Fin.

Hey folks, this is an important announcement:

This blog will no longer be used by our team. Our team will be joining forces with Team Gets for the final VEX robot challenge, and all future blog posts will be on their blog:
http://teamgets.blogspot.com

Week 11 (5/6 - 5/10) Goals

We're raising the flag, throwing in the towel, however you wanna say it. 60/100. Good news is: we've done the SolidWorks finally. Behold!

(I'm sorry the SolidWorks picture can't be larger, but the next size up would send it off the page).


We will now disassemble our racquetball robot and proceed with the new challenge. It's chassis (basic skeleton) is already in production. Oh, and that's not an optical illusion. It's really that big.

Week 10 (4/29 - 5/3) Outcomes

This week, we lowered the position of the gears on the tower, so the end effector would end up lower relative to the hoop.

We've also been trying to attach an effective counterweight to the back, so that the robot doesn't topple forward or swerve unpredictably with any sudden movement.

The black gears on the end effector were free to move back and forth along the axle, and that was inferring with the continuum. This little wheel is a quick-fix, makeshift addition to prevent further difficulty.

On Friday, we finally tested our functional, albeit flawed, robot. We scored a lackluster 75/120, which was then sadly reduced to 55/120 because we were supposed to have this challenge completed a few days ago. We will improve the design on Monday, test it again, and hopefully score far higher. Dylan will complete the SolidWorks over the weekend.

Week 10 (4/29 - 5/3) Goals

Mr. Martin (our teacher) will be taking 10% off the final grade per day late for the robot's preformance, starting this week. I'm writing this on Tuesday, so we're already 10% off if we complete it today. Unfortunately, our robot is remains in the same inoperative condition as last week, so we're doing A LOT of fine-tuning and tweaking. We must find that combination of metal shape, motor position, etc. that served us well before.

Our robot will be preforming on Wednesday (tomorow), hopefully. Then, we will do the SolidWorks for this version of the bot while simulaneously moving on to the next challenge.

Week 9 (4/22 - 4/26) Outcome

We've since added these picer-like things to the end affector. Now, picking up the ball is significantly faster - we don't even have to ram the ball against a wall anymore. Still pretty hard though.

Unfortunately, throughout this week, we've been encountering many technical problems, and the effectiveness of our end affector has declined. Near the end of the week, to fix these problems, we've started by redoing our gear tower. But, we still have a long way to go, and only so much time.



Week 9 (4/22 - 4/26) Goals

Last week, our primary difficulty with the racquetball challenge was that we couldn't get the ball inside the continuum initially. We would drive the ball into a wall then try to force the ball inside. The reason it was near-impossible to get in was the top bar of the end effector, which I suggested we bend back:

Voila! Not sure why, but the end effector reminds us of a serpent or dragon of some sort...

Anyway, with that problem out of the picture, our second-biggest problem was the friction of the wall when we would move the ball up. Twice now, we've dislocated our gears trying to force the ball, and it is quite time-consuming to realign them.

As you can see, the bottom gear has been dislocated...  =(

We will continue to come up with solutions to these obstacles, and, no doubt, encounter new ones throughout the week.

Week 8 (4/15 - 4/19) Outcome

We've bent the corners of the end effector so that the ball doesn't roll off the edges when it exits the continuum. I took a picture of this adjustment... in WIIIIIIIIIDESCREEEEEEEEN (just kidding, I cropped it).

Here's some teamwork for the books. Someone from another team is helping us program our Autonomous, and in exchange, we're letting his team use some of our supplies and some of our design ideas for his robot.

So now it's Friday, and we're going to test our robot. Let's do this.

And now... for what is, I believe, to be the very first video on this blog...

As you saw in the video, the continuum itself, for the most part, works like magic. But what you didn't see was our problems with actually picking up the ball for the first time. So, we must come up with a solution for that next week.

Week 8 (4/15 - 4/19) Goals

We and the other contestants will be temporarily working in a new room. Not as much building space, but it'll do. Very soon, probably by the end of the week, we want to have the robot tested for this challenge.

Among other tweaks, we want to add more safeguards onto the tip of the end effector, so that the ball doesn't fall off when we try to pick it up.

Oh, and the SolidWorks still needs doing...

Week 7 (4/8-4/12) Outcome

Very soon, our VEX robot is to be tested in the Arena. Thankfully, after lots of tweaking, we now have a stable end effector attatched.

It's extremely heavy, but we can lift it fairly easily because our robot's rather high amount of torque (force acting on the gears). But, that torque also means the arm cannot be lifted very high. So, we will get our Arena points by lining the end effector up with the lowest ring and repeatedly looping it through.

Unfortunately, our SolidWorks has yet to be completed. It must be somehow completed by the onset of next week...

Week 7 (4/8-4/13) Goals

Yesterday, Dylan attatched a motor to the side of one of the rails. This will be spinning the plastic gears to move the ball.

We are halfway there. Can you feel the intensity?? I can feel the intensity...

Our goal, by Friday, is to have this end affector completed, attatched, and tested in the Arena.

Week 6 (4/1-4/5) Outcome

This is the skeleton of the mechanism we will use to throw the ball through the rings:

First, the ball is cornered against a wall and forced into the end effecter (the this whole mechanism). Then a motor will spin the black gears and force the ball over the gears, through a chute, and into the ring. It's a bulletproof plan.

Week 6 (4/1-4/5) Goals

New challenge! Within a week or so, we must find a way to get this ball...

Into one of these little hoops in the Arena (the higher the better).

We will accomplish our objective by attaching a motor to this thing...

...which will move the ball onto a small compartment that will be placed
at the end of the robotic arm we created for the last challenge.

Week 5 (3/18-3/22) Outcome

After weeks of repeatedly rebuilding this robot and its crucifix arm, we are finally ready to test it in the Arena of Tetrahedrons.

So our robot underwent a gruelling, nerve-wracking trial and we managed to get three triangles on midlevel.

And now, we must depart for spring break. We'll be back in a week!

Week 5 (3/18-3/22) Goals

Dylan and Tyler stayed after school to expand on the robot's arm. They added a seperate tower with gears and a motor.

We added an entirely new appendage to this part of the robot: a long, hooked arm that will be lifting the tetrahedrons onto the white tubes in the Arena.

Week 4 (3/11-3/15) Outcome

Today, we started a partial disassembly of the bot.

This is, to my knowledge, the skeleton of a new metal arm designed to lift the straw tetrahedral.

Look at Tyler, acting like he owns the place...

Oh, and Frank just finished our SolidWorks model of the robot.

Now THAT'S craftsmanship.

Week 4 (3/11-3/15) Goals

A new challenge: by next week, our robot has to be able to lift this:

Onto this:

Starting tomorrow, we will have to dissemble parts of the robot to include a long arm suited for the task next week.

Week 3 (3/4-3/8) Outcome



We spent much of today programming the robot's Autonomous and doing SolidWorks.

 

We tested it out in the Arena.

For the most part, the Autonomous was successful, but we're still going to have to make a few tweaks. It would do a little "twitch" before following its programming, for example.

Week 3 (3/4-3/8) Goals

Our group's goals for this week include:


Complete the Autonomous (the robot's "autopilot").

Complete the SolidWorks model of the robot.






Complete this blog.

 

Week 2 (2/25-3/1) Outcome

With a few persisting problems, we presented our robot to Mr. Martin, and while it preformed OK, he was able to find quite a few problems with it, mainly that the gears wouldn't stay aligned.

He showed us how to use spacers (the black things) to get the gears to stay in place.

This day, we completed the basic robot. Works fine... except for the Autonomous.

Week 2

We finished rebuilding the right side of the bot.

A lingering concern is that the right motor is still slightly loose.

Week 2

One of the motors was weak, so we replaced it. While replacing the motor, we realized that the right side had been poorly constructed overall, so we ended up rebuilding large portions of it.

Week 2 (2/25-3/1) Goals

Today, we tweaked the bot a little bit. Some of the collars were loose, as was the receiver (sorry, no pictures).

Week 1 (2/18-2/22) Outcome

Started off with this:

Then we realigned the gears:

Then we added the receiver to the top:

Finally, we added "The Brain":

Week 1

We started off Day 2 with half of the frame complete (with wheels and one motor attatched).

We ended the day by finishing the other half of the frame, attaching all wheels and another motor.