[Mark Sheridan]

This year we are using way less sensors. I always try to plan for a design not to use sensors just in case a sensor breaks. We did have to implement a few this year.


1. We have a light sensor to measure shooter wheel speed. We have a ban-bang control loop set up to control the speed. 766 is running a similar set up to us and they have no control loop. We have a wobblier mounting for our shooter than than them so i feel our design has to eliminate our speed error a bit to match their accuracy. Mostly our bang-bang controller eliminates firing at too fast of a rate and causing shots to to be fired at a slow speed. I think a practiced operator could do this manually. We also use polycarb whips to touch the pyramid, so we avoided vision systems.

2. The drive train pretty much runs with no control loop, we have been messing with our gyro but it looks like we wont need it. We do mess with the joystick curve to change the throttle response. We did design the drive to have encoders have have them in place. We only use them when the PTO is engaged on the left hand drive. I do have a design philosophy this year of making sure our motor systems always have a spot to place an encoder.

3. Our climber has two limit switches to prevent crashes. We tried to design the climber to be strong enough to crash but the PTO has enough torque to skip chains so we have to use the limit switches. We also zero the encoders using the limit switches. I think we have everything to automate the climb but we bounce over corners so I think we will leave in manual. We also have a camera to check our alignment.