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.