Faced with this season’s new challenge, Aerial Assist, Mechanical Mayhem immediately began brainstorming robot design ideas. After a few hours, students and mentors quickly decided upon the same general concept,
immediately starting the prototyping process. Applying successive refinement, our team has developed multiple robot iterations, each drawing closer to the final competition robot.
Mayhem’s robot “Kaizen” was named in remembrance of Kaizen Blitz, its alliance partner back in 2006 — the year of Mechanical Mayhem’s first regional win. Defined as the practice of continuous improvement, Kaizen accurately depicts Mechanical Mayhem’s approach to robot construction and overall team performance and success. Kaizen has been constructed to perform as a strong, maneuverable, and high-goal scoring robot. Supported by an 8-wheel drive-base, Kaizen is armed with a roller claw capable of harvesting balls from either side of the robot and retaining control of the ball during game play. The claw is equipped with grippy wheels, capable of harvesting the ball in ‘one touch’. A curved panel hides in the back of the mouth of the claw, built to launch balls into the high goal using six 15-pound constant force springs. Now, with the build season quickly coming to a close, the robot is nearly complete, and being prepared for ship date. In all, this year’s build season has been productive, exciting, and, like always, all too short!