Electrical 2/5/12
The Electrical Team had a very productive week, despite a few setbacks. We finished wiring the all the essential elements of the drive train, and completed the electronics on the robot. After bolting all the Jaguars, Spikes, digital and analog sidecars, CRIO, and controls on poly-carb and attaching them to the robot, the Electrical Team wired it all together. With …
Read MoreWinter Ball 2012
On Saturday night our team was hard at work. Some of our girls decide to take a break and go to the schools Winter Ball. However, They found themselves having a difficult time staying away. Two of them all dressed up came down to the robotics room to say hi and see how things were going. They were so torn with …
Read MoreElectronics 1/29/12
Electrical Team Blog After the completion of the practice board, the electrical team spent a week doing a few small projects. Our plan is to make two robots this year, thus creating a need for two drivers’ stations to house the controls. We received the pieces cut with the water jet, and had to de-burr and file down the edges …
Read MoreDrive Team 1/28/12
Over these two weeks, the drive train team accomplished many of our goals. We have updated our CAD drawings. We made all of the plates for the drive pods. Many of the holes were cut exactly perfect, but for the motors to fit in them, there needed to be some clearance. We have filed all of them and now everything fits together. We also …
Read MoreProgramming 1/28/12
So basically, we made everything work. Problems confronting our team included non-workablity of the Kinect, accelerometer, and CANJaguars. These now all work so we can use them on the robot if we so decide. Although it is likely we will not use the accelerometer or the Kinect, we have them in a workable condition if we decide to implement them …
Read MoreMechanical Team 1/28/12
This week the team had modified the bridge lowering mechanism by centrallizing the pneumatic cylinder directly behind the arm, as opposed to have the arm to the side of it. We also found that the new arm position reduced the stress on the cylinder as it moves back from the extended position. We have changed the connection between the arm …
Read MoreMechanical Team 1/15/12
This week, we’ve been up to some prototyping in order to test some of the ideas we’ve had about how to score baskets. We have two competing ideas for how we want to fire the basketballs: either two wheels side-by-side to compress the ball or one wheel beneath the ball accompanied by a chute above it. Design One: The Parallel …
Read MoreProgramming 1/14/12
As always with programming when we have no robot to work with, there isn’t much to accomplish. Nevertheless, we have been making sure we’re ready for the time when we are needed and some drive code has been slapped together based off the drive code from last year, only implementing the new four wheel steering. We also added a new …
Read MoreElectronics 1/14/12
The electronics team made good progress this week. As of Saturday the 14th, we have almost finished our prototype electronics board for the programmers, and should have it done at the latest by Sunday. New members are learning some of the many skills needed to be on the team, and are doing well. Our team will hopefully know soon our …
Read MoreDrive Team 1/14/12
To start off the week the drive train team decided on using aluminum as the material for the chassis. We had to fix a gear ratio problem. The front of the chassis had to be raised to give it more clearance to make it over the speed bump.We found that the 4″ wheels were not large enough to clear …
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