Moving Mountains

ROBOTICS MEETING 3/15

-Planned for our roles next year

+Sammy and Eli are programming

+Sam and Maritza are mechanical design

+Frosh/ Mr. Porter are build

+Alex is process and documentation

+Kemyl is outreach planning (tentative)

-Prepared our new Suitbots desktop computer (for programming especially)

-Graphics team worked on a design for the Suitbots shirt (soupbox!)

 

6437121f-adf3-4a31-bbd1-cf4aa7b3bb46-The robot’s controllers were tested, and we realized they were malfunctioning when the robot drove itself forward and began pushing the mountain

 

 

2.25.13- Starting off the week with some safety and CAD

Attendance


  • Hunter
  • Evan
  • Fletcher

Journal


Tasks

  • De-lube tracks
  • Install fenders
  • Start the CAD adventure

Reflections

Evan, Hunter, and Fletcher went to Evan’s house today to work on installing some protective devices for the treads,

We designed this because of the problem of other robots snapping our tracks during a match and thus immobilizing is for the match. This happened way to many times at the San Diego regional championship. Also we saw some of the other teams using a lot of CAD in their notebook, notably team 4112 The Warriors from Rock Academy, who won the inspire award at the regional. This lead us to believe that we should give it a shot, so Hunter is in the process of converting all the drawings and physical aspects of the robot itself.

NXT mountBucketarm

This was a short meeting, in our week-long journey till the LA regional.

These are what the finished fenders look like.

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We also slightly elevated the front compartment of our hand to give a better setup for putting rings on the goals.  The ring in this picture that is slightly higher is the one towards the front of the robot.

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Finally, we added a metal piece to secure the USB into the Samantha module because we have had trouble with the USB popping out of it again.  We also put the power switch on the front panel of the robot so it is in a more convenient location to turn the robot on and off.

2.20.13- Paying Raytheon a visit

Attendance


  • Hunter
  • Evan

Journal


Tasks

  • Travel to Raytheon
  • Expose ourselves to their public relations dept. to one day ask for a sponsorship
  • Talk to engineers about robotics
  • Take a tour of their facility

Reflections

Today Evan, and Hunter traveled from Monrovia to the distant coastal city of El Segundo to pay Raytheon a visit. We arrived under the impression that there would be an entire quad filled with robotics, as suggested by the provided map. This however was not the case. There was us, and one FRC team 707 still using its basketball throwing mechanism. Never the less we still presented ourselves to the various people that passed us on their way to wherever they were going. A while later, we were invited to come into the cafeteria to have lunch and complete a task that was unknown at the time. As Evan and Hunter enjoyed their non vegetarian burgers. Before they could even finish their food, the Raytheon employees put on a little skit to introduce the days challenge. As we would still find out, we had to build a sterling engine out of little other than a coke can and steel wool. After the allotted time was up we had done pretty well, and were off to the tour of their facilities. The first lab that we went to was the ITF (Integrated Testing Facilities) lab where we found a giant capsule that we can take out all of the air(or close to it) and super heat or super cool the chamber to test how optics will react in space. After this we went to a Calibration lab, this was highly dependent on lasers and other sorts of optics. They had a machine that you could create a 3D CAD model of whatever you want using nothing but lasers.

2.19.13-Getting Ready for San Diego Regionals

Attendance


  • Mark
  • Fletcher
  • Evan
  • Dante

Journal


Tasks

  •  Go over everything we have to do
  • Finish up unfinished posts in notebook
  • Add receipts and business page to notebook

Reflections

We did a lot of planning and reviewing for absolutely everything we have to finish before Saturday.  We went over what was done from the earlier checklist on the twelfth and we have done just about everything.

  • All of the new pages are in the notebook including the business plan, receipts, and code.
  • The TeleOP and autonomous codes are finished with.
  • The display is finished and the fliers are designed and sent out to grade schools
  • We have made a sheet to overview the awards and highlight what we have done for each one

All we have left now is to reprint the notebook, put in all of the dividers, put in the arrow markers in the notebook pointing to highlights for each award, finish adjusting the drawer sliders on the robot, and get all of our consent forms to Mr. Porter.

Mark also worked on the notebook and now everything is up to date and we created spreadsheets for all of our costs and expenses and put it into the notebook.

 

2.14.13-Notebooking and the Field

Attendance


  •  Mark
  • Hunter
  • Evan
  • Fletcher

Journal


Tasks

  • Work on Journal
  • Put field together
  • Driver Practice

Reflections

Today was a day to do some work but also put the field back together so it was functional for the LA FTC Regionals.  This involved scraping off the hot glue on all of the black linings on the walls and fixing the parts of the goals that were broken and putting everything together.

Mark was working on the notebook the entire time because there was a lot of work that needed to be done.  He added a lot to the Our Robot page as well as updated a few of the posts that needed to be updated.  Dealing with the field took everyone else’s time so the notebook was the main and only point of progress today.