Quokkas Ri3D Robot
After graduating as a FIRST Robotics Competition student late 2023, I was invited to join the "Unqualified Quokkas" Robot-in-Three-Days (Ri3D) team, Based in Wollongong NSW, and consisting of nine other mentors from around australia.
The Premise of Ri3D is for experienced mentors to build a robot to complete the season's challenges within the first three days of the season, documenting the entire process, with the goal being to create resources and inspiration for less-experienced FRC student teams. We were the first in Australia to attempt the challenge for our inaugural year.
The Robot
In the first few hours of the season, we believed we had the winning design- A combined intaker-shooter mechanism mounted on
a long arm, providing angle adjustment to the shots. When combined with computer vision, we would be able to shoot game pieces from anywhere nearby
into both the high and low goals.
My job was to design and build the Intaker-Shooter mechanism, with a focus on availability to other teams who wish to
replicate the design. Two identical polycarbonate plates formed the main structure of the intake, the other parts being common COTS items. A series of gears
and belts transmitted power from a single planetary gearbox to three (green) rollers that could grab the game piece from the floor and hold onto it securely.
On the shooter side, two motors independantly power two flywheels that propel the disc-like gamepiece in a similar fashion to flywheel-powered tennis ball shooters.
For more information on the design, we created a Technical Binder (PDF) that covers every aspect of the robot in excruciating detail.
This youtube video demonstrates the robot's entire functionality, including the computer vision and autonomous modes created by Zac, the team genius:
Reception
Not long after publishing our resources, we found an incredible amount of support from students and mentors internationally. Countless teams reached out in appreciation for the design inspiration we were able to provide. The intake-on-arm architecture we created quickly became known as the "quokka bot architecture". After the 2024 championship, we collected some statistics:
- 2.4 thousand intake CAD downloads
- Over 70 thousand collective youtube views
- Over 30 thousand forum views
- at least 190 Confirmed teams (teams that are using the recognisable intake plates or have stated quokkas-inspired) - 5.5% of all robots,
- 8 out of 40 teams, or 20% of robots at the Australian Regional were quokkas-inspired
- 49 out of 600, or 8.1% of robots at the World Championships were quokkas-inspired
- Several quokka robots made it to world championship finals
- Ranked #1 Ri3D Initiative 2024
Gallery of Inspired Robots
Here's a compilation of some of the robots that were inspired by our designs.
