Re: Have not started building
 

VIKotics team5920
1/2 game pieces are done
one drive base done with 8 inch solid wheels, and some prototyping done.
2nd drive base with 8 inch pneumatic wheels part way done.
Practice area almost finished being cleaned
Will finish 2nd bot this week and testing.
Will start drivers training with the 1st bot and solid wheels.
Testing prototypes over game elements.
I think everyone is working hard and having fun.

Re: Have not started building
 

Good job guys!

Re: Have not started building
 

What people seem to forget is that just because you have a schedule doesn't make the schedule good. Take time at the end of the season and ask if your schedule actually made sense. I noticed on our schedule our strategy was supposed to be done BEFORE Q&A which I found a little bit sketchy.

"SIR WE HAVEN'T FINISHED BUILDING ROME."
"Calm down dude it has only been a day..."

Re: Have not started building
 

CAD was finished around week 1, and we've been building our prototype robot which is close enough to being finished to make me confident and positive in our design. For electrical our board is mounted to the prototype and while we're waiting for it to be finished we're going ahead and working on the second one with other groups that are also getting started on it. Our day today was productive which definitely helps with how everyone works.

Re: Have not started building
 

Our team has tried to utilize a method of simultaneous CAD design and prototyping. We spent the first week CADing individual subsystems, but as soon as we started to get in each other's way(everyone trying to put their subsystem on the chassis at the same time), we moved around 2/3 of our core CAD team into prototyping the shooter and intake. We didn't have anything built for the final robot until last tuesday(1/26), but with the CAD finished everything, is coming together, which fast that it makes up for the late start on fabrication.

Re: Have not started building
 

We have started building, having a Week 1 competition we decided to basically complete the bot by next week and have lots of driving and sensor adjustment time.

Our HG/LG shooter is working great , as is the tank drive base. We are working on the lift and the manipulators for doors. We should have a mostly completed bot by next week. Lots of drive/shoot practice and fine tuning until bag and tag. We have the field element too to practice with.

Exciting we made a lot of progress today and should have fun in San Diego Week 1.

Re: Have not started building
 

Woah. That's pretty impressive! Great job guys, and I wish you good luck!

Re: Have not started building
 

We don't normally meet on Sundays, but will be meeting tomorrow to get the robot "mechanically done"*** with wiring Monday/Tuesday and testing/tweaking the rest of the week (and then some).

***we expect that some things won't work exactly as we want them to, even with our prototypes having worked great so far. As those problems crop up, we'll fix them on one robot while the programmers/drivers play with the other, then swap. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Re: Have not started building
 

I agree, for the most part, with what has been said here so far. Where I differ however is that if you haven't really prototyped anything by this point you might run into fabrication issues or things not coming together correctly, or parts not working as anticipated. Last year my team didn't really have a final design until about this time during build season and when we finally finished your robot we found that our claw pick up, admittedly not the best way to go last year, didn't work and we were sunk. Our robot could barely pick up a tote and we didn't have enough time left in the build season to make any major designs changes and we were stuck with a robot at competition that we knew wasn't going to be competitive and it was hard on the team. I would really encourage that your prototype your things as you're building them in CAD to make sure that your idea will actually work before you build it and realize that what you have spent the past 3 weeks working on doesn't work.

Re: Have not started building
 

Agree we learned that year 1 and last year.... I think the best advice I came across online (I forget which team it was) was to have the main robot or replica functioning prototype built by week 4 regardless of your resources, this allows for modification and driving/strategy time. We are desperately trying to hit that week 4 mark this year. As we have a week 1 only opportunity pending a wk 5 waitlist.

I admire teams with extensive prototype capabilities... even they from what I read don't wait until the last moment to assemble to allowing time for iterative improvements to the main design. Many reconfigure throughout using the bag allowance during competition season.

Re: Have not started building
 

Every team takes it differently.

As my team has no access to computers of any sort (besides the Classmate PC that is the drive station), we aren't able to do CAD. I teach them rudimentary sketching skills, and I have them craft prototypes out of cardboard and wood.

The first weekend, I make them read the entire manual, and then craft individual ideas for strategy, before we decide on strategy as a group.

Then it's individual design, then consensus group design.

My team is also made up of approximately 60% special needs, so the clearly lain out order of operations may assist them in a way that might frustrate a team that is better able to operate independently. Teams that are better able to do things on their own will be much more efficient.

My point is, start any time you want. I have pointed out to my team that they believe in the Ri3D concept; their three days just usually commence the Sunday before Stop Build.

Re: Have not started building
 

We have constructed all of the game pieces. Have CAD done for the chassis, maybe 50% done for other stuff. Have completed prototypes for shooter and intake. Construction of our chassis will start on Monday. We have just gotten all of the chassis machined and custom bevel gear boxes constructed.

Re: Have not started building
 

We have almost nothing for the final robot finished yet, we do however have a mostly functioning prototype robot built minus a few features. We are starting work on the final robot this week. Most of the work is building more refined and compacted designs that are on our prototype robot.

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We have our transport system mounted on our chassis, we have some rudimentary wiring on the chassis, and we have a prototype of our shooter complete. No complete functional package yet though.

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Just take the time and make sure the CAD gets done correctly. If there are no issues with the CAD then it will assemble quickly. There are obviously going to be problems that will need to be ironed out once the actual robot is complete, but getting as many problems ironed out while in the CAD phase makes the rest of the process easier. My team just finished the drivetrain on our practice robot .