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Unread 17-03-2003, 01:53
Travis Covington's Avatar Unsung FIRST Hero
Travis Covington Travis Covington is offline
Engineering Mentor
FRC #0254
Team Role: Engineer
 
Join Date: Oct 2001
Rookie Year: 1998
Location: San Jose, CA
Posts: 574
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Quote:
A question for 968... to get the outriggers on, were they just attached or did you have two robots? For those who weren't there, 968 had a stacking attachment of Thursday and changed to the outrigger design on Friday.
The wings and 4-bar stacking arms are all connected with clevis pins and quick disconnects pneumatic and electrical connectors. On Friday we did a lot...changed sprockets twice, redid wiring, removed the 4-bar, added lead weights, etc etc etc.

We can remove the wings and put the 4-bar back on at any time. That’s why some of you noticed 5 speed controllers. 2 of them are for the fisher price motors that raise/lower the arms.

The 4-Bar might get put back on in LA with some other minor changes. We would love to be able to stack, but our drivers are just not comfortable enough to stack effectively in competition. Hopefully with the parts we are making in these next few days we will be even more competitive in LA (hint: more motors, more speeds)

The autonomous mode should work as well (we had a few bugs and it rarely would work) we should also be able to have both the wings and the 4-bar and still be under weight.

**Just a side note to all of those people curious about our engineering efforts and team organization. We have 1 main advisor, Bob Anderson, who is the teacher at West Covina HS. Him along with Kirk Oden, and Myself are the only advisors that are on this team. We have no engineering help. Kirk and myself are the only “engineers” on our team. Our ‘engineering’ status comes from only 2 years as mechanical engineering majors and 4 years on each of our previous teams (Kirk with 4 years on Woodside team 100 and myself at Monta Vista team 115) I wouldn’t call ourselves engineers quite yet.

This is our second year with this team. We started it last year with the help of Bob and Scott McElroy. We have no mills, lathes, machine tools, and limited access to the woodshop. The robot we had in competition was made almost entirely by a horizontal band saw, drill press and aprox. 10 hours on a mill or lathe for the wheel blocks, plugs for the 4-bar, and a few misc. pieces that required a mill.

We have recently found a machine shop class and enrolled in it (primarily for machine tool access) and will be fabricating a few new *secret* parts before the deadline this Wednesday. I think these parts will help us have an edge at competition in LA.
__________________
-Travis Covington

2008-2017 - Engineering Mentor of Team 254
2001-2008 - Engineering Mentor of Team 968
1998-2001 - Mechanical Director/Driver/Member of Team 115