@ soxfan269
While we haven't had any issues, and have even been able to drive the robot at a relatively great distance, that is an important thing to consider, so thank you for pointing it out. I'm not sure if we will move our radio at this point, but we definitely need to keep an eye on that. (one student in the club was able to pick up the wifi signal from another building on campus.)
Today was supposed to be our first testing day. Things are moving, don't get me wrong, we just want them moving faster and farther.
So...today we buttoned down the wiring, fixed some things in the teleop code, (the button control of the victor was wrong, so we swaped it out for a relay and got that all running). We realized we had a problem with our babybot extender. We were using a 20 inch piston figuring on loosing 4 inches to our linear bearings. What we forgot to take into account were the bumpers and the stop that keeps the bearings from sliding off of the back of the track. So we were really only getting 15 inches of travel, which with the inset of the babybot track meant our minibot would not hit the pole. So we started out by swapping out the 20 inch piston for a 24 inch piston.
We also had to wire our solenoids and light sensors, and mount our camera.
With that done we went on to actually get our bumpers done and mounted. This year we decided to make the red bumpers and then make a blue slip cover.
We start out making a "sock" that contains the pool noodles and backer board.
Then we sew together a slip cover that is creased on top so that it can't slip down, with elastic in the corners around the bottom. We will probably add some velcro tomorrow.
Ricky-Bobby tried to teach Cat how to sew. (he is actually much better at it than she is. :-)
Here is the gripper. We added surgical tubing to give it a bit more bite. I'm not the happiest with the geometry of the whole thing, I would prefer if it opened up wider and was more level at ground level.
So the arm sort of had a melt down today. The tension on the chain is pulling the sprockets out of alignment. I came up with a fix tonight. 2 really big brackets that hold both the Denso motor and the big sprocket in alignment.
That might make it more difficult to mount the plexiglass safety shield, but we will figure something out.
Should have more pics and video tomorrow. Were coming down the wire.
Edoga