pic: 1559 so far

[bradleym1559]

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[blue_crew]

i love the spacer on the kitbot transmission output!!!! thats awesome.
What are the skids on the right of the robot made out of?

[bradleym1559]

Originally Posted by blue_crew

i love the spacer on the kitbot transmission output!!!! thats awesome.
What are the skids on the right of the robot made out of?

Plastic 4" spherical casters borrowed for last year's robot. Worked well then, hopefully they'll do the same this year if the team decides to stick with em. Pretty cool stuff.

[Zach Purser]

Whew, looks heavy. Do you have a final weight estimate?

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Zach Purser

Whew, looks heavy. Do you have a final weight estimate?

I think there's gonna be alot of heavy robots this year.

[Alex Cormier]

wowzer, the first thing i notice is that sheet of meatl. looks like the metal i picked out for our frame last year, is that a honeycomb light weight metal? Ya got a turret, which looks sweet, ya shooting from a low area of the robot? 2WD, with the trannies far away form the wheels, why's that? Looks great guys and i can't wait to see ya'll at FLR.

[bradleym1559]

As a mentor I'm not quite sure if the tranny design is finalized yet. Right now the team is trying to see if the design will work first of all. We tried this out last year and had to change it so I wouldn't be surprised if we end up going 4wd, but don't quote me. For this game 4wd--maybe with omniwheels on one set--would make sense.
I forgot what the board is called but its really light with corrugated plastic in between to thin sheets of aluminum...light but incredibly strong.
Weightwise she's not so bad right yet, but it will definitely get heavier. This is just the beginning.
The actual shooting mechanism will be mounted on top of the turret, hopefully coupled to the camera (camera should actually be mounted TO the turret). It should sit just on top of what you see now.
It should all be put together by next Saturday. That is, if all the parts come in. Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

[Alex Cormier]

so, ya guys will be able to load and pick up from the ground?

[bradleym1559]

Yup, underneath it will have a belt drive from front to back and then one going up to the hopper. None of this is built yet, but its all designed and ready for production.

[Zach Purser]

That honeycomb aluminum looks like neat stuff. I might have to get a little and test it out. The ball casters you have, are those Spherical Wheel brand? I wanted to get some but I can't find a US supplier.

[jskene]

Can you tell us where you bought the composite aluminum laminate?

[Murf the Smurf]

I love the turret idea

yours looks allot like ours but I was curious how you were going to mount and program your cam

we aren't sure whether to put it on the turret itself or mount it separately on the bot

[bradleym1559]

Originally Posted by Murf the Smurf

I love the turret idea

yours looks allot like ours but I was curious how you were going to mount and program your cam

we aren't sure whether to put it on the turret itself or mount it separately on the bot

As far as i know they were going to mount the camera directly to the cannon, so where the camera focuses is where the cannon shoots. Kind of simplifies the whole system. Right Now they are still working on perfecting the camera's focusing on the green. The idea is that, like with the camera mount they gave us, it will pan for the green, but through the other motors controlling the pitch of the turret and the horizontal angle. They are going to use the window motors to turn the turret and change the pitch. they said that this way they wouldnt need constant feedback from the motors as to where they are as they would just be following the green at all times. I could be wrong. Don't quote me, I'm a lower mechanical mentor. Hopefully it will work. Sounded good to me.