For the 2020 competition, Infinite Recharge, we created Spitfire. Spitfire features a turreted shooter which automatically tracks the vision tape on the power port using a Limelight. The intake of Spitfire has seen multiple iterations. The initial design was prone to becoming lopsided and was the Achilles’ heel of Spitfire at the Clackamas district competition. Installed shortly after was an intake based on that of our 2016 robot, Grond. The intake collects power cells from the front and vectors them inwards and then into the converter system. The latest iteration of this intake also features a slip clutch designed to prevent jamming of power cells within the intake. Spitfire is only capable of intaking power cells from the floor, and not the upper-level human player feeder station. Between the intake and shooter assemblies is the conveyor. The conveyor featured industrial beam break sensors for the purpose of counting the number of power cells within the robot and their position along the conveyor and shooter track. Spitfire’s climber is constructed from drawer slides driven by two custom gearboxes. The climber famously spaghettified itself at the Clackamas competition in qual 42 due to a mechanical error. However, outside of that match, it worked fabulously. Atop the climber system is what we call the traverser. It is designed to crawl the robot along with the generator switch in order to level it. Most of the Spitfire’s gearboxes are entirely custom designed and fabricated to allow for the best possible fit and compatibility with the robot’s layout. Spitfire (at Clackamas) had an auto mode capable of collecting and scoring 8 power cells, mostly in the inner port.

For the 2021 season, minor modifications were made to make Spitfire a better fit for the Infinite Recharge At Home competition. The climber was entirely removed for weight reduction, and a camera mount was added for the purpose of improving auto mode functionality.

Watch Spitfire’s robot reveal video below: