Day 26

Time's flying, but guess what?! SHEET METAL IS HERE! Our 3 sets of drivetrain sheet metal were dropped off around 3 after Dave from R&D came in! We spend today working on getting all of the spacers and standoffs machined so we can get this all together! We dry fitted everything today. We also started working on making our prototype straight shooter, I'm very hesitant, I don't think we'll get the speed we got with the round shooter, but if it's accurate, then I'll be happy. Here's the pictures from today! ALSO, I LOVE THE VEXPRO BALL SHIFTERS!

Day 25

Ahhh, my phone broke today. :[ My beloved iPhone has kicked the bucket, and unfortunately it isn't covered under warranty. Oh well, pay day is tomorrow, iPhone 5 here I come! Tonight we sat down and discussed changing our shooter. We were pretty set on having the, "half moon" shooter, but that is big, and lunky. We've cadded and are building a prototype linear shooter. It will give us a ton more room. I'm not totally convinced until we build it. It's getting late in the build season, so I think we're becoming our own worst enemy by changing stuff, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Iteration is everything.

I believe we have also figured out a way to set us apart from the majority of other teams and really give us a set up above everyone. When we are going to shoot we will drive up to the pyrimid, either go to the front of back rung with our hanger hooks up. We will grab or just push up against the tower to line our selves up, then fire. If we have buttons for preset heights, then it's just slam, bam, shoot. I like it, we need to work out the hanger, but it's getting close! We've also had an idea for a first stage gripper. It's just a cam the pinches the first horizontal bar and lifts us up, we have to play with it, but it's looking promising. I'll have drawings tomorrow! That's all for tonight, no phone, so no pictures. Sorry!

OH, THE CNC MILL IS COMING THIS FRIDAY!!! YAYYYYYY!!!!

Day 24

Day off, get some rest! VEX is the best, the rest of our order is coming in tomorrow!

Day 23

Today was a looooooooong day, we got in the shop at 9 in the morning and didn't leave until 9. We worked on the CAD some more and finally have a set date, this Friday we will have all our sheet metal! We also received an order from VEX yesterday, so today at the shop we opened it up and were pretty suprised. We are miss more than half of our order, more that $500 worth of stuff. Not fun, we're still working to get some info from VEX, hopefully they just messed up and can send us out the rest of our order tomorrow. We'll see. We did receive the ball shifters! I love them, so simple and clean. I really really hope they are as robust as they feel, if so they are a home run! Here's the media from today!

Knurled Colson Inserts!

FINALLY! The final geometry for the intake arms! 

Ball shifters!

Day 22

Today was a great day! We took advantage of today to teach some newer kids some scouting tips. None of the GUS teams won the competition, but 228B came home with the Judges award, nice job!

Day 21

Have a nice Friday everyone! Be ready to kick some butt tomorrow at the VEX competition!

Day 20

Today we did some more cadding and worked on the VEX robots, no pictures, i'm sorry! I'm dragging really bad, I think I'm getting the flu. Fingers are crossed thats not that case. Tomorrow we have off and Saturday we have a VEX competition, time to get some rest!

Day 19

Today we accomplish a lot, the final design is done, except for the hanger. We worked on the CAD a little more, still tweaking the design for the intake bars. We will be doing a four bar, just with bent arms. We still have to play with the geometry a little, but the idea is down on paper. We mocked the entire intake up out of wood and attached it to our wooden chassis! I like this whole process we're using this year, I've learned a lot more, and it's defiantly making the process a lot more clear to all of the students! Here's the pictures from today!

Day 18

Today was a quick meeting, we have a VEX competition this weekend so I spent a little making that robot ready to kick some bot! We also are stiiiiiilll working on CAD and geometry, this is not as easy as it seems.

Sketches

CAD CAD CAD

A little math for ya!

Sketches

Gorilla arms!

-DP

Day 16 and 17

Today I'm going to do a duel post because I wasn't there on Monday, unfortunately I had to work all day! I just want to build robots! I need to make sure I get a job building robots. Sunday and Monday were mostly spend working on CAD and working out the geometry for the intake. Because we want to be so short, it's very difficult to package everything. This years robot is defiantly going to be dense! Here's the pictures from Sunday and Monday!

Boom!

Printsss

Wood Mock-up

Sketching for days

First intake parts!

-DP

Day 15

Ohhh man, today was a loooooong day. We meet bright and early and immediately sat down with the FRC design team and laid some stuff in stone. No more helix. Acutely, no more elevator at all! The new idea is just to have the intake suck frisbees in and drop them straight into a hopper right in front of the shooter, then just slide each frisbee in one at a time! I like it because it simplifies the design, and gives us a lottt of room from electronics and a hanger. We decided to mock up to scale to see what it looked like. I like it a lot better than the giant helix design, this is soooo much simpler too. Here's the media from today!

Notes, notes, notes.

Mr.Smith is making a mistake here.

Mmm, smoooooth!

We messed something up.

2nd try, thats better!

DONE! SHIP IT!

Prehistoric CAD model of our competition robot!

Time to make some drawings for the drivetrain!

I stopped at the Cyberknights shop last night and they already have the first pyramid mocked up!
Time for some welding!

-DP

Day 22

Today was a great day! We today advantage of todays competition to work on some scouting for some of the newer kids. Although none of the teams won the competition, 228B won the Judges Award!

Day 14

Todays our day off, but my business partner and I will be heading down to The Cyberknights meeting to see what they've got going, it's been a couple weeks since I've gone! I miss them! Get some rest team, we have a busy weekend ahead of us!

-DP

Day 13

Times have surely changed from the days I use to run around the shop playing hide and seek as a young boy. The team has come a long way, something I'm very very proud to be a part of! Today we ordered our first CNC mill, something many people didn't believe was possible. I was always looked at funny when I would say people who say nay to an idea, just make me want to accomplish it that much more. So thank you to everyone who doubted us, you're the reason we have this wonderful machine in our shop where we'll be able to craft elegant parts and harbor innovation through-out the minds of all the students that walk through our shop. We're still not there yet, there's still much to be done, but we're just proving that hard work pays off, it always does!

At the meeting today we tried another material for the intake roller, it seemed to work really well, the durability is at question now though. I believe that some further testing will help us figure that out! We also finished revamping the prototype robot, it's all wired nicely and with some extra speed controllers to test an assortment of prototypes! Here's the pictures and video from today!

Yay for orange!

-DP

Day 12

Today was a productive day. We had a snow day from school, so only a few of us were able to make it out. I worked to refine the intake. I really believe in order to have a effective and efficient intake, it will need to be as flat or as close as possible to intake the frisbees well. In Art's drawing it showed the intake on an angle, but after testing that seems less efficient. I believe we will be able to make a frisbee intake 6-7 inched deep, so it sucks the frisbee in just enough to hold it. Then have it just pivot up and the frisbees slide into the helix from the back of the intake. We have to do a couple more prototypes, but I believe this is the best one we'll get. Aside from working on the intake, I sat down with some students and taught them to wire a robot. We took the gutted practice robot from last year and rewired the drive motors. We got a lot done and only have the radio left to wire in! Here's the pictures and videos from today.

Spacers on intake!

Mmmm, wires.

SHIP IT!

Thicker Intake Material

Day 11

Build season, as always, is flying by. Today was one of those days where you just reflect on all the hard work. After talking with Art04 we've started testing some of the ideas, the first being the lay flat intake. I like the idea of having a 16 style drop down intake that sucks up two frisbees, flops them up and into the helix, then back down to intake more. If we do it right it can be super efficient. If we're able to design something that just sits flat on the ground, then we're golden and this intake will be easy. It's just packaging it thats the hard part. I worked with a couple kids today on a flat intake, it went together fairly quickly and we were able to run some tests, all were promising. We need to tweak it a little more, but the idea is mint. We also build a pyramid goal to see how hard it is going to be to shoot them in there. Bottom line, it's hard. Even from close up, you have to hit it just right or they fly out. Not what I wanted to see, but we'll run with the information.

Today was also a veryyyyyy special day, we received in the mail a check for $10,000.00! The money will be used to buy a brand new CNC machine for the team to use! I'm so excited for this thing, it'll make things soooooo much easier! With experience from work I'll be able to teach some more students about CAD and how to manufacture parts. I believe we have a very strong team, but we lack a little in student manufacturing. Due to school rules, unless we have a shop teacher, which we don't have, the kids don't get to use the tools. We've talked to a few teachers and hopefully will have one come down and help out! Fingers are crossed. Also a giiiiiiiiant thank you to Mr. Morrison, who wrote up the grant over the past few months, and happy 70th birthday! You're a huge inspiration, and have been with the team from the beginning, I remember you teaching me about lathes when I was just 4 years old! Ahh, the good old days.

Tomorrow we'll aim to refine the intake and start building a test helix! We're also going to play around with our chassis CAD to see if we can find a way to pull off 4wd with some gearing inside the frame rails to help us shrink the space between the outer and inner rails. I still want 6wd, but that's just me, I believe if we have the weight to play with, we should do it. I'm optimistic though, so we'll see what happens. Here's all the pictures and videos from today!

Nom.

Monies!

Everyone loves free software! 

Can we ship it yet?!

Revision 1

Day 10

Our day off, but Art 4 finally got some ideas over to us! I'm very partial to this design as long as we do it right! We also need six wheels, sorry Art, but four wont cut it!

Day 9

Hours- 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM

Today was a good day. After much discussion, we've decided that we will be using a wide chassis for this years drivetrain. Our strongest reason we're going with a wide chassis is intake. Here's a list of the reasons we believe wide is more superior to long.

• Wider intake/ Easier pickup
• High speed stability
• The field is pretty open this year, which leaves room for a wide robot
• staying stable while hanging will be easier. (i.e. Less yaw)

We still have to talk to Art 4, who's in China for work, but if he doesn't have a crazy reason that will make us change our minds, the prints will be at the sheet metal shop Wednesday! So Art, if you're reading this, TEXT and/or EMAIL YOUR DAD PLEASE! 

I already have a feeling I will learn more about the process this year, than every before. I sat down today and CADed the drivetrain today with a mentor, and I'm really getting the hang of it! As an offseason/Fall project, my boss, his son, and I are building a 4ft by 4ft CNC Plasma Cutter, we have everything ready, we are just waiting on some waterjetted parts from a buddy, hopefully they'll be in within the week and we can finish it and start making some realllly cool parts! If all goes well, this summer we will use the plasma cutter to teach students sheet metal and cadding design! 

Today we attached the intake prototype to the practice bot drivetrain and mounted a motor. We started playing with the heights you'll need to use to properly intake the frisbee, and we discovered two things, either the rollers need to be spring loaded so they move as the frisbee slides into the robot, or the lexan on the scoop needs to move. We haven't figured that out yet, that's Tuesdays task. 

Our programming team(Matt Smith) worked on camera tracking with the new stuff that was released this year. He claimed we were having positive results, so all is going well! We also gutted and started to rewire last years practice bot so we can use that as a permanent prototype base. Here's an intake failure video, and the pictures I took today.

Matt doing his thing.

Last years competition robots long lost cousin.

Gutted.

Reusing gearboxes!

Mmmm, CAD.

More square than wide.

That's all spanish too me.

Tomorrow we have off, which I could use to finish my mountains of homework. I though they said senior year was going to be easy?!! Time to get some rest.

-DP

Day 8

Oh man do I have a big post to do tonight! Today was an amazingly productive day! We met at the shop at 10 this morning and worked until about 6 at night! We three different wheels on the shooter, all colsons, a four inch, five inch, and six inch. We received the best results with the 5 inch wheel, so we'll most likely be sticking with that! I was assigned the intake for my subsystem this year, so I took a couple kids aside and started playing with some ideas. We played with over the bumpers intakes, intakes the slid out from under the frame, hybrid power saving bumpers, and ultimately decided we would build our intake from last year, just sandwich it closer together! Here's all the pictures and some videos from today!

Plunger?

Updated to the shooter!

Yayy! New Toys!

Orginization!

Double roller intake.

Putting up some storage in the machine room!

LUNCH.

Ideas to test tomorrow.

Notes on napkins from the party before!

Mini frisbees for tests!

Getting ready for brainstorming.

Ideas.

Paperworkkk.

I'll have more tomorrow!

-DP