Cortex

Performance

Inland Empire Regional [11-2]
Regional Chairman Winner; Rank #2; Regional Champions with 1678: The Citrus Circuits & 4161: The T-Birds
Woodie Flowers Finalist- David Voracek

Utah Regional [10-2]
Industrial Design Award; Rank #2; Semi-Finalists with 1619: Up-A-Creek Robotics & 2594: "NASKCO Robotics"

Las Vegas Regional [8-2-1]
Gracious Professionalism Award; Rank #4; Semi-Finalists with 2122: Team Tators & 1572:Hammer Heads

FIRST Championship - Archimedes Division [9-1]
Industrial Design Award; Rank #1; Quarter-Finalist with 2056: OP Robotics; 2175: Fighting Calculators & 2834: Bionic Black Hawks

Technical  Specifications

Drive Train

-6 wheel "west coast drive"
-Powered by 6 CIM motors
-Single speed, geared for 16 FPS

Intake

-6 wheel intake mechanism
-Powered by RS550 motors in a 21:1 planetary gearbox
-Engaged by 2 1.0625" bore pneumatic actuators

Shooting Arm

-Powered by 4 Mini CIM motors, connected to the arm in a total ratio of 39.27:1
-Our steel tubing "cradle" provides a secure position for the game piece
-Passive assistance provided by elastic surgical tubing
-Closed-loop position control with a 5-turn potentiometer

Features

-Mechanism Safety Control    
   -Arm position control allows us to safely move the arm as to never make
     contact with the intake mechanism
-Autonomous Goal Tracking
   -Camera vision targeting assesses the "Hot Goal" in the autonomous mode, aims 
    towards it, and scores for the added bonus points
-Gyro + Encoder Drive Control
   -Use of a gyro sensor for robot orientation control, and an encoder for drive 
   distance control, we can navigate the field accurately during the autonomous 
   mode

Where did we get the name?

The Contest

In 2014, we decided to bring back our "Name a Robot" contest from 2007. This allows students in the valley to design their own imaginary robot, and give it a name. We distributed flyers at our 2 annual FLL tournaments, and received over 100 submissions! These robots ranged from machines that could fly, bake, and even fight crime!

The Winner

Although there were many great bots to choose from, one really caught our eye. The flying robot "Cortex", named by 8 year old Noah Gregory took the cake.