Marianopolis College is proud to present DENIS, our robot for the CRC 2013 Velistic competition taking place at Laval Liberty high school from February 21 to 23.

Our proudest achievement on the robot is the launcher. The main source of many of our headaches, the end result made it all worthwhile when we measured an exit ball velocity of over 60 km per hour and a super-long range of 12 meters.

The launcher consists of two large diameter PVC bicycle wheels connected to two Makita drills. The launch angle is regulated by two side supporting arms (VEX linear motion kit). A limit switch in front and back automatically determine a safe interval for which the angle changer can operate in.

The pick up system on our robot consists of eight tank treads constructed in a vertical conveyor belt. Flaps were added on the outer tank treads to help with pushing the balls against gravity during the lift.

At maximum capacity, the conveyor system can hold 16 balls at any given time (4 rows of 4 balls each).

Our pick up system lifts the balls high so that they can fall directly into our plexiglass hopper, where they will funnel one after another into the launcher feeder.

When installed and programmed properly, the four VEX mecanum wheels (powered by 369 motors) allow the driver a 360 degrees rotation on the spot and the ability to strafe in any direction.

These maneuvers are extremely helpful in games such as the 2013 CRC Velistic competition which require the robot to have a very precise positioning on the field in order to hit the targets.