Proton

FTC
Proton

Overview

Proton(v1) and Proton(v2) were the first and second robots I designed and assembled on Team Juice 16236 as a rookie. While the core architecture of both remained the same, I focused on refinements and weight savings during the iteration to v2. These are, by far, the simplest robots I’ve ever designed, yet they’ve been almost equally successful as the rest!

Proton(v2) led Team Juice 16236 to the following:

  • Finalist Alliance at the 2022 NorCal Championship as rookies
  • Winning Alliance of the Gold Division at the 2022 NorCal Regional Championship
v1

v1

v2

v2

Drivetrain

First ever drivetrain

Proton underside

Underside of Proton

Both versions of Proton utilized the same mecanum drivetrain, enabling holonomic movement. What was unique to this drivetrain, however, was its extremely high ground clearance, a necessity to traverse the game’s terrain.

Additionally, the drivetrain utilized 8020 aluminum extrusion to join the outer plates, running from the outside of one side of the drivetrain to the other, which significantly increased rigidity.

Modularity

dt_render

Drivetrain render with hole pattern plate connectors (6 per side)

top

Old top superstructure removed from the drivetrain

plates

1/8” 6061 Aluminum Drivetrain Plates (Sponsored by Prototek, prev. SacEDM & Waterjet)

new_top

New top superstructure installed on the same drivetrain

A major part of designing Proton was ensuring the drivetrain could be reused regardless of future changes. This led me to standardize a 16x16mm hole pattern on the drivetrain’s inside plate and use steel plate connectors to join the top superstructure to the drivetrain, making the entire assembly extremely modular.

V4B

At the core of Proton is its Virtual 4 Bar (V4B). It’s similar to a standard four-bar linkage, but it works by using an unpowered belt (the component that replaces a rigid linkage arm), keeping the end effector perfectly parallel to the ground throughout the entire range of motion. This design was another step toward staying as simple as possible and removing extra parts.

Also serves as a self-righting mechanism ;)

Image 1

Check out Proton’s CAD here!