An end-of-build update.
We bagged a nominally functional robot. All of our features work, except for vision tracking (due to inadequate LED illumination, mostly).
Here we are testing with a ring light that did illuminate well enough, but did not package well into the robot.
Down the mouth of the beast. You can see all of the belts and rollers, running on 1/4in D-shaft with set screws. The surgical tubing in the back bowing in the side-panels is absolutely key to our consistent shooting. It centers the ball in the back of the shooter and prevents any drag from the sides on the ball as it exits the later stages. It acts like a funnel of sorts. The barber poles help ensure that balls enter the shooter/collector properly and prevents the ball from rolling belts off of their pulleys.
Crossed a lot of defenses to work out our #35 chain upgrade and get a little driver practice in. Also, we are doing header preservation with an ardupilot, so the driver pulls the joystick trigger and the robot keeps itself going straight. A nice little aid for crossing.
Disclaimer: we generally include our b-roll stuff rather than editing down to the highlights/best performance. Partly because editing video takes time, and partly because it can be disheartening to compare ones own holistic experience to another teams' highlights.
Some videos:
Self-righting with the arm.
The magic of the W drive! Here's the
rock wall.
One shot from
shooter consistency testing. We just skim the 8-9ft ceiling at roughly 20ft range, landing at about 30ft.
Crossing the moat/trying to get stuck on the moat. We can come to a complete stop anywhere on the moat and either back out and/or continue through.
Crossing the ramparts would be easier if we made sides for the defenses... I think we'll do okay on a real field. Note: heading preservation was NOT working for this trial
I don't have a good video for the rough terrain, but we can drive over, and even turn, on it without issue.
Overall... a long build season for the Grasshoppers, but a rewarding one. We got way outside of our comfort zone on a lot of different aspects of this robot. But, that's how you grow! We look forward to competing with our fellow NEDErs in Windham, UNH, and UMass!