This is the layout for the robot.  All of the measurements are in inches.  If you compare it with the other designs you will find it to be much smaller and simpler than anything else at this years competition.    The dark blue areas were folded at 90 degrees, with the light blue parts being flat.  The idea behind the smaller platform was motivated by a couple of things.  First off with the reduced size the robot would be much smaller and lighter than the competition.  Most importantly we liked the idea of the robot being modular enough to accommodate any new attachment that we could come up with.   At the time we were still examining the possibility for a kicker, roller or plow.  We ended up using the plow but still have the other options open was nice.

We also stepped apart from the competition in that we did not have a caster or similar support. Because the caster rolled so easily it made the robot oscillate very easily.  The slight friction of the peg helped to stop the problem. 

Our plow was possibly the most coveted piece of equipment of the tournament.  There were several imitations.  It was covered with some insulating material that helped provide some grip to the ball should it strike the plow surface.  It was also spring loaded so that slight pressure would keep the ball in the plow.  This made it so that Doyle had to physically enter the goal to score but because of our low profile front that was not a problem.  The design team also decided that knowing when the ball was physically in the plow would aid in the plays.  We placed a small switch on the plow that indicated whenever it was raised and hence the ball was in the plow. That was sent back over the RF link to the computer.  In order to achieve that we were only able to send commands from the computer ten times a second instead of the actual data rate of 30 frames a second.  That gave us enough time to wait for the signal to come back from the robot since the RF links run only at half duplex.

Doyle borrowed some ingenuity from the Design Engineers at Dodge®.  We moved the wheels out to the extreme corners of the robot just like Dodge had done with their "Cab Forward" design.  Doing so increased the stability of the robot and gave us the space underneath to store the battery packs.