Hello, Campers!
Today the elctronics people did something with some oscilometers or whatever and found out that the speed controllers really weren't dead after all or something. Anyway, it was good news.
The build team (that's us!) put together a prototype spinner wheel of doom that Emily brought us, and put some bearings on Thor's tower and created a rough prototype of the actual launcher. We've got a long way to go, but let's try to stay just a bit optimistic- we will not die, for one. We can do this!
Next on the list is getting our wheel frame set up on the turret base and making sure that we secure everything and try to make the motor as happy as possible.
Ok, I'm going to go brush my teeth now. I hope you're enjoying your mojito, Em.
And remember- A little optimism goes a long way. We can do this a lot better and with a lot more spirit if we remember our cheer and that WE ARE DOING THIS FOR FUN. WE WILL NOT LET THIS KILL US BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT WE WANT TO BE DOING, right?
Goodnight, everyone, and get some sleep.
-Kersten
1 comment:
Hello Kersten. :) The oscillometer makes me feel a lot better. I guess mechatronics projects are so non-linear - you never know if you'll actually be successful until you are successful. Sometimes I wish debugging and engineering was more like doing household chores. In that case, things will always get done, and what matters is when!
I guess since the beginning I felt that we set for ourselves a goal to large, and perhaps even worse, expectations too high. I've done this before perhaps (actually my very last project in school), and the last 50 hours were devastating. We had such grand plans, and such faith and confidence that it would all work out and in the end, our project half stumbled, even after a 40 hour stretch of debugging (during which I can remember teetering off between 10:12 am and 10:18 am).
I am optimistic that we can build *something* but more and more, I am not sure it is what you, as a group, think and hope that it will be. The speed controllers, alone(which should have been plug and play) put us back two days.
I love building, designing and debugging (that's funny isn't it?), but not under this kind of pressure.
PERSPECTIVE: By Saturday, FEBRUARY 5TH last year, with 17 days left, we had a completely functional arm. By THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10TH (2005), we had a completely functional robot with 12 days left.
We will not be there this year. I am optimistic that we can possibly potential have something sort of all integrated by 0 days left, but even with that I am not sure.
But that's one person's opinion,
Emily
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