for the top platform parking spot, game referees had a difficult time deciding who actually parked with their Omni tires touching. Adrian Castellion did not give up the spot easily, while ramming USC's bot non-stop from the start of the match until the end. As soon as the autonomous period was over and driver control begin, both CSUN and USC went head on, like a couple of football players crashing head to head.

It was truly an amazing and ambitious battle, landing CSUN as a qualified team to head to VEX worlds. Stay tune while we polish up our robots and see USC at VEX Worlds 2019 for the championship match. The entire competition will be posted on my blog as I record and blog our time in Louisville Kentucky, U.S.A starting April 23, 2019.

CSUN Shooter Bot

The image on the left side is the CAD file for one of my favorite small bots I've seen this year on the CSUN Matabots varsity team. I call it the shooter because every time it launches two balls straight up in the air, somehow the top two flags in any column the bot aims at, always get knocked back. When the flags get knocked back, they earn the team 2 points. 

I started to design and assemble the bot, on SOLIDWORKS by inserting all the parts needed for the H-drive. I find it easier to create subassemblies of the H-Drive,  the Frame, then the addition of intakes, lifts, catapults, punchers or arms, depending on the type of bot we decide to build. 

CSUN MATABOTS VEX Robotics

CSUN Junior Team Small Bot

Added all the gears, sprockets, and wheels today, finishing up the small bot for the CSUN Matabots junior varsity team. This is my first year with CSUN Matabots and VEX robotics, but I have been using SOLIDWORKS since 2012 (which is also when I received the "Certified Solidworks Associate" certificate. I started using SOLIDWORKS as soon as I enrolled myself in CAD/CAM technology courses at Pasadena City College. I still remember one of my favorite professor's name. Salamon Davilla. He was so patient with students, as well as knowledgable about every type of engineering application you can imagine. I received my AS degree along with another certificate in Engineering Design Technology that comes with the AS degree, then started to work in machine shops to essentially support myself through school. I recommend taking the CSWA exam online at https://www.solidworks.com/ it really helped me showcase my skills and study all aspects of SOLIDWORKS.
VEX robotics usually can provide all the parts that the robot requires, which you can upload onto your design library in SOLIDWORKS. After mapping the VEX parts library to the Design library in SOLIDWORKS, I began to insert one C-Channel & Spacer at a time. Bringing in each part and mating, specific areas of each part can be difficult if you don't think ahead. What I mean by thinking ahead, can be "showing" part planes to begin aligning parts based on their "planes" can help you create better and smarter assemblies, allowing for future modification, without causing too many errors.

All that's left is to add our beautiful V5 motors on each side of the H-Drive, which I will begin sometime next week. I'll continue to update IG @palezyan3d and document all our progress, which actually helps me out by helping me with gathering all my thoughts, and hopefully, some of the things I blog about can help all of you! Let me know how your engineering and design projects are going! I would love to hear about them and about any feedback that you guys might have about my projects with CSUN MATABOTS. Thank you for stopping by!

3D printed bracket

After designing the bracket for the side panel of the Big Bot, the SOLIDWORKS file was then saved and uploaded into another software. The software we use is called CURA, and the file format that was needed to upload the part file from SOLIDWORKS to CURA is STL. After the design is finished, there is a need to perform a "save as" then there is a need to choose the option for STL for the 3D printing software (CURA) to recognize the design. Below is a picture of the process we went through.

The part was successfully 3D printed and mounted onto our Big Bot. The Big Bot is more for lifting caps, within the VEX turning point game, and the Small Bot is more for shooting balls. Each team has to come up with a strategy for playing the game, which includes the path of the robot, and what it will essentially do for points. The strategy is important to master and practice everyday, or the team will have difficulty in execution during the actual competition.