It always seems like the last 10% of the robot takes half the build. Not a lot of photogenic progress in the last few meetings, but we did come to what I think is a good part to keep our brake pistons from, uh, breaking.
It's a small aluminum cylinder that serves as both a bearing for the shaft and a replacement for the nose nut. One end is drilled for a tight fit on the piston shaft and the other threaded for 1/2-20 to match the piston nose. When extended the unsupported shaft length is much shorter now giving it, we think, a greater (adequate?) safety margin to resist bending.
Most of the wiring and pneumatic plumbing is completed. Everything lights up and no smoke escaped! The new cRio has been imaged and the drive train works, validating the changes we've made from our preseason designs chain tensioning. Everything (and I do mean everything), has been labeled and for the first time ever we have some semblance of logic behind our PWM, breaker and motor assignments.
All that's left is lots of little wiring tasks and resolving the inevitable fitment issues between the two major and separately manufactured robot subassemblies.
Oh, and I guess programming. We'll probably want to budget, like, a half hour for that.