Monday, January 16, 2012
An alarming day at Robotics!
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Design Reviews One and Two
- 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
Friday, January 13, 2012
Lots of Prototyping
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Who Knew You Could Prototype with Swiffers and Chocolate Bar Wrappers?
Monday, January 09, 2012
Welcome Back Juniors!
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!
Sunday, January 08, 2012
A Great Start to the Season
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!