Re: how far have you gotten on your robot?
 

oh i dunno.. in 1,2 weeks or so i think. depends on how fast i wanna work.

Re: how far have you gotten on your robot?
 

why does it matter, realistically even a really good harvester is not gonna hold on to more than oh say 40-50 balls at any given time of the match. Something that can hold that many loosely is more than good enough. Considering any ball you score is up to the opponent alliance to put back into field, chances are you'll never get close to having all 80 balls of the field. Plus if you did have all the balls, it's fairly obvious to the other team they can put all their defense on just your robot to stop you from scoring, instead of trying to block several.

Re: how far have you gotten on your robot?
 

We had a productive day today. One of our mentors showed up, and he gave me my first experience with magic smoke and fused wires today. It's a good lession to learn early.

Re: how far have you gotten on your robot?
 

I have to agree with that, with only six weeks to build you are always behind schedule :eek:

Re: how far have you gotten on your robot?
 

Though you really aren't ever far enough

Re: how far have you gotten on your robot?
 

Let me clarify a bit. This mentor is ME. I am a structural engineer so I don't belong near wires =) While testing out the light and seeing how the camera was tracking, some unprotected portions of the light wires shorted and...well...some melted wire, glowing leads, partially burned fingers (mine), and lots of smoke later, many lessons were learned! Not one of my better moments... :ahh:

In an unrelated note - will the team be penalized if an opposing robot happens to lock onto my bald spot as our camera did today?? :confused:

Kev

Re: how far have you gotten on your robot?
 

okie dokie! time for an update, we just finished 90 percent of our robot base just need to decide now where to mount motors...

*our drivetrain is mostly inside our frame...* HEHEHHEHEHE

Re: how far have you gotten on your robot?
 

I think it depends on if they relentlessly pummel you with balls...:D

We have a semi finalized drive train, (drives nicely), with plates designed and ready to be punched for our 1st stage of mechanism. As of today. 4 weeks left... It sounds like more time if you say a month.

Re: how far have you gotten on your robot?
 

as of today, our third prototype works! :D launched about 25 feet with .75in of pressure on the ball...

Re: how far have you gotten on your robot?
 

Well our team is on schedule compared to usual. First week is spent deciding what we want our robot to do. Second week is spent working on brainstorming. Third-fourth week is spent on designing the robot and machining parts at the same time. Fifth week is spent finishing building the robot. And finally the last week is tweaking the robot and practicing.

By the looks of it this year we’re going to have one crazy robot. We plan on being able to shoot a ball from our robot about every half second (can’t tell you how just yet but wait and see). The robot should have good pushing potential but were looking to just be able to maneuver around them and just unload our robot as fast as possible. The ramp is an obstacle we’re not looking forward to. I don’t know how many teams out there would agree with me but we think the ramp isn’t that important. We don’t have a name for the robot yet this year but people are thinking about naming it Gemini (hint hint) although a few people would like it to be called “Kachunk Chunk” or “Spinning Blades of Doom”.

But right now were going over a lot of calculations to make sure our robot will do exactly what we want it to do. We figure that if we spend two weeks designing the robot and looking over everything three or four times before we build then we shouldn’t have to do much work later.

We did do a prototype so see how accuracy is affected by certain variables. The shooter threw the ball about a dismal 3 feet but that’s all we needed. We also made a machine to help us decide on what material to use for our belting in the conveyor system, we have hope for the material you use to hold down rugs to hardwood floors (works very good and is pretty durable). Nothing is set in stone except for our overall design, no specifics yet but we’re almost there.

Overall our robot is shaping up. I have high hopes for this one. This should be a very interesting game, were going to need to change the battery after every match. That camera sucks up so much power, and with all these motors running our battery should have some fun. Until I can release more details, this is it for now.

Good luck to all teams!

Re: how far have you gotten on your robot?
 

well we came up with this really cool see-saw design to move the balls to the shooter, but as a consequence we couldn't use the kit bot, which though primitive is really strong if put together right. for motors we are gonna end up using either cim motors with DeWalt transmissions for the most power. if the finance goddess blesses us, we might put 4 cims for extra power. we like push power :D especially with the defence quarter thing. we did that last year, so we are just waiting on parts

i made a shooter merely using the old bot for a platform and the softball launcher design. separately we got the camera to work after much tinkering.

are we the only team having problems with the camera locking onto ceiling lights as well as the target?

Re: how far have you gotten on your robot?
 

You are not the only team that has this problem. This should be a problem for all teams. This is because the florescent lights give off a green hue as well as other hues. The camera will pick these up and then target them. At most places where the competitions have been held (I know for sure at Great lakes and Buckeye) the lights there give off a red hue. It took us a while to figure that one out last year.

Re: how far have you gotten on your robot?
 

also the CMUcam is pretty good at seeing UV light, and the florescent lights give off quite a bit of that (hence they're modified for use in tanning salons)

How complete is your robot
 

sorry if a thread for this has already been made, I've just been wondering and the pictures in the gallery isn't really showing half-way done robot.

Re: How complete is your robot
 

Why should the gallery show a half way done robot? My theory is, if your robot is half way done (in fabrication) right now, you haven't thought about it enough.