Weekly updates
Here you will find our weekly updates throughout the 2018 season. We kept track of issues we were currently facing and things we wanted to accomplish.
Overall Progress
1/22:
The team has been hard at work at every meeting so far with no signs of slowing down in the near future. We've had safety training to ensure we don't get hurt at all, watched numerous videos as inspiration for what the robot should be, and met with the robotics team 'Street Legal' from Magnificat, St. Edwards, and St. Joseph for advice and help on how we should progress for the competition. As of now, we are all in our sub groups hard at work!
2/7:
We have been making tremendous progress due to all of our teams combined efforts! Our robot is looking great and each of our teams have are working hard to make it even better! Our mechanical team is working in tandem with the electrical team to create a new pulley system over the past weekend. Overall, each member from every team is working hard to towards a unified goal while also having a great time!
Here's an image of the current chassis for our robot! We spent most of Sunday 1/14 and Monday 1/15 working on this, and we plan to keep adding onto this. We currently face a problem with fitting bumpers on the front of the robot, as it would narrow the gap too much and render the core function of our robot inoperable. Great job so far by all teams!
Mechanical Team
1/22:
So far, we have built the chassis for the main driving mechanism and we've added a few electronic components to help with the driving system. We currently have a problem with placing the bumpers on the front of the robot, as the bumpers are too big to allow for cubes to picked up by the robot. Today we're discussing solutions to counteract this problem. Let's hope we get it fixed soon!
1/29:
Currently we are picking up more supplies for rapid-prototyping of the robot. We plan on using a elevator grabber design, and are working with shop team to make a basic frame. Progress is going very well.
1/30:
Today we took apart the original model and tried to find a new way to meet the frame restrictions marked in the manual of the F.I.R.S.T. competition
2/7:
We have separated our team into two mechanical teams,one for is for the arms and intake systems,the other for structure and pulley system for our elevator.
Shop Team
1/22:
So far far we've built the exchange and are currently working on the switch. We have a handful of people ready to go workers and have several more people completing the tool training to help us in our effort. Newer members were trained on tools.
1/29:
Our group worked on finishing up the exchange frame. In addition, we created a list of materials to buy so that we can finish work on the Switch. In addition, we are almost done with team training. Despite running into problems with the Bandsaw, our group is moving on to finish the devices necessary to help mechanical team succeed.
2/5:
Today, we drilled angle brackets onto 5"x 6" plywood to construct the bumpers for the robot, we also cut 80/20's to the correct measurements on the robot.
2/7:
We've been constructing various small projects while we wait for our supplies to be delivered. We also have been making various improvements to existing structures such as our switch.
Electrical Team
1/22:
We have connected the Power Distribution Panel to the Circuit Breaker for the robot. We're currently waiting for the Motor Controller parts to come in, but they're currently backlogged so we'll have to wait 3-5 days for them to come in. We also connected the Battery and the Battery Connectors to the Power Distribution Panel and Circuit Breaker.
11/29:
The electrical team assembled all the electronics to the robot. We are now ready to being testing drive code!
2/7:
We are working on wiring our new intake motors.
Programming Team
1/22:
We've recently downloaded the software we will use for programming the robot. We would like to start as soon as possible, but we're currently waiting for the robot to be built so we can code for it. To keep working, most of our team has gone over to the Electrical Team to help with their tasks.
1/29:
The programming team added the electronic sensors to the software programming, and have began to draft a series of commands to the robot. The programming team met their goal of getting the robot to move by using a programmed gaming controller.
2/7:
Ever since we were able to move and turn our robot, we are now focused on tuning our programming, more specifically for our intake motors.
IMG_4316.MOVHere is a quick test with our robot, before the rope was changed to a belt.
End of Build Season Updates
Programming Team
We spent the remainder of build season testing and perfecting autonomous code. The main focus was to create an effective strategy to take as much advantage of the first 15 seconds of each match as possible.
Mechanical Team
Final Updates: We spent the remainder of time trying to perfect the bumpers. We also switched from using a rope on our pulley system to a stronger belt to avoid the risk of it breaking.