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

It's SATURDAY!!!!

Today is a another work day for us. We have quite a list of things to get done today and tomorrow. We have to get this prototype done so we can start programming and drive testing it while we build the actual robot so we can "ship" it by the 18th. Here is what we have for this weekend:

Test the drive train.  Is the speed/torque ratio workable?

Test the pickup while driving.  Does it pickup at any speed.

Complete the prototype shooter.

Test the shooter.  Does it shoot far enough and consistently enough to make a full court shot?

Mount sensors for automatic pickup and storage of Frisbees.

Mount the wheels on the final chassis.

Mount the shooter.

Start mounting electronics for final chassis.

Start building the final tower.

So.... we have a long day ahead of us, but we can do it!!!

*Update from later in the day*

The actual robot chassis is coming along nicely today. Towards the afternoon more of our students showed up so we were able to get more things done and have people working on more things at once. The prototype bot is still a work in progress, but it was worked on quite a bit today.

Oh we also have a system now that will keep our snack area a little neater. We now have a rack for mugs that we will keep here with all of our names on it, so we don't have to keep using so many plastic cups.

The shooter has also been worked on quite a lot today. After going through two different prototypes we found one that we think will work. So we have been updating that one and working to get it to work.

The prototype bot hopped some today too!!! We have wheel movement and a little bit of forward motion now!

*Update from the end of the day*

Thing we got done....


Test the drive train. 
We got that covered, it works alright for the first time using mecanum wheels.  
Is the speed/torque ratio workable? 
Check, but that could still use some tweaking.
Test the pickup while driving.  Does it pickup at any speed.

Not quite on this one, we tried testing it from a stand still but our pick up bar was catching to much on the carpet.

Complete the prototype shooter.
This one is still in progress too.

Test the shooter.  Does it shoot far enough and consistently enough to make a full court shot?
We can't really test it to much when it's not quite finished.

Mount sensors for automatic pickup and storage of Frisbees.
To be finished later

Mount the wheels on the final chassis.

Yes!!! We did get this one done, and there is even a guard added to keep the frisbees out from under our wheels this time. Hopefully we won't end up on top of any game pieces like we did somehow last year!

Mount the shooter.
Not today...

Start mounting electronics for final chassis.
We are really close to being able to do that, but it didn't get done today.

Start building the final tower.
Not quite... We have to have a lot of Lexan to do that, and I think it is still being shipped here.

The mug rack was attached to the wall and is now ready to use! *Team members please bring a small mug with a handle and your name on it so you can leave it here and use it instead of a plastic or styrofoam cup.

Prototype bot is running, and moving!!! :D

As far as programing goes, they had to do quite a lot to get the mecanum wheels working. Which, I am told, includes doing a lot of hard math.

Other than that.... it was a really good day. Until tomorrow!

And we have pictures by Anna and Ashley!!!! :D You can also see the videos they have made lately by visiting YouTube!!! Then this blog, brought to you by me, Jessica B. :)