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February 3, 2009 Today we were working on the chasy, the shooter, and the picker-upper. In the picker-upper we made a reflector that when we roll the ball it falls in the launcher. From their on we launch it and it launches away. In the chasy we put some chain and elody worked on improving the parts of the chasy.
This topic will serve as a journal of this year's FIRST season. I will be "volunteering" specific students / mentors to "log-in" their observations / reports following each meeting with the only guidelines being... 1) content relate to the team, robot or technology for that particular meeting 2) amusing or sports-page style reports are encouraged 3) reports be logged in within 24 hours of the meeting 4) report length to be 10 words min to 100 words max (approx).
Sat, Jan 3rd Kick-off at FIRST The GAME IS ON!. Highlights of the new game that will effect us: slippery surface and requirement to use the supplied wheels. And Steve Jay said the team in the stands behind the speakers looked cool, calm, yet pumped on the web broadcast. Look out world.... the Gearheadz must be buttah', cause we will soon be on a roll!! BY MONDAY'S MEETING (5PM), read section 7 ("the game") at http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=452
Today, Monday the 5th, Local Robotics Team Known as "The GearHeadZ" had their first official meeting. It's shaping up to be a great season, and even though there was a minor setback (Missing Parts) the GearHeadZ remain optimistic. After the consumption of about 8 loaves of bread, 3 jars of mayonnaise, and a whopping 12 pounds of deli meat, the team divided up into a few teams, (AKA Mitosis), and discussed the rules. Afterwards, they rejoined and cleared up some misconceptions. Overall a pretty good day. This is Channel 5's Tom Tucker reporting, Back to you Stacy.
Ideas of desired attributes (NOT engineering details) from the follow-on brainstorming.... DEFENDING: - robot to be hard to pin by other team by making it small and hard to slide (make it heavy) - pop-up flyswatter that that blocks tossed balls SCORING: - be able to push balls on the field into corner ("bulldozer") - be able to pick up balls off the field and have robot put them in a Trailer - be able to hold onto a "bunch" of balls and "dump" them into a Trailer
Today is 1/8, the second official meeting of the Gearheadz. Since we did not meet on Wednesday, today was a bit rushed into the drawing plans, but we did make progress. - There was a team of people who built the trailer, though i'm not sure of the status of the trailer at the moment. -We split into small teams again. Most teams worked on the sketches and concepts for the robots such as the picker-uppers, and the shooters. Eventually we stopped and talk to the rest of the team, but went back to improve our designs. Improve, improve, improve!
The trailer build is about 50% done. The base frame is nearly assembled and the next step after that will be to glue the upright "spindles" in place.
Summary - Sat Jan 10, 09 We met from 9-2 and got a lot of good work done. We have too awesome designs that we should have breadboards of by next week. Both of these require belts to move the ball through the robot or shoot that ball in some way. We experimented and it seems like the belts will do the job just fine. For one of the designs, a bucket type thing for the balls is also in the process of being tested. We also got 30 sandwiches donated to us so woohoo food! I have no clue how programming is going/what they're doing but it looked like progress! Also, the trailer has been finished and it ready to be attached to anything we want to attach it to.
1- 12-09 Accomplishments : Electrical (pt.1) : "we were able to set up a camera" Programming: "we updated the IP Address so that it has 1289 (team #); we updated the driver station so that it could recognize the laptop as 1289." Mechanical:"we started working on the prototypes..didn't get as far as we'd like.... Well today, programming and electrical sort of worked together. Up in the room our objective was to get the robot running i believe. We were configuring the router so that it can communicate with the laptop. Each student took turns on the laptop applying instructions that were read. Overall i am not sure if the robot ran but for sure we did get alot of the configuration done.
Well here I am writing the journal for 1-15-09. Today i was working with mechanical. We were working on the prototypes and they seem very very close to being finished or are they? Everyone looked very busy down in the shop. Raymond and others put sweat blood and tears into building a launcher that went pretty high. Group pictures were taken downstairs with the breadboards. Up in programming i am not sure of what happened so it would be helpful if someone talks about that.
Wednesday & Thursday (14th & 15th) Progress was made in building breadboards of elements for testing. We have a "parking garage," a belt drive that will be able to capture balls, and we're planning on making a second part to test it as a belt shooter. We also are developing another shooter. There is a video of it in the group's videos. There is also a belt/roller thing built that can transport the ball through the robot.
Sat (Jan 17) + Joe & MaryEllen got the old robot going! + Most of our breadboards are almost done! + We got Sal's pizza! +We are meeting TUESDAY after school. (Because we can't use the building Monday)
Anytime, also an update from today would go out to all with video cameras or cameras that take video. There is a team youtube account (see Marmeny's post) Any video footage of the team/robots can be posted there and she will be able to put it on our website!
Sat Jan 24, 09 + Almost all of our breadboards are done. Things are coming together. + I know the programmers got to mess with the camera a little. PROGRESS!
January 27 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOE ! -simplified the interface between the parking garage and shooter. -built a new crate (90% complete) -fixed ball-picker-upper -almost reassembled shooter -finished sewing belt for shooter -tested out controller - we got the process server to run -we have a way for us to talk to the camera when its hooked up to the cRIO onto the computer
Electronics is on its way! We have our main electrical board near finished as well as full compliance in terms of driving and running the older victors under the cRIO. Check out the cool first episode of electrical madness during our gaming season. As far as mechanical what Raymond and I have been working on is perfecting the breadboard of the shooter. We had some minor problems with the diameter of some of the pvc so we had to create one new rulers. We are ver near assembly of the shooter except for some minor problems. That's it what got done as far as what I was working on.
Art, Juan and I were also discussing the launcher and how we may bring it back to the table. It could be a simpler way to shoot the ball than the conveyor belt we've been working on. From our experiments before, we know for a fact that it works! Hopefully we can think of a way to incorporate it in the robot.. Today we made some progress and got to test drive the robot. Also Robort and I were trying to figure out a way how to cut the circle meatal thing. So that the ball will shoot threw the whole with no problems.
January 27 The electrical team today assembled a double board for the robot ♫ This double board can be flipped open to make it easier to fit most parts of the robot ♫ Also it is easy to work with whenever we need to check something that is in the bottom board
So did you hear? -The Vince/Raymond/Mariana group are still working on that evil roller breadboard. -The cart team accomplished making the cart. -Electrical people were working on the controller/brain of the robot's base...placement...board? -The robots chassis is coming along with 2 wheels installed. -The group way in the front...I have no clue what they were working on....the roller system for the ball i think...yeahh...they're doing fine I believe. ...I think that's it, feel free to add on more info. =P
The electronics team is competent in their work so far, we've set up 70% of our electronics breakout board and have decided that mechanical needs our masculine assistance so we will aid them in construction. The Jaguars are set-up and we are cocked and ready to rock- We can't wait till Saturday!
The cart is about 80% done... As you can see form the pics Felix and I added some lights. Those aren't exactly the final position for them. We're still experimenting. We're also adding speakers on the cart. That's it for now. Domby has a shirt design & I told him to upload it here - I don't know if that will happen. So far I still see progress... a lot of work on breadboards going on. and i got into WPI. woohoo!