Tuesday, February 08, 2011

33.33% To Go!

Incredibly, we only have one third of the build season left! Today we made quite a bit of progress.

The minibot group worked more on their two-wheeled prototype and began working on a stabilization wheel to keep it on the pole. We're planning to run it tomorrow.

Caroline worked on the deployment of the minibot by researching racks and pinions along with drawer slides. We also made the deployment system in CAD to add to our robot model.

Others designed an aligning device for our robot to make sure it is perfectly centered on the pole and is the right distance from the center. It will most likely consist of a piece of sheet metal cut in a semicircle to complement the shape of the base of the pole and will be deployed by servos.

Programming worked on gripper code and encoders for the different positions of the arm. They discussed how best to control the robot and decided that an override of the gripper arm would be beneficial. They also made a pretty button board for the set heights of the arm but are planning on making a simple joystick version first before getting too complicated just so we have something to fall back on.

Two weeks left everyone, let's keep up the enthusiasm and great work!

~Annie, Build Lead

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