Yesterday was a good day for us, we finished 41st in win-loss, and 14th in OPR! Pete McKenna was proactive enough to record the last 5 of our matches, so check them out!
Bag day came and with heavy hearts we bagged our robot built but with many issues yet to be resolved. Bag day was also a day where we started to build the shadow bot with renewed fervor.
Week 0 was a great experience for all teams involved although it ended up being more of a workshop day some teams like Harding and central got their robots out on the field and driving. We were talking afterwards, about improvements for next year and we thought that instead of a week 0 competition we would rather do a group build instead.
We successfully bagged our robot last week and can no longer work on it. Our current concentration is on creating the shadow bot, a replica of our original robot that we will be able to use to practice driving. This strategy will allow us to be more prepared for competition because our driver and human player can practice as necessary. So far, we have built the frame of the shadow bot. Our focus is mainly on the shooter, because in our competition robot, the shooter has been the most difficult and troublesome part. We plan to become proficient with the shooter so we will be ready on competition day.
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Currently, the media and business teams have teamed up to work on the video for the Chairman’s Award. We have been conducting interviews with team members to provide different perspectives about being on the team.It has been fun to hear stories and explanations from our team members of why they participate in robotics, and why they love it. Through the filming journey, we have experienced several different technical difficulties that have hindered our progress. This includes cameras without space, running out of battery power, and sound difficulties. Luckily, our team is resilient and we were able to move forward, finding the solution as completing the majority of our footage on an iPad. Our next step is to compile the footage and begin editing to create the video.
Today we did more interview for the chairman’s award. Things are going well. We cleared up the audio with a new mic and fine tuning of the mixer board. We also transferred the 2013 cRIO to the new shadow bot. We added components to the new shadow bot. We built the winch mechanism that pulls back the catapult. We added the reversible bumper covers. The programming team worked on vision code and the networking code.
We’ve entered our fourth week of build season and things are clicking along. We’ve finished the mechanical part of the scoop, and catapult and the pneumatics are being added. A shadow robot is being built in case our first robot breaks.The programming team continues their update of the software. While the Business team and drive team showed off this years chassis to the FLL team at Highland Park Junior High.
Today the team accomplished a lot.
The field elements team started construction on the goals and is almost done with one side of the goal so far.
The build team attached the lift and the catapult together using a four-bar linkage. They are working steadily to construct a winch mechanism to prime the catapult. They are attaching the pneumatics as I type. A small team is also working on creating bumper covers. This year we plan to make the bumpers more easily switchable which is an engineering feat in and of itself.
The programming team flashed the cRIO with the new 2014 image and calibrated the ultrasonic sensor to aid the driving team.
The balls are flying as we continue to test our catapult. Today we are experimenting with loaders and how to get our loader into position without exceeding our 20 inch limit. The scoop has to be able to go from on top out robot to on the side of our robot. We are looking into using four bar linkages to do so. The chassis team is hard at work attaching the battery, bumpers, and the wireless router to the base of the robot. The build team is also working on the winch to crank back the catapult. Today we worked more on pneumatic systems to power both the loader and to release the launcher. We are experimenting with the ultrasonic sensor, we plan to use it to aid the drivers depth perception. The programming team is working on a lot of projects like running code on the robot, testing the ultrasonic sensor, and working on the website.
Yesterday we worked on the robot at our mentor Jeremy’s house due to school being closed. We experimented with four bar linkages and tested the maximum torque of our robot pushing a couch with teammates on it.