further updates...

okay so saturday we:
-talked a lot about jackscrews (TEFLON coated ones ;D) and how they are an effective elevator
-messed around on solidworks with the "second-degree lever"/"3 bar linkage" concept (i have no idea what to call it)
-prototyped that concept in foam core
-learned some math/physics from tiffany and david
-went through 2006 drive code, messed around to see what the exact calculations and graphs looked like with karlin
-finished those pesky gearboxes annnnnd....
-...got the prototype up and running! (ish. it was only the gut strange whatever code that FIRST already has for us. BUT wheels turned when we messed around with the joysticks! so exciting.)

today
we attempted to find last years drive code (Failed. where IS it?!) and learned about programming basics from doug. jessa was going into some physics/mathy stuff with build, i know.

we also stepped up the prototyping level: the whatever-you-want-to-call-it (hopefully we'll have pics/video on picasa soon! it's really really cool.) is now prototyped in 80-20.

i'm not going to lie, i'm slighly worried about size constraints. has anyone figured out what our robot's full span is going to be? where is this arm mounted? the length of just the chassis will be approx. 40 inches. then we add the arm. then the claw... even while still prototyping, i think we need to integrate the systems. crappily, maybe, but just get an arm ON the chassis, and see how things work when we put them together. what the big picture looks like.

the sooner we get drive code (even if we just copy old drive code from previous years) on the prototype, the sooner we can practice driving. which is superduper important for this year's challenge.

in hindsight, i really wish we had taken the effort in the offseason to properly learn solidworks. visualizing everything together is great, but we rely on emily for that. which is okay, but wouldn't it be nice if we could just do it ourselves?

a huge THANK YOU to mentors and parents for their support. emily, eric, karlin, david, tiffany, doug, jimmy, jessa... thanks.
thank you anne's family for the yummy pears, divya's for the snack food, and the jasuja's for the awesome aloo mutter and rice. yum yum. :) we eat well.