Almost Half Way! Week 3: Day 13

Today we finally got our new driver station parts! My subteam worked on gathering the parts, testing them, and setting everything up. We've got most of our network configured and now just need to put all the pieces onto the driver station. Shawn got an excellent start on the driver station structure, so next week we'll likely put everything together.

For the rest of the day, the programming team worked on getting C4 working and preparing for our presentation at the end of the day. C4 (our 2009 robot) has not been used very frequently and, as we found out, had several bad motor controllers. After some debugging and crawling around on the floor, we managed to return C4 to its functional state. We are planning to run C4 with our X360 Kinect.

At the end of the day, all of the subteams showed off their work from this week. Our subteam showed off the linear storage proposition while other groups showed off a mortar-like shooter, a method for picking balls up off the floor, and several ideas for interacting with the balls once inside the robot. With only four weeks left, we'll need to focus and work very hard to meet our deadline. Still, we do have a chassis and a driver station so within the next week we should have a pretty good idea of where we stand.

Andrew Rhine
Programming/Website subteams

Friday: Week Two Recap

We (the PhyXTGears) do not work on Fridays. I don't think it's for any specific reason, other than to give us a chance to rest and do something else for a day. Since we won't be meeting today I thought this would be a good opportunity to give a quick re-cap of what has been going on around Morrison Mock this week.


We have been working on three ideas for getting the basketball into the hoop. 1) Using three wheels to shoot the ball, kind of like a pitching machine. 2) A low power wheel or a roller that will dunk the ball right into the hoop. 3) A catapult type launcher. So far we also have two prototypes for gathering the basketballs. 1) Six vertical rollers that have small rubber noodle things going through them. These rollers will spin to bring the ball into the robot. 2) A long PVC bar with surgical tubing attached in a spiral to grab the ball and bring it into the middle.


Once we have the ball in the robot we haven't figured out exactly how we are going to get the ball up and out to get into the launcher. So that's where we are so far. We'll see what happens tomorrow as we start week three of our build season.


Jessica Bennett

Week 2: Day 12

Today the mechanical  team continued to develop their prototypes. The mentors and some of the team members discussed different shooting and pick up mechanisms, demonstrating them with one of the prototypes. Michael, Dakotah, and Bryce worked with Nathan to develop a prototype push down arm that would be able to tip the ramp in the game arena. The documentation team was hard at work preparing the movie. Attendance was low tonight.





Maggie Taylor
Programing

Week 2: Day 11/Pictures from yesterday

Andrew Shaffer

Programming Team

Week 2: Day 10

Tonight, the mechanical team worked some more on the chassis of the robot. We've designed a mechanism for sucking in the balls that involves spinning plastic 'noodles' that direct the balls towards the launching mechanism. Some of the other team members worked on making the ramp that our robot will have to cross over during this year's competition. We also now have a working launch mechanicm that has two wheels on either side of the ball. So far so good.


Madeline Van Ness the Hammer Freak
Mechanical Team

Week 2: Day 9

Today the team got a lot done with prototyping. Gary, with the help of Matthew Plamowski worked on the bridge for the field. Dakotah and Michael worked on welding basketball hoops. Andrew Rhine and Paul worked on photo sensors for the robot, so it can tell if it has a basketball and weather to pick it up or not. Mike, Jessica, Ashely, and Anna worked on a ball gathering device. Nathan and Tommy also worked on a prototype for a gathering device.

Jeremiah Bennett
Mechanical Team

Week 2: Day 8

Today I worked on a prototype that would bring the basket balls into the robot with a roller with surgical tubing. Michael and Matthew Prymek worked on the pitching prototype. Matthew Plamowski, Tommy, and Dakotah worked on the backboard for the new playing field. Ashley learned to work the mill and tap. Anna worked on photography and wiring for the Tubby prototype.

Tyler More
Mechanical/CAD Team

15 Pictures for the 15th of January

Jessica & Mike working on Tubby

Gary Cutting wood for the game field

Matthew Plamowski & Tommy taking motors off of Sparky

Oh, Anna...

Nathan & Dakotah planing to cut something

Gary's interview for a team video

Ashley working with the mill

Anna is learning how to solder from Paul

A busy work room tonight

Mike showing off his chain necklace

Dakotah and Gary working on something

Matthew Prymek & Michael working

Anna & Paul soldering

Jessica & Mike working on a prototype

A prototype catapult launcher