Day 45: Introducing Benjy

Even though the team is working tomorrow my blog says day 45 so now its time for everyone to meet Benjy, Team 2059's 2012 robot:

  

Not to bad for breaking in 15 new student this year.

 

Specs:
Drivetrain:
6 wheel westcoast drive(which is a first for me as well as the team) using 6" Performance wheels as well as a custom gearbox. The white things on the front are Delrin skids(subsystem 6) which were added when we had to change from 8" wheels to 6" ones. The bearing blocks were made of ABS but they all broke over the weekend as I mentioned earlier and will have to be replaced.

Collection System:
Bottom roller is powered by a 550 in a 26:1 gearbox and the rest of the rollers are powered by a 550 in a 64:1 gearbox. Krunch students(old and new) will notice that the rollers are basically shorter versions of the rollers on Krunch 12. We did them a little differently but the overall concept is the same.
Shooter:
Two 6"diameter cardboard(yes cardboard, we got it from a McMaster shipping tube) rollers are bolted to 6" KOP wheels which are driven by 2 Fisher Price motors attached to CIMple boxes. The creative part of it is that the bottom FP drives the top roller and vice-versa. This was done to increase the speed closer to the level we had on the prototype.

Bridge Manipulator:
It is still a work in progress but you can kinda see it in the first photo. It should work once we get it all together but that may not be until we get to Palmetto.

Overall I think the team performed very well this season. We could have worked a little faster and been done a little sooner but you can only do what you can.  See everyone at Palmetto and North Carolina.

Day 43: BBQ and Bots

Today we worked for 12 hours and made a lot of progress. We got the final pieces of the frame finished which allow us to mount the bumpers. The wood was cut and one of out parents sewed the number on to the bumpers so the team should be able to put them together tomorrow. We also got subsystem 6 fabricated and mounted on the robot, more on that later.

The software team started working with the camera tracking on the actually shooter and had some success, but it wasn't working as well as we would like. There is a couple things they need to change in the software that should make it work better and hopefully they'll be able to do that tomorrow.

This year we're using pneumatics, which we didn't last year and I haven't since '08, but over course everyone still turns to me as an expert. After a 10 minute refresher I taught a couple of the freshman about the pneumatics and got everything mounted on the robot minus the cylinders and the solenoid. We're still missing a couple of pieces but we're going to borrow them from another local team and then order some and give the new ones back to the other team.

After dinner, which by the way was some great North Carolina BBQ, we got done to actually testing the robot. With subsystem 6 we attempted to drive over the barrier and we ran into a couple of problems. The two big ones are we can't get over the barrier and we cracked all of our ABS bearing blocks. We were planning on getting aluminum ones made and now we don't have a choice.

The team is meeting for 9 hours tomorrow but I have to study so I won't we back till Monday.

Day 42: Driving?

I started out today with an interview at Altec. I think it went well but the best part was the tour of the facility. They had all sorts of cool machining equipment from laser cutters to cnc breaks to a huge powder coating oven it was amazing. After I got back I was pretty tired but I toughed it out and went to the meeting tonight.

The robot is basically ready to go and tonight the team mainly finished wiring and installing the bumper mounts. There isn't much else to report except that we'll be working all day the next two day to get enough practice in before we bag. I left a little early so hopefully the code got done and the robot got driving and if it didn't it will tomorrow morning.

Day 41: Electronics

Last night the team got the shooter mounted to the robot and decided that a feeder wasn't necessary. I won't go into details but after they explained to me I don't believe that it will work but I'm willing to let then try.

Tonight the electronics team worked on get the electronics mounted and wired on the robot. The mechanical team worked on bumper mounts as well the motor for the lazy Susan.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like the robot will be ready be Saturday so we won't be able to attend the scrimmage. I know I mentioned this earlier but it was official tonight. It kind of pisses me off because we were in this situation last year and we won't have any time to practice, but you work with what you got.

Day 39: Cupcakes

Tonight a couple of parents brought some cupcakes and most of them were eaten by the mentors.

Other than that the new gearbox plates came in and we finally got the drivetrain done. The electronics board got wired and we should be able to mount it tomorrow and get it wired in. The shooter is coming along decently but we continue to run into a lot of problems. We put the chain on, I'm actually pretty good with #35 master links, and it actually worked nicely when we tested it. One of the problems was the duct tape so the student took it off, which I wasn't to broken up about.

We're almost there but I'm not sure we'll be ready for the scrimmage on Saturday which I'm kinda upset about since I pushed to have it.

Day 38: Duct Tape and AMPs

I got to the meeting a little late tonight to see that the team was struggling changing out the FP motors in the AndyMark planetary for the 0673s we got over the weekend. Basically they had just found a random FP pinion and press it on only to find that when they ran the motor it stalled and almost burned out. I of course knew what the right pinion looked like and everyone else was shocked to learn that it was the one that didn't fit through the hole in the mounting plate. I explained that that is how the AMP is designed and one of the other mentors complained and tried to find a way around it. Just when I was on the verge of screaming at him I told everyone to go away and that I would handle it. Not surprisingly the job only took like 15 minutes for two motor when it was done right.

The students got the polycord onto the collection system and we were able to get a ball to go all the way to the top. They also began to work on the bumper mounts and hopefully we'll have at least one set done by ship stop build day.

Finally, tonight the shooter team made some good progress. They changed out the smaller PVC rollers for larger cardboard ones similar to the ones we used on the prototype. They also are doing some strange things with the power transmission to make them spin faster. It is actually a good idea but I still kinda think they are crazy. Back to the rollers, you'll never guess how they are attaching the cardboard to wheels spinning at around 1000 RPM, duct tape. Now when I was on Krunch we never used duct tape on the robot because it looks terrible. These students seem to disagree with me on that but as it is there robot I guess I'll let it slide even if I'm linked to an ugly looking robot.

That's about it for tonight, hopefully we'll get the electronics on tomorrow night.

Day 37: Speculation

The team meet for four hours today but I wasn't there because I had to study so I will do some speculation of what went down today. Hopefully all of the chains are on the drivetrain, the shooter was finished being assembled, and the collection system is all together. I guess I won't really know until tomorrow, but we're running out of time none-the-less.