Week 8

Catapult now mounted and working on robot frame minus software controls. Wheels attached to frame and moving.

Accomplishments

Mechanical:

• Replaced catapult launch box with more permanent 3D printed one
• Attached and set up wheels with new motors, using a chain and sprocket system.
• Moved pulley motor to the side to gain more torque on catapult arm, allowing us to pull the catapult all the way down to the latch
• Extended latching bar to be able to reach catapult arm.

Electrical:

• Reorganized electrical board to accommodate new, larger motor controllers.
  • Removed additional arduino because it is no longer necessary, and it took up too much space - we will now be relying only on the arduino mega for low-level controls.
• Wired, tested new motor controllers.
• Added power distribution modules to electrical board.
  • All core components of the electrical board are now complete.

Software:

• Working on integration with the hardware systems. Working on timings for pulling catapult back, latching, and release.
• Driving controls. So far, we just drive forward.
• Alternate driving controls with WASD.

Challenges

Mechanical:

• Latch flex is fairly significant. May need change some things to make it more reliable.

Electrical:

• New motor controllers were difficult to wire and use, because they are meant to be controlled with a potentiometer.
• New motor controllers weren't that great in general, more details in software challenges.

Software:

• Wheel control not working as intended for speed control and synchronization. We plan to change motor controllers for this, back to the L298N drivers.

Plan for week 9

Mechanical:

• Finish making and mounting the loading mechanism
• Attach loading mechanism to robot.

Electrical:

• Switch back to the original L298N motor controllers for drive.
• Move all signal connections to the Arduino Mega.
• Possibly wire built-in drive motor encoders to arduino.

Software:

• Integration with hardware systems for control. Combine certain actions such as pulling back the arm and latching (to minimize stalling on the motor).
• Create more robust driving control system that can actually turn, brake, and go straight.