Team 5687 The Outliers competed in the 2025 FIRST Robotics Competition: “REEFSCAPE”!, presented by Haas.
About Mattie
The Swerve
Our custom shifting swerves are similar to traditional swerves where they allow us to move in all directions while simultaneously rotating, giving us easier maneuverability. Our swerves use one Kraken motor, to power translation, and one Falcon motor to power rotation. For translation, we use a ball shifter that can shift between a high and low gear ratio to allow for the most efficient power usage of one motor. We 3D print our wheels out of onyx, with wheel tread printed out of TPU, which allows us to get the peak amount of friction with the carpet. By custom making our wheels and tread, we are able to fine tune our tread design, which allows us to better control how the wheels will behave on the robot.
The shooter/dunker
The shooter and dunker are the two scoring mechanisms on the robot. Notes are indexed in the intake before being passed through the shooter. We use a fixed angle shooter powered by two kraken motors with six four inch solid urethane wheels to launch notes into the speaker. By adjusting the rpm of the motors, we can accurately shoot into the speaker from anywhere between 8 and 14 feet of range. The dunker uses a cable driven virtual four bar bar mechanism to score in the amp. When rotated forward to the correct angle, the note is passed off from the shooter wheels into three quarter inch silicone rollers on the dunker. The arm then automatically rotates to a secondary position to score in the amp. Once the note is scored in the amp, the dunker returns to its stowed position.
The intake
The intake is what sucks the game pieces (notes) off the ground and into the robot to be passed to the shooter. Unlike other competition years where our intake had to extend outside our robots frame perimeter to intake game pieces, this year our intake is fixed within our robot. This allows the intake to be less vulnerable to outside impacts. It does this by allowing the notes to go under our robot, then to be brought up into our robot with rotating wheels and poly-cord belts.udes students from over 25
Autonomous
In the first fifteen seconds of a match, robots are autonomously controlled with pre-programmed commands. To make the most of this period, Barry utilizes the speed of its shifting drivetrain to race other bots for the game pieces farther from the starting area. It is also capable of stealing notes from the center line, shooting them just barely out of other robots’ reach. Using its stereoscopic vision, Barry then chases down those notes and scores them automatically if time allows. These combined strategies allow us to gain an early leg-up on the opposing alliance.
Vision
Our robot uses two different systems of vision, which are a stereoscopic camera mounted high up and a suite of monocular cameras around the robot. The stereoscopic camera uses two individual cameras, allowing depth perception. Combined with a machine learning algorithm, this lets us detect game pieces. The suite of cameras can view the AprilTags located on the field, which informs it of the robot’s position on the field, known as localization. When we use these systems together, we can perform some actions like picking up pieces automatically, which saves drivers precious time.
2024 event results
NE District Southern Maine
Team 5687 was Rank 14 with a record of 9-7-0 and won the following awards:
Innovation in Control Award sponsored by nVent
NE District Pine Tree Event
Team 5687 was Rank 3 with a record of 15-3-0 and won the following awards:
District Event Winner
Autonomous Award
NE District UVM
Team 5687 was Rank 1 with a record of 16-1-0 and won the following awards:
District Event Winner
Autonomous Award
New England FIRST District Championship - Ballard Division presented by Altair
Team 5687 was Rank 3 with a record of 12-5-0
They competed in the playoffs as the Captain of Alliance 3 and were eliminated in the Double Elimination Bracket (Round 5).
Overall
Team 5687 was 52-16-0 in official play and 53-20-0 overall in 2025.
As a member of the New England district, Team 5687 ranked #13 having earned 257 points.
