Back to Being a Saturday Again

Today we continued to work on our various prototypes. Which include the whole robot, the shooter, and the pick up mechanism. We also worked on the actual robot some more.

With the shooter we are changing our design again. We have gone from two linear wheels, to a band driven by two gears, and now to one wheel in the center of a large disk that will spin the frisbee around and shoot it out of the front. Similar to a clay pigeon shooter.

*A NOTICE FOR TEAM MEMBERS*
Because we are getting so close to our deadline there will be two optional work days. They will be this coming Monday, February 11th and Friday, February 15th both sessions will be from 6 to 9. Also, please bring in your mugs!!! Otherwise you will have to use the water fountain!

By Jessica B.

*Update from later in they day by Michael*

Today we changed the design of the shooter from a linear design to a circular one. The most astounding effect this had was that Matthew and I actually did math! It turns out you really do use trig functions in real life! Sine Cosine and Tangent saved the team a lot of headaches and time. 
On the mechanical front, the final robot is starting to come together, with the lift for the competition bot being started.

By Michael M.

Photos from Instagram via Ashley

Thursday, A Day For Stuff

Ryan and Jeremiah worked on the lathe.
I worked on the robot trying to get the lift system to work better.
Matthew worked on the new robot’s wheels.
Jeremiah also worked on the mill.
Michael worked on welding.
Christian worked on a part for the robot’s wheels.

By Asher Cougill

Well.....

Tonight was an interesting evening. We didn't have any one here to take pictures so this blog will have to be sad and lonely on it's own tonight. We did some work done on the robot though. It now has hooks and cables that will allow it to hang on (or climb) the tower at the end of the match. The actual robot now has it's electronics panel ready to go as well. The prototype bot is almost ready to drive too! We just have to work out a few small kinks then it should be ready to go by tomorrow! In a few more days we have to copy what we did right on the prototype and make sure that we can do it right again on the actual robot, then we have a robot for competition!

If you have seen the game animation and think of any ideas for names, you should let us know by commenting at the end of this post. We are running short on creative ideas for this years robot.

So yeah, that's it for today.

~Jessica B.

Let the fun Begin!

Today was a relatively quiet night, not to many people came, but there were enough people to work on different things throughout the night.

Tonight we did a lot of work on our prototype bot, it got a new motor that drives the pick up system. We put new drive gears and bands on the drive train. The chassis of the actual bot got a bit of a makeover too. Parts of the wheels had to be lathed somewhat, then the motor mounts had to be milled some too. The shooter is still being added to and worked on. In the machine shop we are also trying to train more people to work the lathe and mill.

As far as things go in the computer lab, the CAD model has been getting an upgrade. Then the programmers were working on programming and wiring for the actual robots control panel. The Andrew's were also messing with one of our sensors to see how or if it would work for our robot. Anna has been editing videos and then I am doing this blog tonight! :)

~Jessica B.

Prototype Bot

Lathe

Mill

Actual Drivetrain

Lift System