Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Who Knew You Could Prototype with Swiffers and Chocolate Bar Wrappers?

The team is officially complete again and ready to get this season going!

Tonight, we started by splitting into small groups to brainstorm and prototype specific parts of the robot. One group worked on the kicker, another worked on a pick-up mechanism, more worked on shooters, and a few more prototyped barriers and blockers. Nicki M., Dani M., Chloe, Yael, and Caroline C. worked on pick-up prototypes. They began with an sort of conveyor belt using surgical tubing, but by the end of the night, they had progressed to a spinning windmill/Sadie spin-off pick-up model. They showed their creativity when they dismantled a Swiffer to use in their prototype! Devanshi and Samra worked on the idea of a cannon and trying to implement something similar, yet explosive-free, for a shooter. Katherine and Nickie P. worked on improving the kicker design and improving our defensive strategy with a net/blocker. Carly, Katie, and Caroline D. created a catapult out of legos that could serve as a passing mechanism or a shooter. Initially prototyping with a chocolate bar wrapper, Sarah R., Samra, Nickie P., and Aneesha worked on trying to block balls with a net, but also using gravity to catch and control the ball in the net, moving it through a funnel, and then passing it to teammates all from a stationary position.

Anna and Sarah R. discussed the ramp. It soon became clear that the ramp will spring back to zero degrees when there is no weight on it; however the material with which the ramp is coated is still a mystery...

Meanwhile, on the programming end, Kylie and Katherine were programming a target tracker (for those targets around the backboards).

If you'd like to see more from Team 1700, check out the five awesome robots youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/fiveawesomerobots), follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and keep checking back for more updates!

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