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!
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