Sunday, February 11, 2007

Sunday, Jan 7

A lot of punching went on today.
First, we all arrived at Castilleja and worked on some stuff (like moving tables, sending emails, and making bumpers) and then Monta Vista arrived to use the rack and then Allie and Anne worked on the crate and Jimmy woke up so we went to IDEO, but not before Bud dropped by and we all had a chat, which was great because Bud is awesome. And then he came to IDEO with us and stuck around for a while, and then programming came to IDEO, so there was a big programming/electronics and ramp design party in the shop, and we punched a lot of stuff and the upshot of all of that is that we have a main ramp that holds more than we need it to and that weighs 7.4 lbs! YES!
Weight check:
-4 ramp frames = 15 lbs
-chassis and arm and tower = 65 lbs
-electronics board = really light because thy remounted stuff on a sort of corrugated plastic sheet.
Also, we need an optical potentiometer.
Also also we need to put together (that is, clamp, drill, rivet, punch) the rest of the ramps, and then we need to support them, and then do hinges, and then dampers. So keep cracking, guys! Keep up the good work for the next 9 days (AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

2 comments:

HomogeneousTransform said...

Hey kiddos. What are you using the 'optical potentiometer' for?? ;) Are you planning to do that for locating the arm in autonomous? Why not just a switch that your arm hits and stops?? Another way to do this is to use a gear tooth sensor, since you have a what - 72 tooth sprocket at the top already!!! Use those teeth!!! :)

Sounds like you're kicking ass. I miss everyone.

juleea said...

hey em. we'll have some photos up tomorrow, hopefully.

i'm pretty sure the potentiometer is actually more for during the game, so it's easy to move the arm to the right height (middle rack row, bottom row, etc.), rather than a driver having to move a joystick up and down. our robot design doesn't actually allow us to maintain posssesion of a keeper when we unfold the arm during autonomous.

anyway, our arm sprocket's teeth are protected/sandwiched by two white plastic rings that also help keep the chain in place, so I'm not sure a gts is going to work. regarding a switch, since we have two positions that we want to be able to jump to immediately, i'm not sure how that'd work. (but i've forwarded your suggestions to erin, karlin, judy, and jessa for them to consider since they make sense!)

we miss you too in this last week of craziness. wish you were here!