10 DAYS.

ten days to go! with no moving chassis and no tower, i'm beginning to descend into the panic stage. but i know, somehow, we'll make it.

tonight's progress:
-coding took a look over the accelerometer/encoder stuff from yesterday. there's some scary math involving integrals and derivitaves that i totally do not understand, but i do know that essentially we're just making the encoder and the accelerometer speak the same language - that's the "value" i talk about below. what we're trying to do is compare the encoder values [speed of wheels] and accelerometer value [speed of robot.] if we are slipping, then the encoder value will be higher than the accelerometer value. if the difference between the two is above some constant, then we want to slow the motor down.
-so caroline wrote the code to do that BUT in the process of testing it we realized the accelerometer was not working...
-which led us to the discovery, after some serious frustration, that the analog breakout circuit board [what you plug analog sensors into on the crio] is BROKEN. there's a diode that is essentially falling off. and the entire thing was incredibly hot after only having power attached for all of ten seconds. eek. we called doug, our electronics expert, who came down immediately and has taken the board home to see if it can be salvaged. he worked some serious magic on the gts last year, so if anyone can fix it, it's doug.
-if not, we've asked ms mourad to order another analog breakout ASAP.
-nandini and anna put the weatherproof tape in the crate. anna's our resident tarping expert by now :)
-nandini made a detailed drawing of the tower/corkscrew/etc
-we started to make a to-scale prototype of the corkscrew with supports out of 80-20. karlin [and i] worries that the tall part of the supports will be too shaky to actually be supportive. we didn't manage to make the prototype the correct size, and were balancing the hose awkwardly and it was late, so we decided to pick up work tomorrow, but we definitely want to finish the prototype to ensure that the concept will actually work. the idea is to fasten the hose to the supports [probably 1-by-1 tubing] with L-brackets.
-sallie divya and tobi started making a bom for bumpers.
-tanya came by today, so allie and annie were solidworksing. perhaps they blogged about it?

infinite thanks to both karlin and doug for their energy and patience.