Blog
February 7th, 2009
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The ball collector rollers and the tower rollers have been successfully connected via a bracket and pulley system: it takes the perpendicular motor and utilizes it there for the tower, while turning it 90 degrees and utilizing it for the ball collector rollers.
The shooting device mount is in the works, and the controlboard has been condensed to a small piece of wood.
February 5, 2009
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The ball collecting rollers have been completed: they are connected via plastic tubing, and have been covered with friction enhancing material: conveyer belt fabric/rubber.
Though the pulley system to connected a motor to drive the tower belt and the ball rollers was constructed on the 3rd, the friction between the tubing makes it less than ideal, and we're working on developing it further.
The new tower has been mostly completed. To allow a single ball to be shot, without needing a second ball to hold it underneath, we developed a spring mechanism that keeps the top of the tower closed, but a ball rolling up in the tower creates enough force to open it and reach the top. Work is now being put into mounting it onto the chassis.
The second set of parts arrived! And now, we start our duplicate robot... the frame was started today, but the electronics have yet to arrive.
January 29th, 2009
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There are 19 days left until the ship date!
We are planning to have a completed ball collector in the next week, but have the second of the two front rollers finished on Saturday.
The chassis is almost ready- except for our dead wheels, and we're holding off on completing the bumpers, because we already tested the bumper-to-bumper contact of the robot to trailer.
The new tower is in the middle of construction and should be done on Saturday.
By the looks of it, we may have the majority of parts ready to put together next week!
January 26th, 2009
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We've continued our work on the chassis, finishing the additional support and framework for mounting the tower: now we can start building the frame for the ball rollers, which will feed into the tower. Again, we've been working on mouting bumpers. We're also developing our dead wheels.
On the tower, we've considering rebuilding the frame, though it seems it will remain made of PCB, and are constructing new rollers.
January 24th, 2009
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Heavy work on the chassis! We worked on making bumpers for the frame, as well as additional middle support for the tower- we hope to finish those in the next few days. Unfortunately, the band saw broke...but we're getting a new blade.
January 22nd, 2009
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We've started trying to mount a motor to the belt of the ball collecting tower- achieving limited success. The belt (made of wetsuit material) has a tendency to slip which we need to address.
To practice driving, we've begun building and mounting prototype bumpers, as well as putting free wheels on the chassis frame.
Today was Jim Davis' (1) birthday!
January 20th, 2009
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Update: We are now using 6 wheels; 4 wheels for driving and 2 free wheels for traction control.
January 19th, 2009
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We are working on fitting our ball collection tower to the chassis while developing the conveyer belt for the tower and the motor that will rotate the lazy susan. The question is, will we mechanically stop the lazy susan from 360 degree rotation, or will we stop it with programming?
Also, the camera is successfully connected to the control board: basic visual recognition has been achieved!
For our work on the Chairman's award, we are furthering our work on our recycling program and will start spreading the word on Chief Delphi.
January 17th, 2009
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In the 15 days since the kick off, we've changed chassis design several times, as well as ball shooting mechanisms.
[[ 4 days after the kick off we had a driving robot! videos will be made available ]]
As of now, we are using 4 wheel driving, with an "open" front to allow balls to be collected in a chute that will use belts to bring the balls up to a pneumatic launcher which is on a lazy susan.
In the pneumatic launcher, there will be a sensor that when touched by a ball will allow shooting with our driving joysticks [[ we have successfully connected our control board to a pneumatic piston]].
January 3, 2009
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The FRC Kickoff!
Two students and one mentor drove down to San Jose to watch Dean Kamen and Woody Flowers live in New Hampshire presenting this year's game: Lunacy.
We recieved our kit of parts and spent the day brainstorming designs and putting together the control board.
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