Gatorbotics Team 1700

An alarming day at Robotics!

2012-01-16T21:19:00.000-08:00

When we arrived at the lab today, we found that the fire alarms were being tested! Every couple of minutes, an alarm would go off, Victoria would do a crazed werewolf impression, and everybody else would moan about ringing ears. It wasn't the easiest place to work. Nevertheless, we continued on.

The first half of the day was spent designing full prototypes for our second Design Review. We developed two types of conveyor belt: one with surgical tubing and a v-shaped wall on the other side, and another that was 2-sided. We also developed two types of wheeled shooters: one vertical with adjustable angles, and one horizontal. Programming worked on getting the camera to function, and by lunch it was identifying different "blobs" of color.

After lunch, we finished our prototypes and the had our Design Review (thanks to all who came!). Conversation mostly focused on the specifics of the belt and shooter, as well as what would connect the two.

Finally, the team gathered to discuss further plans. We decided to create better prototypes of the two types of conveyor belt as well as a Sadie-type mechanism. (Sadie is a robot from a few years ago.) We also want to investigate the two different types of shooters more in-depth, and one of our overarching goals for the week ahead is to start getting dimensions for the parts.

Design Reviews One and Two

2012-01-15T19:26:00.000-08:00

This past Wednesday, we had our first design review! Parents of team members came in to see what we'd been working on and to offer feedback. Here are the notes courtesy of Alice:

Carly and Katie: Catapult
Using different release mechanisms [ex: pneumatics]

Devanshi and Katherine: Defensive Robot
With a kicker we have to be able to maneuver the robot and the ball so that we have a “clear” shot
Conveyor belt drops ball in a “hole” in the canon where it would later be launched (maybe using pneumatics)
Is it possible to store more balls? With a longer conveyor belt
Pros: this is a good design in terms of the guiding
Cons: lots of moving parts
How is the pushing mechanism going to be strong enough?
What will be the aiming mechanism? If this is a defensive robot, then it doesn’t matter. But we can potentially use it as an offensive robot and aim the canon by angling it
Pneumatics: FIRST sets maximum pressure teams can use…
Conveyor belt: smooth, rugged, etc?
How does it get it off the ground, how fast will it get into the canon, how can we make sure the ball doesn’t roll off the conveyor belt?
Combine rollers and canon to create shooting mechanism

Balancing Ideas: accelerometer, shifting weight
Aneesha, Caroline, Sarah, and Karina: Conveyor Belt
Straight-up-and-down conveyor belt that can pick up balls and that can shoot them straight down into the first and second hoops, or bring it up to a catapult on the top to aim for all the other hoops (including the higher one that couldn’t be reached with just the conveyor belt!)
Might get harder to bring it up to the top with the change in pressure (pressure?)
How does it enter the conveyor belt? If we get it at the right height, it can just enter from the ground [Popular design in 2008]
We can use other types of material: if the two strings are widened then it can be more stable
Outer strings with more tension can match the shape of the ball
Think about the wall: would we create a piece of metal that would be V-shaped so that the ball would go in naturally and there would be no need to worry about direction/guiding it – also think about friction! If there is too much the ball will get jammed and stop moving…
Can be both offensive and defensive…but would probably be better for offensive
Two conveyor belts: one that picks up and loads (slower), one that shoots (faster)
Think about angling the wall

Chloe, Yael, and Karina: Sweeping the ball in with brushes
Change the brush (the current ones are flimsy!) and maybe use a pliable plastic (or rubber…)
Lazy Susan @ the bottom = more power
Think about curving the plastic
Need to consider being able to change the direction of the sweeper in case a ball becomes jammed and stuck
If the mechanism is simple, then we can have multiple ones on the robot
Old lawnmower’s (lolwhat are those!?!?) curved piece of plastic

A few more things…
Anna and Shifrah’s Tank Drive: might enable us to go over the ramp, stronger, more stable
Getting on the ramp/bridge…tilt it with something (lead (sp?) screw to push down on the ramp -- someone needs to prototype this!!!)
Not limited by wheel diameter with the tank design
Able to push other robots really well, and other robots won’t be able to push us
Lots of friction with the carpet surface
Anna’s (leads’?) Chassis:
Programming:
Considering other balls being shot

We are having another design review tomorrow, so stay tuned for more info!

Lots of Prototyping

2012-01-13T23:15:00.000-08:00

Almost a week into the season and we’re busy prototyping, connectingour computer to one of our previous robots, and creating a new website.

Today, we split into small groups again and focused onvarious projects.

Nicki M., Yael,and Chloe worked on prototyping the device for collecting the basketballs,creating a design where two bent plastic pieces rotate and guide basketballsinto the robot.

Sarah, Austin, Dani, Katie, Yael, and Nicki M. worked on a moredetailed prototype of the conveyor belt, using pool noodles duct-taped aroundmetal rods, surgical tubing stretched between the two metal rods, and wood with holes drilled in it to put the metalrods into. They also worked onprototyping the wall behind the conveyor belt, using two pieces of foam coreconnected with L-brackets to create a corner for the basketballs to moveup.

Alice and Aneesha worked on a prototype for the basketballshooter, while Claire worked on building a model of the robot with a tiltedconveyor belt. Anna researchedtank treads; we’re still unsureabout our drivetrain. Nina and Sara drew a potential robot design.

In programming, Shifrah, Katherine, and Kylie succeeded ingetting a robot to communicate with the computer!

Becky and Carly worked on the new team website (coming soon!).

To see more from Team 1700, watch the fiveawesomerobots' YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/fiveawesomerobots),follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.

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

2012-01-10T23:34:00.001-08:00

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!

Welcome Back Juniors!

2012-01-09T19:30:00.000-08:00

Today our Juniors returned! Welcome back!

We finished the barrier/threshold, but we were not able to attach any screws. We might want to reinforce it later. More people worked on cutting, gluing, and screwing parts of the balance bridge together.

In addition, some of us went down to the lower gym to test out the tennis ball pitching machine to see if it was viable as a shooting mechanism. We plan to test the basketball shooting machine as soon as we find Jez.

Down in the lab, Shifrah re-imaged the cRIO, Kylie worked on downloading robot test code, Ana used SolidWorks to modify the CAD of our robot, Sarah and Aneesha played with chain and masterLinks, and Nina and Katherine examined our 3-D accelerometers.

Near the end of the day, almost the whole team gathered on the circle to watch our off-season robot try to get over the barrier. It didn't work for a long time.

Also, remember to check the fiveawesomerobots youtube channel for team 1700's second video!

A Great Start to the Season

2012-01-08T18:01:00.000-08:00

Today, members of Gatorbotics split into two groups in which one group would focus on building and the other on prototyping. The building group examined the instructions on planning to cut the plywood for the barrier/ the "threshold". The group made careful measurements and spent a good portion of the day learning how to cut the plywood gotten at Home Depot. After cutting, the group actually tackled the building part of the threshold, using the pieces. One main challenge when trying to attach different parts was to work with slightly uneven pieces since glue did not completely do the job. Clamps worked pretty effectively along with the glue and the building group hopes to complete the barrier by tomorrow. The prototyping group brainstormed ideas for the robot getting a ball to be shot into the hoops. This team thought a conveyer-belt mechanism might work but are still finetuning this idea. At the end of today's work period, the team agreed on goals to accomplish by this upcoming Tuesday and Friday:

Things to do by Tuesday (Jan 10th):
1) Build threshold/bump
2) Build hoops
3) Build Thing in front of hoops
4) Interface with Kinect
5) Working prototype of conveyor belt
6) Reimage cRIO
7) Figure out accelerometer

Things to do by Friday (Jan 13th):
1) CAD of Chassis
2) Laser cut electronics board
3) Buy a band saw and drill press

~ We also figured out the gameplan for the programming team:

Things for programming to do:

1) Hopper
go, stop, reverse
2) Balance
correct itself
3) Aiming
recognize target
lock
adjust power/angle
height feedback
4) Drivetrain (should be done soon)
tank drive

~ A quick reminder: Remember to read the rules/manual as soon as possible!

Kickoff 2012!

2012-01-07T20:24:00.001-08:00

Today was the day we had all been waiting for! Kickoff 2012!

This year's challenge is called Rebound Rumble (the video can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzpoMzLMhcw ). It involves a basketball component and then teams can balance on three different ramps at the end of the match to get more points.

After reading the manual the first thing that we did was come up with a list of what we Must Have, Want to Have, and things that would be Cool But Not Necessary. Here is the list below:

Must Have

Drivetrain

Shooting or Dunking

Pick up balls from floor

Hold 3 balls

Angle/Height adjustment if we have a shooter or dunker

CAD of the robot

Want to Have

Short length (to make it easier to put three robots on one ramp)

Drive over bump (maybe pneumatic tires?)

Tipper for bump

Kinect, targeting hoops (aiming)

Computer controlled shooter

Low to ground

Get balls to driver side

Defense

Shoot quickly

Parking break

Cool but not necessary

Pretty (powder coating)

Flying

Bball jerseys

We then came up with the following list of strategies:

Distraction

Blocking

Short

Be the last person on the ramp

Passing/Kicker

Fast

High Torque drive train

Balance

Automated Shooting

Dunking

Attach to other robots

Look at FTC from last year and robots from 1717 and 254 from 2009

Communicate with opposite alliances

Accelerometer for feedback on balance

We then broke into groups to brainstorm specific ideas for the robot. Tomorrow we are going to get the materials for the game pieces and start building them. Good luck to all of the teams!

Fall 2011 Update

2012-01-06T00:19:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! Though it is already 2012 and the build season is coming up we are excited to share the progress that we made on our off season project. This fall we decided to try and design a two speed transmission that we could potentially use for future robots. The project is essentially divided into three parts: gearbox, programming and the chassis.

Programming

The transmission code we wrote is broken up into two classes: one for driving and one for changing gears. In the drive class, we use a simple tank drive with four motors (two for each side) and two joysticks. To change gears, a pneumatic system opens and closes a solenoid when a button is pressed. "Open" represents one speed while "closed" signifies the other. If you would like to see a copy of the code feel free to leave a comment with an email for us to send it to you or you can email us at castilleja.robotics@gmail.com

Gearbox

We decided to create a two-speed transmission as an off-season project this year. The transmission should allow us to drive at two different speeds (we aimed for around 7 and 15 ft/sec) with full power. With the drivetrains we used in the past, our robot could move at different speeds, but it involved reducing the power. Having a transmission means we can have a setting for high speed and low torque for times when speed is important, and another with low speed and high torque (torque and speed are inversely related) that would be easier to control and would be able to push more strongly. As the CAD drawings show, we calculated the gear ratios in the two situations (you can email or comment again for these specific values, but while writing this post I can't seem to find them). We also have a pneumatic actuator that slides the middle set of gears back and forth between the two sets of gears on the side to create the right gear ratios.

For this process we first started by determining the number of teeth that we would want on each of the gears. Then we modeled the system in SolidWorks. We were then able to use our new laser cutter to make a prototype out of acrylic. While this prototype was not especially sturdy and could not be useful for the final product, it was useful to see what the system would look like. If we continue to pursue a transmission during the season we will continue to refine this design.

Below are the pictures of the acrylic prototype.

Chassis

The chassis that we modeled in the fall is slightly different from what we have used in previous years. We decided to narrow the chassis so that we could put supports for the bumpers. With this new design we could easily modify the height of the bumpers depending on the rules for the challenge.

The second modification was that we made was to have a piece of sheet metal (or potentially another material) for the base. We could store the electronics board here, and in the current CAD the location of the battery mount is included as well.

In this design the wheels would also be mounted so that they are visible from the outside, and supported on one side. This is a six-wheel drive set-up, and we have not yet figured out the details of the how the chassis would work with the transmission system.

Here is the CAD that we have made.

That is it for now. If you have any other questions or feedback feel free to comment! We are excited for kick-off tomorrow.

PS Make sure to check out the Five Awesome Robots project that we started at youtube.com/fiveawesomerobots

BAGGED AND TAGGED

2011-02-22T23:17:00.000-08:00

(in Shelbyville)...

Thanks everyone-- students, parents, and mentors-- for a wonderful build season! Watch the blog as we add videos and pictures in the coming days!

Functioning Robots and Double Dream Hands

2011-02-18T23:43:00.000-08:00

Today was a great day! After a great relaxation session drinking pearl tea and watching The Office we were all ready to get to work. Some team members went to IDEO to pick up the parts of the arm and the programming go to work wiring up the chassis. Caroline, Gadre, and Katie led the bumper making, and they are almost done! The bumpers look beautiful (We went with reversible ones and got numbers printed on the fabric. Other team members worked on modifying last year's cart to work for this year's robot. I believe they are also looking into adding some storage areas for batteries, gloves and other things to the cart.

We also found out yesterday that SVR is actually a bag and tag event for us. This means that instead of shipping the robot on Tuesday we will actually put it in a giant plastic bag and keep it at at school until the competition. We aren't allowed to open it except for a total of six hours the week before SVR, which is great because it means that we will be able to get in a little extra practice.

But the best part about today was that we got the robot up and running! We only have the motors for the drivetrain set up, but the first time we tested the code we were driving! And to make it even better this was all wireless! We had to do a little bit of fine tuning to get some things worked out, but we are making great progress.

Hopefully we will be able to finish a majority of the robot tomorrow so that we can attend the practice matches at NASA.

This will be a busy weekend, but we are off to a great start! Also, check out the new pictures added to the Picasa.

PS. The title of the video gives a hint to a little something special we have been up to...

Hope everyone got their homework done today!

2011-02-13T18:21:00.000-08:00

because most of the team took the Sunday off to finish it...which sounds like a smart decision in hindsight because I do have quite a lot left to finish tonight. Whoops! On the other hand, programming did get stuff done (Shifrah, Katherine, and mentors Stephen and Emma). We added to the autonomous code so that the arm goes up once the robot reaches the Twor (the robot would know that it reached the T by using the line tracker/ light sensor provided in the KoP). Afterward, we tried to get the ultrasonic sensor working in the case that the robot does not have space to extend the arm upwards when positioned at the T; the ultrasonic sensor would basically tell us when the robot was far too close to the wall for comfort, and therefore tell the us when the robot should back up a bit. Unfortunately, the ultrasonic sensor did not work properly as it kept spitting out 0.0 as the distance to the nearest object. After we Chief Delphi'ed the problem, we realized that the Parallax brand sensor didn't interface with FRC code as easily as some other sensors from different brands. (Time for another shopping trip!)

Then we had a lunch break...Unlike Saturday's conversation on genetic cloning (Victoria: "So should we have a philosophical discussion on cloning?"), it was more AWAH, "would you rather," and showing off gymnastic, juggling, and Rubik's Cube talents (apparently, Emma keeps a Rubik's Cube in her purse for those pesky traffic jams).

After lunch, we brought all the files from the various laptops together on Silverado and tried to make sense of the Gyro values. At first, the Gyro kept spitting out multiples of 7 for each timestep, even when the gyro was left alone. However, some Chief Delphi'ing allowed us to realize that leaving the Gyro still when it is first enabled allows it to calibrate itself, and so after leaving it be for a couple of seconds, it was a little more accurate. As far as we know, the gyro is kind of accurate. Meh.

Summary of what has been finished: first draft code for driving (plans to add PID if the robot does not strafe smoothly); first draft code for lifting or lowering parts of the arm to specific heights and manual override control of these arm parts; first draft code for having the robot follow the line until the T ...First drafts because none of this code has been loaded onto the actual robot...But it will soon...like couple of days soon! Great job everyone! :)

33.33% To Go!

2011-02-08T21:50:00.000-08:00

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

Getting a little stressed...

2011-02-02T19:53:00.000-08:00

Today we found out some bad news that all of the BaneBots orders are backed up by at least 10 days. This means that it is likely we may not even get the motors by the ship day, which makes us very stressed since we were relying on these to power the arm. Currently we are looking for alternatives which would be

planetary from AndyMark (they are behind on shipping, but it would work)
lead screw (we wouldn't need to use a BaneBots motor for this, but it would take more space on the bottom of the robot)
hope that they let us use a CIM motor since many teams are having difficulty from this backup and bad weather
maybe use a drill gearbox... or try to make something on our own

If you have any ideas or solutions, let us know in the comments!

Yesterday we thought that we broke one of the motors, because it started smelling really bad and wouldn't run. We probably did do something wrong to make it smell that bad, but once the battery was charged it worked again. So either it healed or we just didn't check that it was charged....

Minibot has been making progress on deployment and design, we have had some difficulties with the parts and getting the materials to connect the gears the way that we want to but we are making progress.

Programming has been making lots of progress! They discussed various electronic parts that are related to the robot.

So close, yet so far...

2011-01-29T22:09:00.000-08:00

Today marks the end of week 3, beginning of week 4. Time is running out!

However, this week we've made a lot of progress. In programming, after the wireless on Silverado was turned off properly, it finally communicated with the cRIO. After testing for buttons and axis for the wheel and the videogame controller, the programmer pairs revised their code. Luckily, all sets of code managed to move the wheels! However, since the wheels are not mounted on anything, the team cannot yet determine whether or not their code will maneuver the robot as they want.

On the build side, we completed the CAD for the "final" prototype of the robot. We've decided on the lifter mechanism to be the four bar linkage (we threw out the scissor lift idea for good because of the difficulty in making it... and we want Jimmy to stay with us ^^;), and now we're just waiting for the omni wheels to arrive to finish up the real chassis. However, what we're not sure on just yet is the gripper and the mini-bot deployment system.

For the gripper, Stephen advised us to actually make a gripper to test with - a prototype that is much closer to the real thing than blocks of wood nailed together and wheels connected with duct tape (not that duct tape is not a good tool...) and so that is the direction we're planning on going. As for the deployment system, we met after the meeting today to talk about ideas. Some ideas included a sliding-drawer system, an extending scissor-arm, and a "catapult." There was also the talk of accuracy, and in having a semi-circle guide extend from the robot to help align it perfectly every time. Our focused has really moved to the deployment system so that we can complete the robot quicker. While the robot has to be finished in three weeks, the mini-bot can be completed after the ship date, so we're putting emphasis on the robot itself. We will then base the structure of the mini-bot with the most efficient deployment mechanism that we think of.

Oh, and on the topic of the mini-bot, we've been working with three main ideas in terms of attaching the robot to the pole: magnetism, securing it completely around the pole via hinge, and forcing the wheels around it. The prototypes are still being worked on, and we bought two strong magnets to help. However, we seem to be lacking some tetrix components, and the Lego pieces, while handy, are not optimal in seeing how the real mini-bot will behave. Still, we're getting somewhere, and I'm excited to see where we end up!

Til next time!

~Tobi - the random senior

PS - A team 1700 music video? To be continued...

Silverado is acting up

2011-01-28T20:27:00.000-08:00

Today, we talked to Jimmy a lot about the tower and getting the height and we decided to use the four-bar linkage. We also discussed gripper designs and we don't need chain, the surgical tubing should be enough to power the front and back wheels. For the mini-bot, we are looking at using magnets (we tried some strong ones!). We kept prototyping minibots and minibot deployment, but we are still waiting for motor hubs to come so we can use the tetrix pieces for testing.

Programming tried to get the netbook, Silverado, to download code but it kept connecting to wireless networks and making an automatic ip configuration so it didn't work. They got mimi to test the getDegree method for the joystick which Carly and Katherine's code used. It turned out that it went from 0 to 180 and 0 to -179 (basically it wasn't like a unit circle).

Most of the team is out tonight either at the Middle School Musical, Annie, or FOMF (Friends of Millard Fillmore Trivia Hunt), so we had a low key evening with delicious Indian food.

The Animation team was working a wheel hub and they are having a sleepover to watch an early morning webcast tomorrow!

January 25

2011-01-25T23:11:00.000-08:00

WEEK 3

CHASSIS: We gave the chassis metal to our mentor Jimmy.

ARM: We are deciding between a four bar linkage and a scissor lift.

CLAW: Finalized basic claw design involving surgical tubing and wheels

MINIBOT: Prototyping design and deployment, perhaps using drawer slides

PROGRAMMING: Programming drivetrain and discussing controller designs

ANIMATION: Still working, still frustrating, but making progress.

Please comment if your team was missed.

Tuesday, 1/25/11

Yesterday, Jimmy said that our scissor lift would take a lot of machining and work, so we reconsidered the four-bar linkage. A group made the dimensions for the four-bar linkage so we can put it into CAD.

One minibot group learned how to solder and wired a light switch, while another worked on the “sliding drawer” idea for deployment.

Animation continued as usual, and some Animation people watched tutorial videos.

Programming was planning to hook up Will-Da-Beast, last year's robot, and drive him, but Mimi the Classmate got the flu (a virus!) and we now have to re-image Mimi and we’re making a back-up computer as well.

A shout-out to our readers in the Netherlands!

-Carly

You know you're on Team 1700 when...

2011-01-20T22:24:00.001-08:00

1. You're a girl (unless you are a mentor, in which case you may be a boy)

2. You have seen "Baby Monkey Riding Backwards on a Pig"

3. You eat over half of your meals at Castilleja

4. Spending 12 hours of your day at school is normal

5. When someone says Free Willy, Shamu, Moby Dick, or Physeter, you think of pneumatic actuators. And you know to which one she is referring...

6. "Can you get me a bag of chips?" really means "can you throw food over the wall for me?"

7. The only time you see boys is at robotics competitions...

Add more in the comments!

Thursday (Happy Birthday Stephen and Gadre!)

2011-01-20T21:58:00.000-08:00

This week has been full of birthdays! After we ate the wonderful pizza from our sponsor Il Fornaio we were treated to some delicious coffee ice cream cake in honor of Holly, Stephen and Gadre's Birthdays!

Then we went to visit the robot skeletons from past years (2007, 2008 and 2009). We talked about the different motors and looked at the way in which each of the components was controlled or actuated. We wanted to do this to make sure that people started thinking about the stages in between prototyping and the final robot design. Hopefully we can start to think more specifically about the implementation of our designs.

When we returned to the lab and split up into 5 different groups (2 for gripper designs, 1 minibot group, animation and some programming). I believe Mimi is all set up and ready to go so programming is going to start working on and thinking about the drive code for our new drivetrain. We ordered 4" omni wheels and the proper sprockets today, and we are hoping to get started on the chassis sometime next week. One of the gripper groups talked about using surgical tubing instead of rollers. A few advantages may be that the tubing could be in contact with the tubes the entire time, and we could likely add them in addition to the rollers. However, we still need to explore this idea a little more. The Minibot group discussed some new TOP SECRET ideas, which we will explore. I can't say anything except that our Minibot will follow all of the rules and will be named Mulan. (The reasoning for this name is the famous scene in the movie when she climbs the pole http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTqIsB98a1E.) We have also decided that the main robot, or hostbot, is a girl, but we can't name her until we see the final robot (or at least the CAD version of it). Also, a group of perspective parents and students dropped by the robotics lab, so we talked to them briefly about what FIRST is and the competition for this year.

We are meeting again tomorrow the usual 5:30-8 and this weekend we will be meeting on Saturday (10-4).

And We Skip to Wednesday (Holly's Birthday)!

2011-01-19T21:11:00.000-08:00

After singing Holly a happy birthday; eating lasagna, salad, and overly processed foods (Cheetos and the like-- my bad, Global Week); and greeting our mentors (Jimmy, Jessa, Holly, and Santhi), we began a group discussion. As we went over the pro and con chart for the gripper design that Tobi, Nina, Aneesha, Victoria, and Devanshi prepared yesterday, the team was conflicted about the gripper design on several points. Jimmy raised the concern that it would be important to pick deflated tubes off of the ground; some team members followed up on this concern by citing that some of our current designs do not allow for the release of the tube onto a peg in the case that the tube deflates while in our robot's grip. Meanwhile, other team members pointed out that with 18 tubes per team, it would be most practical to avoid deflated tubes-- designing the gripper around the off-chance of ourselves deflating a tube would be unnecessary and complicated. Another point of uncertainty was whether or not the gripper would be a claw.

What did all this confusion mean? More prototyping, of course! A group led by Annie "made a V-shaped gripper that is an inanimate spring-loaded thing with two large wheels with the sticky stuff and foam that fits to the shape of the various tubes." Tobi also made a mechanism that would allow the gripper to rotate.

Meanwhile, Sarah, Anna, Shifrah, and mentors Holly and Santhi worked on the minibot. After opening the Tetrix box, they talked about new designs based off of the previous Lego design. They also tested the Tetrix motors and put the wheels together.

All the while, the programming team sat down and listened to mentor Jessa explain threads and synchronization (notes will be uploaded to the website shortly!). Afterward, they downloaded Netbeans and the FRC plug-ins; they then looked at the WPI Robotics Library, "the set of Java classes that interfaces to the hardware in the FRC control system and the robot" and the Calgames code.

And just for reference, here is the time line for the next few weeks:

1/16-1/22: Design Week

1/23-1/29: Design Week

1/30-2/5: Build Week

2/6-2/12: Programming Week

2/13-2/19: Test Week

2/20-2/22: Ship Week

Let's hope that we can follow it!

Also, if anyone has the pro and con chart typed up, post it so that we can document our thought process, yeah?

A Special Movie Event!

2011-01-17T14:30:00.000-08:00

A Lego prototype of a four-bar linkage mechanism. Note how the claw can store itself inside of the robot's perimeter. Of course, we're not planning to throw inner tubes during competition, but you never know!

Monday Jumble

2011-01-17T14:09:00.000-08:00

Today we did a jumble of things. We continued prototyping the minibot with the NXJ (NXT with Java) and Meghana and Teresa had some fun creating Lego forts using sensors. The minibot can climb up the pole, but we are not planning on using the Lego system for the final product as the motors are slow and time is of the essence.

On the programming side, Gadre and Kylie spent time doing the all-important task of updating our Classmate for the 2011 season. We are going to program our robot in Java.

Stephen helped Divya with sensors and programming strategy for the game. Sensors are an integral part of this year's challenge as line-following and color recognition are essential for an accurate game.

Anna continued CADing up the robot in Solidworks. She finished the chassis today, seen below, and worked on a scissor lift and a four-bar linkage model.

On the sad side, we were hoping to socialize with FIRST Team 8, the Paly Vikings, but alas the meeting did not come through. Back to school tomorrow!

~Annie, Build Lead, and Katherine

[In addition to Anna's wonderful blog post..]

2011-01-15T22:27:00.000-08:00

THE GAME PIECES ARE COMPLETED!

It was truly a team effort. Thanks to everyone who pitched in to help - it looks awesome!

Special recognition goes to Teresa for thinking of how to store the peg-wall much easier with the hinges. *round of applause*

GET EXCITED FOR THE SEASON!

~Tobi - the one who will be bringing knee pads to the lab for future drilling safety...

Day 8

2011-01-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

Today was a very productive day! Shifrah, Sarah R, and I (Anna) went to Home Depot to buy the materials needed to build the peg rack and the pole for the minibot. We were able to find everything except the pole, but when we returned back to the lab we realized that the tower structure from Breakaway is the same material and about the same thickness as the minibot pole, so we can use that to prototype.

Shifrah stayed at school to lead the construction of the rack while Annie, Divya, Tobi, Sarah R and I went to check out the Team 8's lab. We are so jealous of their lab and space! They showed us their machine shop and we got to see the great space they work in. While there we talked with them about the machine shop, this year's challenge Logomotion, and our teams in general. We decided to meet with them on Monday to possibly go over some minibot and minibot deployment designs (We can get coopertition points if we lend our minibot to another team, so this could be a win-win situation).

When we returned back to school the group working on the rack was almost done with the construction. For the remainder of the day we worked on a variety of tasks. Sarah G. and Kylie worked on reconfiguring and updating Mimi, Sarah R. and Caroline worked on minibot designs, Victoria and Nina worked on arm dimensions with our newest mentor Emma, and other people continued discussing and prototyping. One really helpful thing that we learned from Team 8 was that we could probably use one of the BaneBots motors provided in the KOP for the arm, which means that we could use all 4 CIM motors for our drivetrain. Currently we are thinking of doing a 6 or 8 wheel omni configuration which would look something like this:

| |

(If we do 8 wheels one more would be added to each of the long sides)

This would allow us to move quickly, but still be able to strafe sideways which will be helpful when lining up with the tubes. Shifrah and I worked on modeling the drivetrain on SolidWorks, and we are hoping to make some solid decisions about the robot design soon. Our next meeting time will be from 10-4 on Monday.

So far it looks like a great season!

Happy Birthday Shifrah!

2011-01-12T20:59:00.000-08:00

Yay for Shifrah, our technical lead, who turned 17 today! Yay for ice cream cake and awesome parents, friends, and... robots!

As for the robot...

We began the day with a prototyping workshop with our mentors Santhi and Noe. We discussed concepts such as brainstorming in general, gears, and working with foam core, etc., and were shown a really cool site with helpful animations [http://robives.com/mechs]. Then we explored a small powerpoint where Andy from AndyMark commented on the different choices that people made in the mechanics of their robot. You can find the blog post through Delphi, but he basically went through every possible "tactical" mechanical choice within the past eight years, and gave his opinions on them. However, his advice was more on the... biased side, and it seemed as if there were less facts for the options he did not like. So I would say to research more on ideas that he may have shot down if you think they may have merit. Who knows, he may be right, but it seemed a bit one-sided.

Then we split up to work on prototypes for the tower. The lifter. The arm. Whatever you want to call it, and so we split up into three groups to work on three different ideas: an "elevator" lift, a four-bar linkage, and a mix of the two which includes only one joint with a sliding extension on the end. The prototypes were just begun tonight, and will be finished tomorrow. The animation team also got to work, and continued sketching out ideas of what will happen, or the story blocking... thing.

Until next time!

~Tobi - the one who won the bet and was not loud for the entire meeting. Which means somebody lost the bet...

Day 4

2011-01-11T20:54:00.000-08:00

Today was mostly a day to conclude what we had done so far. Our mentors Holly, Stephen, Jessa, and our newest mentor Emma, joined us during the meeting to see our various prototypes and to aid us going forward.

First we began by working in small groups in different areas. Annie led a small workshop in construction basics, such as drilling and sawing, while the animation team started bouncing around ideas to complete the animation challenge: aliens and saving the world...

Or something like that.

Another group started to tackle the minibot prototype. We have two basic ideas so far, and today we focused on using wheels that surround the pole using the NXT system. We're not actually planning on using the NXT, we will later be exploring the possibility of using a "switch" to complete a circuit which will then start the robot moving.

But that's a whole different story.

Next, we showed the mentors the prototypes we completed yesterday to get their perspectives. During that time we were able to throw ideas back and forth about the pros and cons of each concept. One thing that I think is important to keep in mind, as Stephen said, is that any of these ideas could work better than the other based on what complete system we decide on. The problem is in choosing which one to dive into. Conquering this challenge will be the focus of tomorrow's meeting.

But of course, I'll just leave that for tomorrow ;)

~Tobi - a senior blogger

Day 3

2011-01-10T17:41:00.000-08:00

Today we assigned jobs and continued prototyping. The scissor group added a leadscrew to help pull both sides in at the same time and made a wooden prototype. It works but might be difficult to make in reality.

The claw group added a stick and practiced picking up tubes. The pink top claw would be actuated and the bottom part is smooth and slightly curved down to allow for the tube to be pushed on and slide off easily.

Finally, the curved grabber method was scrapped and replaced with two wheels that suck in the tube and spit it back out. This method was very successful.

~Annie, Build Lead

Prototyping Mania

2011-01-09T18:44:00.000-08:00

Today we went over the designs we came up with yesterday. The minibot uses three wheels, maybe like rollerblade wheels, spaced 120 degrees around the pole. The minibot will be pushed off the robot with a mechanism, probably pneumatics, and will snap around the pole. Then a trigger will activate the minibot's motor and it will run up the pole. One option is using the NXT, but a brain is not necessary and is heavy. We can just use a switch that flips when we hit the pole and completes a circuit, turning on the robot.

For the arm, we spent some time prototyping different ideas for grippers and lifting mechanisms that we will go over more tomorrow. These consisted of conveyor belts, scissor grabbers, and claw mechanisms.

We are checking on the Chief Delphi forum to see if the chassis can be V-shaped so that our robot can snugly center itself on the pole for the release of the minibot, but if this fails we can deploy guides of some sort.

We are considering using Mecanum wheels so our robot will have sideways motion, but this will use up all of our CIM motors and we might need them for the arm, so that will be a decision to make later.

Keep watching for updates! We meet from 10:00 to 2:00 tomorrow.

~Annie, Build Lead

Kickoff 2011

2011-01-08T20:27:00.000-08:00

Kickoff 2011 was a huge success. Annie, Divya and Tobi went to the official kickoff to see the challenge and get the Kit of Parts. This year's challenge is called Logomotion and should be a lot of fun, as it involves inflatable rings, your main robot and a parasitic "Minibot" that is unleashed in the final 10 seconds. Unfortunately, we were missing all of our Junior team members as they are in China, but hopefully they will be back soon.

We started off brainstorming, so there's not much to report in terms of specific progress, but we're planning on prototyping some ideas tomorrow, reading over the game manual (the FIRST site crashed) and unpacking the kit of parts (the checklist is on the FIRST site). For the game manual go to: http://usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/content.aspx?id=452

Keep checking in with the blog. I'm really looking forward to an incredible season.

~Annie, Build Lead

CalGames Day 2

2010-10-23T20:26:00.000-07:00

Today was the second day of the 2010 CalGames competition. The whole day our robot did exactly what we told it to do and we only had to ever make a minor change before a match. The success of our robot didn't exactly translate into our matches, considering that we lost all of them except for the only match that our robot was not communicating with the driver station (we believe this was because the battery was running low). Our biggest downfall was most likely the fact that our divers had less than 24-hours to get used to driving the robot, and we now know to make lots of time to practice.

However, throughout the entire fall season, our goal was never to win CalGames. We wanted to make sure that our current team had the skills necessary to design, build and program a robot for the actual FIRST competition. We 100% completed this goal. We took what we learned from last season and applied our knowledge to the design of our robot. For the first time ever, we used pneumatics, and I am extremely proud of this accomplishment because we now understand how it works and we have a new tool to implement in future challenges. The programming team also proved themselves amazing, as they were able to complete all of the code (in a new language) in practically 8 days. One team called us crazy for making a robot just for CalGames, but we are all proud of the magnificent Will da Beast.

We talked to some amazing teams and we will definitely plan on attending CalGames again next year. Congratulations to all of the teams who competed, but specically to 971, 254, and 692 on their 2010 CalGames win!

Photos will be posted to the Picassa, and you can check out the videos we have posted on YouTube (1700gatorbotics). Don't forget to follow us on twitter (Gatorbotics1700).

CalGames Day 1

2010-10-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

Today was our first day at CalGames! We started off the day meeting at Casti at 9:00 and we finished working on the robot, and practiced driving for the competition. We changed the autonomous code so that we were able to consistently score 2 goals during autonomous (we probably could have scored 3 but we only had 2 balls).

One of the highlights of the day was when we ordered the pizzas from Domino's . They have this special feature that allows you to tract the progress of your order online, and tells you the name of the delivery person. We made a big thank you note for Leonardo, the delivery guy, and waited for him outside of the school. He was extremely happy when he recieved the card and we think that this gave good karma for the competition.

When we got to the actual competition everything went very smoothly. We quickly had everything unpacked and passed inspection quickly. I'd like to give a shout-out to Inspector Martin, I can honestly say that he is probably our favorite inspector. We found out that our robot only weighs 83 lbs (even with the 12.5lb weight on it), but so far the weight doesn't seem to be an issue.

During our first match we were with 668 and 114 in the blue alliance, and we competed against 1351, 675 and 3045. Unfortunately we found a leak in our pneumatics set up (this is now fixed), so we were unable to kick during the amazing autonomous that our programmers have worked on. In the end the score was 3-5, which we were originally surprised by, but when we remembered that points scored during autonomous were now worth 2 points it made sense.

When we left today everything was working and we are all excited for day two of the competition. If you want to see what's going on, but can't make it to Lynbrook High School, check out the webcast at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/calgames-2010 .

Photos and videos will be uploaded as soon as possible!

Fall Update

2010-10-17T16:57:00.001-07:00

Hello!

It has been a while since the blog was updated so I will try to include all of the important
information.

The first piece of exciting information is that we cleaned out the robotics lab! Below is a picture so you can see how lovely it looks. However, the lab is once again messy, but we will clean everything up.

The big news that we have is that we are attending CalGames next weekend! CalGames is an off-season robotics competition that is a replay of last season's competition, Breakaway. We have been working on a new robot that we are going to bring to the competition. The robot is named Will da Beast and has a low chassis, pneumatic kicker, camera, autonomous mode and snazzy bumpers (they are reversible so we don't need to stress about taking them off between matches)! We are short enough to go under the tunnels in the center of the field and the robot looks amazing! CalGames was the first time that we programmed a robot in Java and so far everything has been going great! Today we got got the final version of the robot up and running. The kicker works and we decided to add some surgical tubing to make it a little stronger, but we have the piston mounted so that we can adjust how hard we kick the ball.

With 5 days left until CalGames we just need to make a few adjustments to the robot and we should be ready to go. We are all packed up getting excited for the competition. CalGames is at Lynbrook High School, and the first day's matches and opening ceremony starts at 6:00 pm on Friday October 22. The second day (October 23) starts nice and early at 8:00 am, and we would love everyone to come! What is a better way to celebrate Mole Day than to come and watch an exciting robotics competition?

I would also like to thank our incredible mentors Jimmy, Holly, Stephen and Santhi who have helped us so much with this robot! We wouldn't have a beautiful robot if it wasn't for their help!

endings

2010-03-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

sorry for no updates yet -- the last month has been ridiculously busy.

i suppose the 2010 season is officially coming to a close! we've competed in both the portand and silicon valley regionals, and i'm very proud of us. we might not have the "tangible" results, but honestly? our robot this year is kind of amazing. yes, perhaps we didn't consider the current in our cim motor or think that bolts would bend, but ah well.

thanks to everyone for an amazing season. i'm going to miss this.

and away we go!

2010-03-02T22:38:00.000-08:00

fifteen of us, plus holly and stephen and karlin, are headed up to portland tomorrow to compete in the oregon regional -- wish us luck!

assuming we have internet in the hotel, i will try to blog to keep everyone up to date. wish you could all be there to cheer chad on!

to do

2010-02-23T21:12:00.000-08:00

details of the past few days to come shortly, but before i forget--

things to do either before or on thursday of portland:
FIX THE CRATE -- crack, power strip, weather stripping, bolts on the bottom, etc.
cart...? [check airline restrictions]
pack [update packing lists first]
do not forget the blinky light. take to portland and mount.
camera -- figure out how to mount it! test the code
[probably not] autonomous
sticky stuff for the front roller
signage!!!
newsletter
distribute teeshirts, etc
chairman's video?

sleep, eat, etc.
i'm proud of us. it's definitely been a whirlwind, tumultuous season, but chad is pretty, chad drives and kicks and goes over bumps. get ready for a crazy two [...or three???] competitions.

THANK YOU, thank you, thank you to everyone we have to thank. you know exactly who you are.

chad.

2010-02-23T19:29:00.001-08:00

status check

2010-02-21T00:50:00.000-08:00

1. DONE:Test drive code/ ability to strafe onto bump (strump?)
2. DONE:Determine position for kicker/surgical tubing
3. YES OR NO? Mount encoders
4. DONEMount gyro
5. DONEMount battery and electronics board
6. NEEDEDcase for electronics board
7. N/AWhere is pneumatics going? cylinders too
8. DONEMount cam
9. HAAAAAAAAAAAAtest cam code
10. DONEHow to join surgical tubing?
11. SPRAY PAINTBumpers
12. IMPORTANTCart
13. STILLNEEDAnti-ball carrying/support pyramids
14. NEEDCamera mount
15. DONEMake kicker
16. N/AElevation hook...geometry
17. N/ACan we lift 150 lbs?

t-3

2010-02-20T08:50:00.000-08:00

it seems ridiculous to dive back into the mundane blogposts of what's happening, what needs to happen, etc, but i know that he would have wanted us to have a robot to ship on tuesday.

a couple of us are heading to nasa today [rules mean only six people can go] for a practice session. i'm a little unclear as to whether we have macoc [mac and cheese on chad] to work with, but we'll swing by ideo later. the full name, sadly, will NOT be macocwfw, as the pneumatics unfortunately are not going to work and therefore we won't have elevation.

programming is eagerly awaiting a moment when we can test some code :) but if worst comes to worst, we can always use thursday at portland for that. but honestly, especially since we won't be having elevation, i think we'll be in decent shape for tuesday.

thanks to everyone.

thursday

2010-02-18T18:44:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody,
Today was a sad day for everyone in Gatorbotics. But we know we have to finish our robot. It's why Doug did everything he did for us. That, and how much he loved us.

I didn't know Doug too well, but I remember when he taught me how to solder. I'm an excellent solderer now--I learned from the best. Doug was always extremely precise in everything, from the twisting of the wires together, being careful not to break them, to the application of the super-hot solder, without burning the wire. And of course you have to wear your safety glasses. Doug always made sure of that.

I think it's appropriate that I spent today soldering, and even better, teaching other people how to solder. We all wore our safety glasses, and our soldering was wonderful. We fixed a battery charger, which is happy because...now our batteries can charge. And we fixed up encoders and PWMs. And now two more people on the team know how to solder exactly the way Doug taught me.

In other areas of the team--some of us are working on the cart! It's going great, I think we just have to add a couple corners so the robot doesn't fall off.
Pneumatics-wise, we're trying to test if Free Willy will hold 150 pounds safely.
Caroline worked on code. The wireless is having a temper tantrum. Hopefully it'll calm down soon.

We miss you, Doug.

woodie flowers

2010-02-18T17:00:00.000-08:00

We don't know where to begin this essay. Around noon today, we heard terrible news that a plane flying Tesla engineers, including Doug Bourn, had crashed into a power line. There were no survivors. Last night, Doug was, as usual, at Castilleja with his girls. Even after his six years with the team, we never quite knew when he'd arrive; he once told us “Well, I usually stop by when I'm having a bad day. You girls can always cheer me up.” We don't want to believe that he will never again arrive bearing bags of goodies, a bright smile, and thoughtful advice. The thing about Doug is that he was never proud of himself. Last year, we had all students and mentors sign our finished robot. When asked to contribute, he simply said, “But it's your robot. You built it. You did it.” He always put others first. Just a week ago, after quietly noticing we had not yet built a tower, he turned up with all the supplies and tools needed to put together a full-scale game piece. That's just who Doug is. He doesn't expect or wish to be commended for his generosity, because he always acted with extraordinary chivalry and compassion.

Doug taught us that any job can be accomplished with the right tools. He was the resident “Santa” of the team and often participated in "retail therapy." Whenever our team needed anything, he would be the first to go out and buy it, or find some better alternative. A few of the tools he supplied us with were far more precise than we would ever need, but most ended up being valuable tools (we eventually used all of the left-handed, right-handed, and straight tin snips he brought us). More important than the physical products was the mindset he gave us of how essential tools are. Our team, in the time crunch of robotics, would often construct make-shift prototypes and tweak them as necessary. Doug taught us that spending one day just planning out what we were doing without any construction would save us three days later when our model needed to be fixed. He showed us how many problems could be avoided by thinking through hypothetical situations beforehand. Doug gave us both the physical and metaphorical tools to succeed.

We all want to grow up to be just like Doug. He was compassionate, precise, brilliant, and sweet. Doug recognizes the needs of others and acts accordingly, without being asked. He always attempts to explain even the most difficult concepts, like the nitty-gritty of how sensors work or how to build a 256 by 256 array to house every combination of joystick values. He always enjoyed teaching us and never lost patience when we didn't immediately grasp the difficult concepts he so easily understood. Doug was also the sensor whisperer. We accidentally broke many a GTS and other sensors while trying carefully to make them work, and Doug would always sit down with a magnifying glass and some solder and sort it all out. He was able to teach concepts while simultaneously executing the necessary tasks. Most importantly, he was always laughing. Doug could make anyone else smile, even if he didn't know why they were down. Through the tools in our project room and the smarts in our brains, Doug will always be with us.

kicker

2010-02-17T01:10:00.000-08:00

Crappy wooden CAM (seriously, that thing took way longer to make than I would've guessed), temporarily attached to CIM motor to test torque output and actuate the kicker mechanism

...and it works! but watch out for your fingers...

such excitement.

2010-02-16T11:04:00.000-08:00

t-7, continued

2010-02-15T22:13:00.000-08:00

chadddddd the chassssssssssssssis drives. well! beautifully! the gyro code ensures that we don't crash and burn after coming down off the bump. this is actually wonderfully exciting. at the very very least, we will have a driving robot.

paiataaotgor's prototype does not currently work perfectly, but we think that with a tower of the exact dimensions and correct bumpers, it shoooould work. fingers crossed.

a ghetto version of the kicker is on chad [macncheese on chad with free willy is the official name of the 2010 gatorbotics robot]. the cam, in all its wedgeofcheese glory, is machined, meaning we FINALLY have a functional prototype of a kicker. anndini added a wedge to the bottom of the kicker, and now it makes it into the goal!!!! this is enormously exciting. we're aren't yet using a motor, it's mounted with duct tape, and nandini sits inside chad to operate it, but PROGRESS! such progress! and with seven days to go [MAINSK!] that's all we can hope for.

bumper progress continues, crate is glorious, cad is good stuff, chairmans and woodie in the works, sugar in the belly, and off we go!

t-7

2010-02-15T18:58:00.000-08:00

one week to ship and the robotics room is buzzing!
like bees! except i'm not sure bees are known for their robot-building abilities? although they do build excellent hexagonal honeycombs.
and what have the busy bees of team 1700 have been up to?
paiataaotgor has a design for the support pyramid for free willy!
bumpers are going swimmingly
the chassis is chassisy! and happy? it goes over the bump without bumping too much. thanks jimmy!
electronics board is in the works
yes, life is good!
...is it time to start pondering names?

things we need to machine

2010-02-14T18:28:00.000-08:00

chassis finished [gearboxes, chain, wheels...]
machine the cam
machine the kicker [questions: welded or bolted? we need to buy metal first, anyway]
mounts
-cam [need to determine position. can we reuse from sadie?]
-kicker [screws--tapped chassis]
-surgical tubing [ubolts]
-pneumatics/free willy [free willy himself, pivot, hook, additional supports]
electronics board and case

vitals check, 2/13

2010-02-13T17:31:00.000-08:00

thanks to shreya for posting that long list of what needs to happen before ship.... it's a hefty list, certainly, but we can do it. we're in a sort of bottleneck right now, since we can't test code until we have a chassis and we can't do the kicker until we have a chassis and we can't make final kicker decisions until we have a cam and there's just oodles to be done. jimmy is working on the chassis, kicker, encoder mounts, etc. fast and furious.

paiataaotgor is working hard on two thing that can be accomplished tonight: will free willy hold 150 pounds? and what will the final geometry be? yay for math and tightened 8020!

the crate is great [ha ha geddit?] and a deliciously vibrant shade of lime green, with a wonderfully ferocious CHOMP CHOMP mouth on it. that's a terrible description, but it's a great :) work of art.

we're coming at the end and with much that needs to be done but little that can be done, it can be really frustrating. keep your chin up and eyes focused and with some chocolate, fantastic mentors, and the will to win, we'll somehow put out a functional robot in our remaining nine days.

t-10 to do list!

2010-02-13T14:55:00.000-08:00

hello all!

so today we have compiled the following list of stuff to do before ship...luckily we are looking at the vast expanse of SKI WEEK stretching out before us like a...ski slope? for robots?

Test drive code/ ability to strafe onto bump (strump?)
Determine position for kicker/surgical tubing
Mount encoders
Mount gyro
Mount battery and electronics board
CASE for electronics board
Where is pneumatics going? cylinders too
Mount cam
test cam code
How to join surgical tubing?
Bumpers
Cart
Anti-ball carrying/support pyramids
Camera mount
Make kicker
Elevation hook...geometry
Can we lift 150 lbs?

17 things to do in 10 days, so if we do 1.7 things per day we'll be done on time! WE CAN DO IT!!!

t-12

2010-02-11T22:48:00.001-08:00

ELEVATION! IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN! the bimba order finally turned up, and our 2foot cylinder is capable of lifting decrepit, dying old chad! it's super exciting. i have video footage that i will post at a later time. or an earlier time, meaning tmrw.

cam design sent to jimmy [solidworkssss whoo hoo] so we can actually have a real prototype...

goal built

yay. thank you to the rosstons for chaperoning, to karlin and holly and stephen and kersten for being their wondrous selves.
goodnight.

SOLIDWORKS DRAWINGS!

2010-02-11T22:42:00.000-08:00

t-13

2010-02-10T19:27:00.000-08:00

chassis metal delivered to jimmy. chad 2.0 in the works.

cad stuff... also in the works? programming has written some theoretical cam code with an encoder and will test after divya does some camera stuff.
the camera is actually hooked up and though we may not use it during autonomous, it will be super useful just for general driving.

paiataaotgor still working on wood prototypes for elevation. their bimba stuff hasn't yet turned up. illinois-ING!

we have less than two weeks to go. commence concerned burst of productivity now.

---------
karlin here - wow, I don't think I've ever written on this thing...

cam update: worked on figuring out where to place the cam and estimate cam shape/dimensions. Cam dimensions are approximately 1.5 inch smaller radius with the "oblong portion" of the cam extending to about 4 inches from the center.

On Monday, used ghetto method to estimate the force necessary to push the kicking mechanism back. We estimate we'll need to generate ~8.5 Nm of torque maximum if we assumed the cam had the dimensions above. For details about how we got this number, ask Nandini and Anne ...and don't put the notebook w/the calcs in the recycling bin ;) Technically that means we could possibly avoid using a CIM motor to actuate the cam because it's not that much torque...

Anne drew up a CAM outline to give to Jimmy and will ask him to cut a piece of wood to test with- plan to attach a prototype cam on the shaft from last year's front brush mechanism to hook up the cam to a motor and rig up a semi-functional 80/20 prototype.

Other things to think about: where on the chassis does this thing go? how do you want to kicker to contact the ball (e.g. on an upswing? on the downswing? parallel to the floor?) Can we incorporate something that will help keep the ball in place/draw the ball towards the kicker to kick more accurately?

Also - Tobi had a different idea for kicker actuation that utilized a conveyor belt to pull back the kicker and release it. They had a prototype in the works, it'll be cool to see if they can get it to work.

----------

status update at t-15

2010-02-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

15 days to go, so much to do!

we've made a ton of progress in the last few days, especially with driving.
marvin, may he rip, has essentially been abandoned becauuuuuuuse CHAD WORKS! with mecanum wheels, he is successfully able to get over the bump. whoo hooo!!!! because he is the kit chassis, the gearboxes are not ideal meaning the chain falls off basically all the time. but once chad 2.0 has been created things should be better.

originally we had the rollers on the wheels mounted like this

/.........\
...........
...........
...........
\........./

bad news. turns out that is not how you are supposed to mount mecanum wheels. now they are like this and everything is happier
\........./
...........
...........
..........
/.........\

HE PIVOTS! HE STRAFES! HE HAS A BAND OF STRAIGHTNESS! HE [CAREFULLY...] GOES OVER BUMPS! it's wonderful.

anndini are going to allen steel tomorrow to purchase 6061 that can be delivered to jimmy. they also hope to have something drawn up in wood so that they can have a functional cam prototype.

paiataaotgor have new pneumatic [noo-noo] elevation ideas and are currently doing math to see if their idea is feasible.

annie and a crew have been working on finishing up the crate and will paint it on friday. it's going to be awfully awfully neon and with a gator! they are also making another bump and doug is making us a tower. we're still hoping to get a goal built soon.

chairmans and woodie due next week...

general update

2010-02-05T18:30:00.001-08:00

we switched marvin's back wheels to the moon wheels so that he would spin faster and not buckle in our itself: it worked fairly well, as he now turns well/pivoting. we tried to drive him over the bump, and while it did not work wonderfully, it didn't work horribly either. the one time we truly got him over the bump, we went really fast and he basically tipped over. we're not abandoning marvin altogether, but we are working on putting mecanum wheels on chad to see how that will work.

code is generally in good shape -- wiring up a gts today to potentially use on the cam.

divya is working on camera stuff

paiataaotgor's elevation idea may not ultimately work, as they think the cylinders will only raise it up about 18 inches. they are now trying to develop an arm to help elevate.

jimmy has suggested using something called "rola" for elevation... i am going to look into ordering it.

WEEKEND TIMINGS:
saturday: 10-4
sunday: 10-3

HOPEFULLY THIS IS A VIDEO.

2010-02-03T20:50:00.000-08:00

Wednesday February 3, 2010

2010-02-03T20:40:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Today has been a very eventful day. The PAIATAAOTGOR (Pneumatics as it applies to alternative aspects of the game or robots) sub team has successfully developed a method for elevation! Hopefully we will get a video if the testing posted soon. The best way to describe it is that there is an I shaped frame that is located under the chassis. At the intersections of the frame the pneumatics actuators are attached. The remained of the pneumatic cylinder is attached to the chassis frame. So when the actuator extends the chassis is lifted up and the I shaped frame remains on the ground. Then if we add hooks to the top of the robot, we should be able to retract the I shaped frame, so that the robot is elevated. Hopefully we will be able to get a total of 4 2 ft actuators in order to make this elevation method more stable (so if there is anyone who would like to give us a gift we would be very grateful :) )

Good Night

Monday 2/1

2010-02-02T17:08:00.000-08:00

Hi!

Today the PAIATAGOR team worked on prototyping a kicker. The first kicker we worked on was very strong. Unfortunately, it was a little too strong for the pneumatics to pull. We started working on another design that also uses pneumatics and hopefully that one will work well.

bye

tuesday. t-28.

2010-01-27T17:54:00.000-08:00

exactly four weeks to ship from yesterday!

yesterday was a productive, if chaotic, day....

annie headed the effort to start using a motor to actuate the cam. decided on a van door, will hopefully be testing today.

shifrah, sarah r, and lindsey worked on a prototype for pneumatics actuation with a gate hinge. shif cut wood in the shop during lunch and they'll be done with that soon.

anndini drilled holes in the 8020 for the better prototype of marvin.

caroline wrote new drive code with some of the new programming team members. we tested it on chad. the wireless bridge REALLY does not like going over the bump. at all. not even a little bit. we think that it's a combination of just the innards of the bridge and the crio connections. we're insulating the bridge, and we shall try to order another one.

drills have been researched and we will order a new dewalt asap.

monday 1/25

2010-01-25T18:56:00.000-08:00

hello!

chad goes over bumps! chad operates pneumatics! chad is amazing!
[chad is the kit chassis.]
unfortunately, chad does not go over bumps too well --- there are quite frightening crashing sounds when he lands. and the wireless likes to shut off. sticky wheels at the back work better than slick wheels at the back, though. but we as much as we love chad, we would prefer to not actually have to use him. especially as he has an attitude problem

PAIATAAOTGOR team wants you to know that they were successful in their robotics mission. they are about to go on an ACE run to get hinges etc to take their kicker mechanism to the next level.

the chassis [preemptively named "marvelous marvin"] is being drawn up by nandini.
sallie, divya, and santhi are wiring up various sensors. i THINK i found accurate documentation for the gyro [rate: signal, 5v, gd], but i cannot decipher the accelerometer documentation.

victoria, kylie, and shreya have been working on the lego robot, aka henry. they are screaming very loudly so as to trigger the sound sensor.

thank you to mr dean for chaperoning and to the harris family for dinner.
and a reminder that we are meeting until 8:30 this week.

thursday 1/21

2010-01-21T18:25:00.000-08:00

it's been a long while since i've properly updated -- sorry! we've come a long way.

chad, the kit chassis with last year's electronics board but this year's labview code, is FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY up and running! it's terribly exciting.

marion, victoria, kylie, and caroline are going to work on pneumatics code. anna m has been spearheading the pneumatics movement, which is really awesome. the current pneumatics setup is slightly sketchy. we may possibly have been hardwiring to the battery, but we are in the process of hooking everything up [safty FIRST!] carefully following instructions.

aneesha, anna h, kaley, and tobi are working with mr cardinal to build the bump tonight. thank you so much for his help!

we've had some serious laptop/labview issues. after getting the new laptop from tech and installing labview 8.6, we think that labview is not windows7 compatible. this is a problem, meaning we won't be able to code on the new one successfully unless we downgrade to xp. mehhhh.

we have essentially decided that the design for the kicker that we want to pursue is the surgical tubing/4 chairs concept. a rectangular frame with a metal rod running though it with surgical tubing attaching to the top pulling the back of the kicker, allowing you to release quickly. i'm not sure that description is the easiest to understand, but i shall try to upload some pics whenever i have a moment.

more later

STRUCTURAL SUBTEAMS!

2010-01-20T19:47:00.001-08:00

drivetrain
mentor: stephen
lead: nandini
code: caroline
tobi
sara h
meghana

kicker
mentor: santhi
lead: anne
code: divya
annie
aneesha

"pneumatics as it relates to... things" [pairtt]
mentor: holly
anna m
shifrah
sarah r
lindsey

elevation
mentor: karlin
lead: allie
code: sallie/sherri
teresa

hopefully the other new team members will join the various subteams soon. thanks to all for a great design review! i'll try to write more late.r

important links

2010-01-19T19:10:00.001-08:00

labview programming guide -- http://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-2631

from anna

2010-01-13T21:06:00.000-08:00

anna can't figure out how to post so i am posting this for her:

Today Shifrah, Sarah R, Divya and I [Anna] were able to work on a pneumatics system to possibly use as a "kicker" for the robot. Jessa came by and helped us figure out what the pieces in the pneumatics boxes were for. After numerous trials and resealing the connections with teflon tape we were able to get the system to work! Currently the "kicker" dosn't move very quickly, but hopefully we will soon be able to connect it to some electronics so that we can get a good prototype up and running!

also, i (shreya again) wrote a poem

we don't know why

and we don't know how

but our projector

smells like a cow.

wednesday

2010-01-13T18:45:00.000-08:00

summary version of where we're at:

caroline, karlin, and i got extremely frustrated with the downloading mishaps and decided just to go home on time yesterday. we will continue wrestling with it on friday, but as we can actually write code and download it, we are not going to continue driving ourselves insane.

SO: tonight, we have four groups of people working on things.

caroline is working with lindsey, shreya, emilie rw, marion, kylie, and victoria and is walking them through the labview code from last year. we were hoping to have a projector to make teaching/explanation easier, but we could not manage to get the projector to work.

allie is working with teresa, annie, aneesha, and meghana and putting chain on the kit chassis. we're definitely going to stick with 35 chain this year, since we can't come up with good concrete reasons to switch to 25 and it is a huge hassle.

anna and shifrah are heading up a group that is prototyping a PNEUMATIC ACTUATOR!!!! i am very excited about it. yay for experimentation and messing around with parts.

tobi and a group are working on a pincher mechanism with 80/20.

thank you to mrs holston for dinner and chaperoning and to jessa for turning up!

a very productive day!

2010-01-12T19:21:00.001-08:00

hello everybody! shreya here. i've been appointed "official blog person" so get used to me :)

it's the 4th day of the season and the robotics room is buzzing! build and programming alike a re busy as bumblebees!

happening today:

sherri, caroline, sallie, divya and karlin are trying to fix the wireless connection--basically, several parts have identity crises and are not aware they exist. and they need therapy.
anne and nandini filled in our lovely mentors, stephen and holly, on this year's challenge
anna, shifrah, emily and i built a prototype chassis
annie, sarah, christine and meghana built a prototype kicking mechanism
tobi, nina and aneesha worked on a prototype pinball flipper thing for kicking the soccer ball
allie, lindsey and victoria inventoried parts :D

chaperone and dinner was my mom (aka kc), who offered these words of wisdom: there is no such thing as too much garlic bread.

and away we go!

2010-01-10T12:30:00.001-08:00

hello!
it's strange to think that season's already started -- sixth year!

yesterday was kickoff. the challenge this year is essentially a modified soccer game with "bumps", and a "finale" involving robots elevated onto platforms. here's a link to a youtube of the animation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEHAj3EmpMw

caroline, anna m, anne, and i [sherri] went down to sj at the crack of dawn to receive the challenge and get the kit of parts. we came back to school and kicked off with the larger team and community at noon. i definitely think it was the biggest kickoff yet! over fifteen new team members showed up. we had an initial brainstorming session which we are continuing today. yesterday, we also inventoried the kit of parts, began to read the manual, and began to set up for labview/downloading.

this morning, we outlined major dates and guidelines. we want to have a design review sometime in the 17th-19th, actually choose a design, especially for drive train, by the 22nd. sometime early in season, we need to actually make a decision: do we want a gripper/elevation thing or not? we don't want another scotty-situation.

allie is going to create a twitter account for us.

we have a list of tasks/jobs that need to be done, especially things that underclassmen can do...
blog -- shreya
inventory robotics lap?
bill of materials
"manual expert" -- anna m
cart -- sarah r
picasa/photos -- teresa
junior safety captain?
youtube scout -- victoria
bumpers
game components

and off we go! thank you to ms mourad, the mentors who came yesterday, and all the parent support. we couldn't do it without you. let the madness begin.

Crate Progress

2010-01-01T16:03:00.000-08:00

Today, Shreya, Shifrah, Anna, Tobi, Sherri and I (Annie) met at Castilleja to build the crate. The design is similar to our previous crate with a few modifications. Firstly, it is lighter, as we used lighter plywood for the sides. Also, it will be kept inside, so it will stay dry and last much longer than our old one.

We finished the two halves and are waiting to complete until the season starts because it won't fit up the elevator in the Arrillaga building, but for storage it will be kept in the Gym, as it is 4" thinner and will fit in that elevator. The halves are currently in the robotics room.

Many thanks to everyone who helped out, especially Ms. Mourad and Mr. Cardinal for supervising.

Happy New Year!

~Annie

2010 Season!

2009-12-23T18:08:00.000-08:00

Hello!

I hope you're all excited about the upcoming season -- this email (sorry for the length...) will outline some important dates/general information about the team.

-Anne sent all team members a spreadsheet earlier tonight asking for contact information for you and your parents. Please do fill it out whenever you have a minute.

-Kickoff is Saturday, January 9th, 12-4. A few team members will be going to receive the Kit of Parts and the challenge information early that morning, and then we will all meet at noon in the Choral Room to share the challenge and begin brainstorming. As we start to design, brainstorm, and unpack all the good gadgets and gizmos, there will be a parents meeting, so please encourage your parents to come.

-We'll meet Sunday the 10th and Monday the 11th from 11-3. The juniors arrive back on Sunday.

-The team will work daily in the evenings after school, and weekends, to design, prototype and build the robot/cart, develop the programming that controls it, and other various roboticsy activities. Find the project that interests you most, work hard and HAVE FUN!

-Some people have asked about choosing between build v programming -- the choice is entirely up to you. You can certainly wander between both for a few weeks, and you will probably naturally gravitate to one subteam or the other.

-As it is a school rule that we have chaperones at all times, we do ask that parents help provide supervision and meals.

-Ship date/final deadline is February 23 2010. This is the week after February break, unlike previous years. In my experience, the days leading up to ship, this year throughout Break, have been the most involved and most exciting. If your family has not already made plans, I definitely encourage you to stay through break -- it's amazingly fun.

-March 4-6 is Portland Regional Competition. About fourteen team members will go. In previous years, we've been in the seventh seeded alliance.
-March 18-20 is the Silicon Valley Regional at San Jose State. All team members participate in this exciting competition. Last year we won the Xerox Creativity Award and were, once again, the seventh seeded alliance.

-Should we qualify to go onto Nationals at either Portland or SVR, we will get to go to Atlanta for the Nationals, April 15-17 2010. We obviously don't know if we'll qualify, but those are the dates. Once again, about fourteen team members will be going.
-We'd love for the whole team to go to the out-of-town competitions, but unfortunately that is not financially or organizationally feasible. Team members will qualify to attend the out-of-state tournaments by hard work and dedication to meeting the goals of the team and through their "gracious professionalism."

Oof! Thanks for making it through to the end of this email.

To summarize: Fill out the spreadsheet. Kickoff January 9th, noon. Working in the weeknights from roughly 5:30 onwards, weekends tba. Drills. Programming. Designing. Food. Much goofiness. Fun.Thanks so much! We're so excited for this season.

Our website is gatorbotics.com and picasa site with pictures is http://picasaweb.google.com/castilleja.robotics

Sherri Billimoria

Team Lead

650-464-8746

Caroline Abbott

Technical Lead

650-804-4403

DAVIS

2009-03-29T11:27:00.000-07:00

we're back from davis!

it was a hectic and crazy three days, as always. while the tangible results might not show it, we did really well. i'm proud.
summary version: we ranked 15th, but did not get chosen for an alliance. [ironic! when we're 44th out of 48 we get chosen, but not when we're fifteenth?] and we didn't win any FIRST awards. although, team 100 bestowed upon us the "radical resourcefulness" award, which was fun :)

quick recap of each day...

thursday
- set up new driver's station
- as tends to happen with our tempermental paddle, code decided to just Not Work. it completely bypassed the "opening state" and wouldn't do anything. so we switched to a timer based code, which was effective although sketchy.
- the front brush gearbox literally fell apart. we superglued it back together.
- discovered one set of chain was absurdly loose, tightened it by taking off skateboard wheel and removing a link or two.

friday
- everyone else arrived!
- karlin showed up how to use a flat sequence structure to make the brains wait before checking the limit switch again, so the paddle would actually work. but it didn't, really...

- so half an hour before our next match, karlin erin caroline and i decided we HAD to add another limit switch. frantic drilling/soldering/coding/ziptying resulted in our winning that match! it was very exciting.

- we won 4 out of 6 matches! we were ranked 11th at the end of the night.
- chairman's interview went well
i can't remember what else happened...

saturday
- we won one out of our three matches, ranked 15th at the end.
- didn't get chosen for an alliance, but were the second alternate
- had judges in our pit all day, chatting and interviewing
- after alliance picking, we packed everything up and took all the crates out to the car, crated up sadie
-only to have an event volunteer come over to us tell us we had to get the robot out NOW because we were ON DECK. frantic uncrating and bumper attaching resulted, and then we were told, no, you're not on deck, you're just the alternate. so if ANOTHER robot fails, then maybe you'll be on in fifteen minutes. HA. well, i suppose it was a good drill. we now know we can uncrate and be ready to go in five minutes flat!

all in all, it was a great regional. hope everyone else also had a great time.

before atlanta: fix the paddle. yet again.

saturday at svr!

2009-03-15T11:53:00.000-07:00

quick update of the rest of the competition...

we added some sheet metal to the paddle and rewrote code (now with four states) before our last two qualifiers. we lost both matches, but all the parts of sadie did work when they were supposed to! yay!

so it came as a complete surprise to us to be chosen for the 7th seeded alliance by 115 (monte vista) and 1120 (milpitas). i think it's funny that we ALWAYS end up in the seventh alliance - at least four times since my freshman year!

the first match did not go well - at first sadie wouldn't turn on. then when i tried to swap batteries, they wouldn't let me because we hadn't technically called a time out... eventually, the robot eventually turned on but connection kept flickering, and she would randomly stop during the match... it was bad. turned out to be a combination of a bad battery and bad battery lead which we quickly swapped before the next match
...which we also lost, apparently there we continued to have some wireless issues, which we need to test out on thursday of davis (the driver's station still read 12V throughout the match). but in general, we did well in that match. as in, all the parts moved as they were supposed to, anndini's driving was good... we lost, but ah well, even getting chosen was far more than expected!

jimmy will be helping us to make a larger circle for the paddle by davis.

all in all, it was an amazing weekend - while we did not do particularly well if you're looking at rankings/matches, i'm really proud. considering the numbers of mishaps we've had (especially electronics! eek! driver's station AND crio AND analog breakout AND battery problems...), sadie performed remarkably well. hell, we hadn't tested everything together until our first qualifier friday morning!

and we've still got davis and atlanta!

thanks to the huge number of people who arrived to support us! we had quite the green group of supporters.

svr friday

2009-03-13T19:31:00.000-07:00

first thing - we won the xerox creativity award! i think i speak for the team when i say that we are delighted and surprised. the xerox creativity award recognizes a particularly innovative or creative mechanism. our pushbrooms, the subjects of many a bad joke, won us this award!

in light of the results of our matches, the award was especially exciting. because the matches didn't go fabulously...
-our first match went well and we won
-second match - the paddle got stuck and the buttons wouldn't work. however, before 3rd match, we added a "merde!" button that overrides limit switch code and just moves the damn globe motor.
-third match - we lost, but the robot itself worked well. the difficult part is getting close enough to a trailer
-i think my match numbers are off, but there was one match where we couldn't deposit any balls because the damn moon rock managed to get itself LODGED ONTO the paddle. so "merde!" button or no, we couldn't get any balls out of the tube.

however, all in all, it was a good day. and we've still got davis and atlanta! the xerox award's a pretty good way to start off :)

tomorrow - we attach sheet metal to the paddle to make the circle larger, and therefore ensure no balls get stuck on the paddle. that's the makeshift solution - larger welded circle planned before davis.

hope to see you tomorrow!

match schedule!

2009-03-12T21:49:00.000-07:00

match # time
FRIDAY
6 10:05 581, 987, 1641 1700,115,192
14 11:01 359,670,1868 841,1280,1700
20 11:43 2135,604,3013 1700,254,3045
25 1:28 2643,649,1516 253,2159,1700
39 3:06 846,1700,8 1120,971,2035
43 3:34 1834,2628,675 2141,1700,668
SATURDAY
55 10:26 2489,1700,1868 114,2813,3022
60 11:01 2473,1700,2367 766,1458,1351

hope to see you there,
sherri

thursday at svr

2009-03-12T21:43:00.000-07:00

oof. it's been a long, long day.
but FINALLY at 7:58pm, as we were being kicked out of the pits, we have FUNCTIONAL CODE that incorporates everything!

we never did manage to make it to a practice match. tomorrow will be a very exciting day! i'm confident that it will all pull together, somehow. i'll post the match schedule next.

quick summary of the day
-soldered up limit switch, attached tube, e board, etc
-discovered driver's station ethernet port didn't work, attempted to fix ethernet port, gave up
-got spare parts driver's station - we must return this on saturday.
-coding difficulty ---> lunch
-went through inspection
-reimaged crio, came back to test code and it would not work
-spent literally TWO HOURS with the nice people at the desk trying to figure out why we could no longer download code. it turns out that while they reimaged the crio, the didn't reimage the laptop. heh.
-discovered limit switch was having ISSUES. resoldered. discovered that the true state is the open state of the switch
-programming marathon led to FUNCTIONAL GATE CODE! it's written in three states, stopped, open, and close. button 8 opens the paddle, button 9 closes it. it's not perfect code, but it works for what we want it to, and it actually stops when we hit the limit switch

see you tomorrow! it's sure to be an exciting day.

Encoder Operational

2009-03-05T21:53:00.001-08:00

So, after I plugged things in the wrong way a couple of times, the encoder works! We scaled it so that it measures degrees. The encoder thinks that 250 is one full revolution, but we wanted it to think that 360 was one revolution, so we told it to scale by 1.44. Karlin explained code writing for the encoder and how we could use it to turn the ball-dumping motor. There is some nice "pseudo-code" on the whiteboard in the programming room. We will plan on meeting in the near future. (ideas for times anybody?)

Jimmy is working on a mount for the encoder. He made the ball stopper larger so that the ball doesn't get stuck on the metal thing (like what happened on ship). I am going to drop off a globe motor to see if the shaft on the back can be extended to make a mount for the encoder.

Also, Nan, Anne, Anna, and Shifrah worked on building a beautiful new cart today. We bought some casters at ACE to mount on an 80-20 a and wood frame.

Just a reminder, If you have any outstanding reimbursements, please e-mail them to Ms. Mourad asap so that you can be reimbursed. Also, remember to turn in your permission slips to Ms. Mourad by tomorrow. These need to be signed by you and a parent. Next week is the Silicon Vally Regional, March 12-14. All team members are expected to attend a MANDATORY TUESDAY meeting next week to discuss the competition, preparation, and what to expect. All team members (unless you have already talked to me) should plan on being at the competition Fridayand Saturday. You will need to fill out an absence form for the classes you will be missing on Friday. Please feel free to invite people to come watch us at SVR. We would love to show more people our team and how fun FIRST is.

status of cRIO

2009-02-20T20:48:00.000-08:00

the new one is on its way and i've boxed up the old one, to be sent back first thing monday morning.

i am not shipping back the breakouts/bumpers/whateverthey'recalled. i tried to call NI today to ask them about what exactly gets shipped with the new one, but couldn't get through to anyone particularly helpful. one woman told me to only ship the base, so that's what i'm doing. i figure worst case scenario, we end up with two sets of breakouts.

2009-02-18T23:10:00.000-08:00

both chairman's and woodie flowers essays have been submitted!
judging for them at davis regional.

and she's OFF!

2009-02-18T12:12:00.000-08:00

at 3:00 yesterday afternoon, after some crating difficulties, sadie was packed into her bright green box and loaded up into the fedex box.

CONGRATULATIONS.
maybe it's just because this is my third time through shipping, but it felt so much less stressful this year. even with, yknow, the broken cRIO and everything. we made it, guys! and sadie is beautiful. and when she works, she works gorgeously.

we have three weeks before SVR. and plenty to do before then...
-ida and i will be submitting chairmans & woodie flowers tomorrow
-ida, erin, and i are meeting the packard foundation tomorrow
-posters
-code documentation! i'm not 100% sure how to do this in labview. i guess just like maps and zoomed-in boxes?
-return the cRIO
-pray to god they ship the new one soon. and that the cRIO was the only issue.
-box of spiffy stuff to show judges, like we did last year
-check that the tube/globe motor is all ready to go
-finish up the bill of materials
-SIGNAGE
-autonomous code?
-pack for svr [can we try to pack stuff in 50lb crates already, and then just follow the list for davis/atlanta?]
-bits of pvc wire covers
-letter of rec from seton
-kpcb annual report

can anyone think of anything else we need to do?

this is unrelated, but annie has volunteered to lead the new crate effort for next year. i say we start on that as soon as competitions end.

HUGE thank you to our support team: beth o'malley and marsha abbott, doug for his crazy electrical knowledge and retail therapy tendencies, karlin for just always being there for us, jimmy for his machinist prowess and ability to make a motor mount in one hour flat, brian for helping out with the servo, mr. rockman for being there on ship and making us that delicious chocolate pie, everyone who we begged to open doors for us and did... we've got a long list. THANK YOU. we appreciate it. [and i'm really very sorry if i've forgotten someone at the moment.]

we made it through season, guys! and so much more smoothly. let me/erin know what you're interested in doing on the list of stuff above. i'm sure there's more that i've forgotten, too.

but for now, go sleep.

just a few hours to go

2009-02-17T08:36:00.000-08:00

with the truck arriving in possibly four hours, we have hit a standstill.
late last night, in the midst of testing code [which did work! yayyy!] we got the error message no comm. that's happened before, and usually you just wait it out and then it's fine. but this time, it was not fine. upon further inspection, we discovered that the cRIO had no lit LEDs. checking voltage across the board, it was 24V at the input [correct] and 24V on the other end. but the thing just won't work. there's nothing we can do about - after scouring the forums, chief delphi, etc, we determined the only thing we can do is call NI, talk with them, and get a replacement. similar problems have occurs, resulting from a blown fuse within the cRIO (!)
the good news is that we do not have to ship the robot with the control system - so we'll call NI in a couple hours, and unless it's a quick fix, take off the control system and ship dear sadie off to svr.
i'm really relieved that we do in fact know the code works. there's nothing we can control at this point.

other "updates" that feel like ages ago
servo failed miserably at gating the orbit balls - after various reinforcements, we decided to use a globe motor. god bless jimmy and his motor-mount-making-magic. the plate extending from the motor still needs to be larger, but the globe is wayyyy better than the servo. we were able to suck spin and dump balls successfully last night. before the damn thing decided to break.

i have faith that somehow, things will work out. it's not likely that we'll get a functioning cRIO within the next five hours, but at least our first competition is a half hour away this year. we'll make it work.

thank you so much to everyone - we've had amazing support this year. when we are getting waffles made for us in the middle of the night, and mentors rush back to castilleja for programming "crises" that turn out to be us being done? we know we're well taken care of.

SADIE! SHE EXISTS!

2009-02-16T16:55:00.001-08:00

now we just have to test code... HA!

after ship, pre svr

2009-02-16T16:45:00.000-08:00

we made a list of stuff to do after tomorrow but before competition
posting it here before i lose the paper it's written on

-SIGNAGE. there's plenty of space to make legit gorgeous signs this year.
-pvc wire covers - we just need some 4" bits of pvc cut
-extra servo mount
-coding documentation
-kpcb award essay thing
-CART
-letter of rec from seton
-POSTERS (both carboard/science fair one as well as fabulous emily-esque poster)

status of sadie

2009-02-15T23:20:00.000-08:00

that's right, she's named. sadie! and she's beauuutiful.

-both the top brush and the corkscrew work! it's amazingly exciting. and so so pretty!
-as of 10:30 tonight, the tube was not finished - anndini were doing some serious math to figure out angles/heights/etc.
-the tube has, however, been painted gatorbotics green
-electronics board. HA. well, we found out the black board was not polycarb. so jimmy gave us some new material to work with. which, it turns out, was also acrylic. joy. so we've gone through three electronics boards today. but jimmy mounted the final version
-battery mount and crio mount and kill switch all done
-woodie flowers and chairmans are on their way to being done.
-we started writing our names on the corkscrew and front brush - if you haven't get, be sure to.
-weight is not an issue. it's so relaxing to be able to say that.

see you tomorrow. we're so close, i can feel it.
we appreciate everyone's support so much - i've had multiple conversations just today about how much more smoothly this year's gone.

NAMES

2009-02-14T20:02:00.000-08:00

she's alive

let's name her

gracie?
remmy?
janie?
corkie?

the tower's delilah.
and i am delighted that she works!
ahahaha.

two and half to go!

2009-02-14T19:41:00.000-08:00

sunday, monday, and then we SHIP! almost there!

i don't have a complete idea of all that happened today, since programming/electronics remained at school while build was at ideo - BUILDING! i do know that the center brush for the corkscrew is done and works! so that's really exciting.

programming...
we wired up the actual electronics board. it's beautiful. even erin approves
drew out some shapes on lexan for a electronics board cage
reimaged the drivers station, after some difficulty.
bill of materials

things to do, off the top of my head.
-signage
-finish up the Essays
-bumper holes
-amber blinky light - where's it going?
-mounting of eboard + kill switch
-battery mount [i know we can't until the towers complete]
-test code, obv
-do we need to move the bars in the crate?
-let ms lonergan know when we want to be in the gym.

meeting at 10 tomorrow.

thank you to malaika's mom for chaperoning all day, and beth o'malley for delicious strawberries and cream, and jimmy for his machining prowess, doug for general Knowledge, brian for his servo-ing, and karlin for her ability to Make Stuff Work.
we're almost there! and the corkscrew WORKS! see you tomorrow at 10.

functional driving!

2009-02-12T22:42:00.000-08:00

no pun intended...

karlin sent us a test drive VI which did basically what we tried yesterday to put inside the formula node. but in this code, the formula node only set the state, and then there was a case structure inside of which we actually told the motors what function to do in any given state.
for whatever reason, this totally works. we're not sure why (that shouldn't have solved our time delay issues) but we're just not going to question it. yay for working code.
but there are severe button coding issues which we'll address tomorrow.
autonomous technically works. one of the things that labview makes extraordinarily easy.

sallie and divya painted all the bumpers

anne and nandini and annie and anna and erin were at ideo - the tower is welded and back at castilleja. tomorrow they plan on finishing the tower, including brackets [to be riveted on] as well as all the funny pipe.

wednesday [FIVE DAYS LEFT.]

2009-02-11T22:12:00.000-08:00

i fear these posts will become progressively more incoherent as the number of days grows less.

programming
-we tried that piecewise thing, first using a whole mess of case structures and such. it semi-sort-of-maybe worked, but in order to add PID loops, we had to add 4 or 5 of them. and something went badly wrong there - the robot just would not stop on time. it seemed like we'd added a lead time rather than a lag time (or maybe i've got it backwards). either way it DEFINITELY didn't work - after you pulled the joystick back to center (0,0) it would take many seconds for the motors to actually stop.
-so we attempted to use a formula node rather than uglygrossmess of case statements, as karlin suggested. the formula node essentially allows you to type code in c (!) into labview. as most of you can guess, this feature makes me really really happy. except then, the robot COMPLETELY did not work. at all. somehow, the motors received their values at different times. so if you moved the joystick really really quickly, then one wheel would start spinning, and almost as soon as it stopped, the other motor would start. they just weren't aligned, time-wise. although the control on the front panel thought they were getting the motor speeds at the same time. we tried to add a bias, which kind-of worked but not in a good enough way. according to karlin, there are Issues with the formula node.
-so tomorrow we attempt to write subvis which we can just place into robotmain. essentially, the subvi will take joysticky and joysticks and the output will get fed into the motor speed. that subvi will likely be the mess of case statements. although karlin says she thinks that there are smart ways to do it.

jimmy should be done welding tonight.

5 days. keep your chin up, we're almost there.

tired tuesday

2009-02-10T21:52:00.000-08:00

apologizes if this is completely incoherent - as many can attest, i am not at my most alert tonight.

PROGRAMMING/ELECTRONICS
-i saw the chassis drive! it's actually really demented - the turning has funny spots and when we turn backwards (ie if the y coordinates are negative in normal coordinate systems) it doesn't actually go according to plan/how we would like.
-while it would be possible to drive the robot with the ArcadeDrive function FIRST provides, it wouldn't be the best idea because of issues listed above. we want driving to be as intuitive as possible. so...
-we're writing our own code, in a sort of "piecewise function" way. we divided the joystick axes into different regions and are writing different equations for each region. we only actually coded up the "band of straightness" and the... band of turning? anyway, i believe it spins well when the joystick is pulled either direction on the x-axis and the straight/fwd bwd part was fine.
-we know what we want to do for the rest of the regions, too. there wasn't time tonight to actually code it up, but our fingers are crossed that it will work tomorrow.
-we realized that we don't have a model of any drive code that's 100% functional - because benji never needed to go backwards, and when he turned, he generally strafed. and scotty? uhhh we didn't document code that year. nevertheless, with karlin and doug on our side, i'm confident we'll figure it out :)
-re: jrock's comment below, no talismans/rabbit feet/goat entrails were necessary for successful downloading tonight. amen.

BUILD
[obv this is not the complete version...]
-bumpers! the long ones were made and the shorter ones redone. allie served as inspector, and except for one that should not have passed inspection, they're all good. i think erin's going to get us the paint soon.
-erin and i did an alan steel run after school. the man definitely recognizes erin by this point. anyway, the tower tubing is here and will be delivered to jimmy tomorrow.
-brushes were attached to the tubing for the vertical corkscrew thing. apparently it spins really really fast.

OTHER
-chassis weighs 62 lbs with the battery and assorted wood/clamps. meaning we are at 46 lbs with motors and gearboxes on. obviously we'll be keeping an eye on weight, but i think it's safe to say that we're in pretty good shape, weight-wise. we have 70 pounds left. in order to simulate the actual robot, we strapped 2 20-lb weights onto the chassis.
-woodie flowers and chairmans are on their way to being written.
-we plan to put sponsor signage on the output tube, and 1700 signs on bumpers as in the past.
-NAME IDEAS?! the robot's alive, let's name her. definitely a her this year. name suggestions thus far: remmy, gracie, lily... i personally love both gracie and remmy. but keep the suggestions coming!

thank you to the amos family and mukherjee for food - double booked! as well as karlin and doug for infinite patience wisdom and good humor.

We're driving!

2009-02-09T22:40:00.000-08:00

So, we're driving. The chassis is all done, and all we need to finish is the tower! Sounds easy... wrong. The drive code is mostly functional, however, the PID loop delay is making our turning while driving forward/backward a little difficult. The delay causes the wheels to respond slower, so this means that when we're turning (which is usually for a short amount of time) the wheels that are going more slowly don't even start turning before we're done with the turn. Once we brought the robot back from IDEO and had more space to test we could get the slower wheels to turn a little because there was more space to practice in.

Speaking if IDEO, Jimmy had been working away on the tower. I picked up some more materials from alan steel this afternoon, so we have almost everything we need for the tower construction. I will be picking up some more stuff tomorrow. Jimmy made a nifty thing around which to construct the tower, which will theoretically prevent it from warping when he welds it.

Build worked on constructing the center brush, but without a drill press, it was hard to center the holes, so they are going to try again tomorrow in the wood shop. I am going to buy one more broom for them to attach as well.

We have eight more days until ship (feb 17th) and we will be working furiously until then!

FINALLY

2009-02-08T15:07:00.001-08:00

Hi!

Finally some successful programming :) After about three days of messing with it and trying to figure out the system, some success:
currently, all the drive code, button code for the brushes, servo code, and acceleration control are downloaded ON TO THE ROBOT! YES! there is also autonomous code downloaded, which successfully runs in autonomous mode. Although i havent yet figured out a fail safe method for downloading the code, i have a nice long list of suggestions to try when it wont download. here they are:
1. check to make sure code in another LabView project is not set to run at startup. To do this, go to Build specifications in the project explorer window, and right click on each real time application. Select “unset as startup”
2. disconnect from the cRIO, then try again. It is possible code is still running on the cRIO, but not on the front panel of LabView. To do this, go to the project explorer window. Right click on RT CompactRIO target, and select “disconnect”
3. re-build the real time application, then reset it as startup. To do this, right click on the real time application, click unset as start up, then click build, then when that is done, click run as start up (NOT set as startup).
4. WAIT FOR AT LEAST ONE MINUTE when you get the “cannot connect to the cRIO” error message. If it still doesn’t work, then click ok, and try again.
5. if the code does not work once you download it, make sure that the PWMs in the “open motor” VI front panels are set to something other than “invalid”; as long as the pwm constant on the block diagram is set to the correct PWM, I don’t think that it matters exactly which one its set to.
6. If you make changes, and want to run the code, make sure nothing is set to run at startup. If you make changes and want to download it to the cRIO, YOU HAVE TO REBUILD IT, then follow the appropriate steps for downloading.
7. if none of this works, im really sorry. Turn off the robot, close LabView, unplug the wireless router and drivers station, and panic. Just kidding. Unplug it all, restart it all, and calmly try again.

if these steps really actually dont work, then that is not good... but so far, this has worked to download all of the code today :)

build:
-bumpers are getting made! yay. w chassis design, we can now choose where to put the bolts
-more things (tubing, clamps etc) have been dropped off at IDEO. After some chatting with Jimmy, we know more about the chassis. The wheels are at the front, close to the outside of the robot. We are still determining where the gear boxes will go (likely way towards the front), and the exact position of the tower. Jimmy has made cool chain tensioning mechanisms, which are kinda tought to explain bc i havent seen them, but basically they make the chain cover more of the sprocket.
-allie has been working on drawing up the chassis in solidworks, and working with nandini to create drawings of the chassis

HOURS FOR THIS WEEK:
5-8:30
however, we will be meeting strict goals each night, which will be completed before leaving.

NINE DAYS until ship.

saturday of [in]sanity

2009-02-07T16:48:00.000-08:00

-shifrah divya sallie and allie made bumpers. and did some interpretive dance.
-caroline spent a lot of time trying to things to download correctly - we finally figured out the correct wiring which is now labeled nicely. please don't change the wiring without checking - things work for now at least. :) we also learned that we have to "disconnect from the crio" rather than simply stopping the code like we've been doing. we then have to remember to connect the next time. also, do not try to run anything while there's code set as the startup code. we're not sure if this is the root of the problem, but it has been not working when we haven't done this. i'm kind of worried about how to truly program if we keep having downloading problems on a daily basis. hopefully, we've finally figured things out once and for all, but we've got to figure out a foolproof method.
-anne nan erin talked tower? i don't really have details, sorry.
-ida and i spent a lot of time writing chairmans/exec summary/woodie flowers/editing website. we'll continue doing that.

tomorrow: 11-5.

TOWER DRAWINGS

2009-02-07T11:08:00.001-08:00

10 DAYS.

2009-02-05T21:29:00.000-08:00

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.

another round of chassis drawings!

2009-02-05T18:40:00.000-08:00

pr blog is BACK

2009-02-04T19:05:00.000-08:00

the pr blog is back in business. ida's promised to update it regularly.
check it out

gatorbotics-pr.blogspot.com

A Successful Day

2009-02-03T21:06:00.000-08:00

So, today was a productive day for the build team. Right after school, Anne, Nandini and I went over to IDEO to talk to Jimmy about brush options and construction of the chassis. Yesterday, Doug purchased some large brooms of varying bristle stiffnesses for us to prototype with. We showed these to Jimmy and then returned to school and prototyped with them. It looks like we will be using the softer-bristled red broom. We split the broom in half and put the pieces back-to-back with a pole in the middle, which was then attached to the drill. This was surprusingly effective at moving the ball up the full-scale prototype ramp we created. From this prototype, we learned that we will only need one front brush to bring the balls in. We also fine-tuned the dimensions for the ramp so that when the chassis is done we can start working right away on the construction of the ramp/brush device. Tomorrow I am planning on heading over to Home Depot to buy some more brooms.

As for programming, Karlin explained traction control and how we can implement it on our robot using encoders and an accelerometer.

A lot of people have been wondering about going over to IDEO. This year, since Emily no longer works there, we will be going over a lot less. We will be doing most of our work at Castilleja. However, we will need to test code and install the electronics board at IDEO, so a few people may go over then. We will work out a system so that everyone who wants to see the shop can go over at some point during the season.

That's all for now. See you tomorrow at 5:15.

CAD BLOG

2009-02-02T19:18:00.001-08:00

check out the spiffy blog that annie and allie created!
gatorbotics-cad.blogspot.com

A Successful Programming Day

2009-02-01T14:16:00.000-08:00

HI!

Today we solved some of our programming problems from yesterday... so yay!
first, yesterday the code would not download to the cRIO. We could run it from the laptop, but couldnt turn on the robot and have it work again. We followed all the steps again, and Karlin helped us check they were correct against another copy of FIRST documentation. After patiently waiting through the computer finding the cRIO, we managed to download the code to the robot.
second... Erin, Caroline and Karlin added an acceleration control to the drive code. Remember when we would put the joystick all the way forward and the robot would spin in place? well, now it ramps up to full speed w a small time delay to prevent it from spinning in place. We added a filter to the joystick inputs (a handy feature of labview hahaha), and put a time delay on it.
third...Divya and Tobi coded up the front brushes with buttons for two speeds, and the roller for the tube (anne and nan have decided to add a roller since we cant get as close to the trailers anymore)
fourth: Divya and I made a table of the PWMs and buttons, to keep things straight and easy to reference
fifth: Divya, Tobi, and Sallie straightened up the wires on the electronics board (under erins orgainzing guidance), since they were super messy and likely dangerous before.

Solidworks: Annie and Allie modeled the corkscrew for raising the balls, and a brush thing to go with them

Build:
anne and nan have been working on prototyping the corkscrew. They also went to ACE with erin and brian to search for materials for the corkscrew and look at brushes. Also, they have been trying to figure out what to do with our new chassis design so we dont have to alter our game strategy and can still dump balls. I dont know exactly what else they've been up to, so maybe more information to come from one of them.

This week:
meeting 5-8, however, we will be going past eight when there are things that have to be done and finished since we are entering the second to last week.

To Do:
Programming:
-find a place for the encoders in the gear boxes
-write encoder code -- traction control
-autonomous (we dont want ppl to find us and dump balls in during the autonomous period, therefore, the "avoid" strategy)

Build:
-choose materials (corkscrew, brushes, dumping tube)
-construction of corkscrew (discuss w jimmy)
-choose motors
-lip on dumping tube

see you all tomorrow!
caroline

chassis, revisited

2009-01-31T22:48:00.001-08:00

the new/actual chassis design

2009-01-31T18:03:00.000-08:00

first of all, maybe other people know about this website http://thebluealliance.tumblr.com/ but i did not - and i'm really excited about it. it's basically a compilation of all the best videos of first teams. there's a cool one of a helix which leads up to a shooting mechanism.

in other news today
-tobi divya and sallie got the new encoders set up [we're still waiting on two of them]
-we finally tested out drive code on a moving chassis! the given code works fairly well, although if you move the joystick too far forward it tries to accelerate too much. jessa and karlin suggested an acceleration capoff type thing, which we're hoping to try tomorrow
-downloading issues... we can run the code from the laptop and step through it, so that's good for testing. but it won't actually download the code properly. we're hoping to fix that tomorrow.
-build: i know there was some prototyping and redesigning, but don't have details, sorry. we decided to square off the ends of the chassis' u-bits. basically, imagine last year's chassis but without the middle bar in the front.
-ida and i discussed all the various essays and documents we're submitting. so glad we're doing this earlier this year!

11-3 tomorrow

e board READY TO GO

2009-01-30T17:31:00.000-08:00

during p6 and briefly after school, erin caroline and i finished up the wiring on the electronics board and tested to see that code downloads etc
MEANING we can now test out the given ArcadeDrive functions from FIRST as well as write our own drive code! and we can test it on a real live robot [albeit not the one we'll actually end up using.] but let the real programming begin!

meeting 11-3 this weekend, as usual
see you tomorrow

thursday

2009-01-29T22:16:00.000-08:00

-took electronics board off benji, put one for new control system on. caroline and i will finish up the wiring tmrw.
-spent about an hour trying to figure out how to put the dumb wires in the dumb wago. finally figured it out.
-a wiry cage thing for the corkscrew was built
-more brush bits were cut and annie and anna epoxy-ed more brush bits onto the tube
-we discovered our chassis design will be illegal - the first games committee didn't approve a design v. similar to ours. :( so we'll still have a U, there just won't be angly bits. anne will email jim tonight and let's hope he hasn't already welded it, although i think he has.

we did show benji to the kids at seton and they were really excited about it :) pictures to come.

sorry not more detail tonight - exhausted.
enjoy your DAY OFF tomorrow!

wednesday, january 28

2009-01-28T19:53:00.000-08:00

(first part written by divya)

today in programming, we (tobi, malaika, and i) velcro-ed the electronic components onto a practice board. ok...yeeeeeeah that's kind of all we did.

toodles!
-divya

(now written by anne)

today build was uber exciting :)

the sophomores and freshmen made an amazing prototype of a "curved ledge" for the spiral corkscrew in the middle.

we also made a ghetto prototype of the brush for the corkscrew (made out of pvc and brushes epoxy-ed onto it). we powered it with a drill and tested it with our foamcore prototype of a tube with ramps and it works! yay! this could mean that we can make our own brushes instead of buying the $400 and 30-lb. cylindrical conveyor brush from mcmaster. (however, we already bought a 20" brush...)

jessa came today and we did tooooooooooons of fizzix and math... and we realized that we'll need lots of POWER for the brush in the corkscrew. we don't think the globe motor will provide enough power, and it's the strongest motor we have (other than the cim motors). which leaves us with a tough decision, because we can only use a maximum of 4 cim motors on our robot.

sooooooooo... we've decided that we will use a tank drive instead of operating the 4 wheels independently. that way, we'll only use 2 cim motors for the drive train and we can use 1 cim motor for the brush in the corkscrew.

also we got another moon ball today! which brings the grand total up to 5.

cheerio!
-anne

p.s. anna and shifrah made QUADRAPUS out of duct tape. go to picasa for pix :)

picture of chassis

2009-01-28T10:40:00.001-08:00

chassis design as of 1/26 - this is the design that jimmy is welding for us. except for the top right wheel, everything else is to scale.

thank you anne for uploading pictures to picasa!

mellow tuesday

2009-01-27T20:30:00.001-08:00

again, a lowkey programming night - until we can see the given drive code to see how well/badly it drives, we don't have that much to do. writing the code for corkscrew/servo gate is going to be a snap [let's hope i'm not jinxing it by saying that]. we've basically done it already - using a joystick button to control a motor.
-shreya, divya, and tobi wrote simple code of their own! yay! button 2-->arcade drive, and also servo stuff. :)
-we were having wireless issues. again. but then we changed the main battery and things were happier. so maybe the wireless gets more finicky the lower the battery?
-divya grounded the driver station - according to a FIRST update, you have to do it. it wasn't really that exciting, but anyway it's done. basically just wiring a pwm from the gnd endings to this random screw. there were diagrams, she followed them...
-jimmy stopped by with one of the mutant gearboxes! both the axle for the wheel and the motor are on the same side, just like we want :) he's begun to cut the metal meaning we are well on our way to having a chassis!

i have a promise from anndini that one of them will actually blog tonight.