how far have you gotten on your robot?

[gondorf]

if yo didnt use the kitbot what did you use? i mean there is the costs and the design and the kitbot is simple. please explain ow you can make something other that a kitbot with the KOP

[Mike Martus]

Originally Posted by gondorf

if yo didnt use the kitbot what did you use? i mean there is the costs and the design and the kitbot is simple. please explain ow you can make something other that a kitbot with the KOP

You can purchase Alum stock from many sources and make a frame that is lighter and custom to your application. It really is not that hard.

[gondorf]

good point.

unfortunutely we arent able to get mor alum so we are stuck using kitbot.

we are still working on trying to make the motors work and i just found out that wheels cant be chemically treater for traction.

my school has problems with their robot

which brings up another question: have you had problems with your robot/prototype? i mean something like blowing up or smoking. our motors started to smoke

[sciguy125]

The chassis design is pretty much complete. The environmental manipulators have gone through concept and are going into design.

We're far behind schedule, but doing very well compared to last year... The design deadline has been pushed back 4 days.

We also had time to play with some proof-of-concept prototypes and looked at a bunch of commercial ball throwing devices.

[gondorf]

i remember the vex robots last year. my schools vex robot blew up and part of the team had scratches and burns.

remember to wear your safety glasses

just had to say that

[BuddyB309]

Originally Posted by gondorf

i remember the vex robots last year. my schools vex robot blew up and the entire team had scratches and burns.

remember to wear your safety glasses

just had to say that

Wow! tell me in detail how you got that to happen!

[Reyner]

We have hardly even finished the chassis of the kitbot, but that's because we took a week off for exams.

[BuddyB309]

Originally Posted by Reyner

We have hardly even finished the chassis of the kitbot, but that's because we took a week off for exams.

I'm so glad our schools exams are befor break.

[Tim Delles]

which brings up another question: have you had problems with your robot/prototype? i mean something like blowing up or smoking. our motors started to smoke

First thing is was the robot moving. If the robot was not moving then most likely your motors were made to run opposite of each of each other. Which could cause them to blow up since they would be fighting each other.

[gondorf]

actually our robot was upside down and we were staring at it dumbfounded.

the motor was plugged in but the gear that it was attached to was stuck

and during all this i thought: dont those look like the cookies i put in the oven before school...the oven is still on...oh no!!!

[atomikitten]

Originally Posted by gondorf

actually our robot was upside down and we were staring at it dumbfounded.

the motor was plugged in but the gear that it was attached to was stuck

and during all this i thought: dont those look like the cookies i put in the oven before school...the oven is still on...oh no!!!

aha! OK here's what went wrong. If the gear that the motor's output shaft was attached to was stuck, the motor was doing only what it knows how to do; it wants to move. It will keep forcing its way, drawing more current, trying to get its output shaft to move. If it's locked up, eventually the motor burns itself on the inside.
This is why we gear motors down. If you attach the motor directly to the wheel's axle, it doesn't have enough initial acceleration to go from zero to its max rpm, which is what it's trying to do. You know we solve this problem by putting a gear with fewer teeth on the motor, then a bigger gear on the wheel, and you get a ratio. The motor has to rotate several times before the one on the wheel makes it all the way around, but it's actually a good thing because it prevents it from locking up. The motor gets to move right away, so it's happy.
The worst thing that can happen is the motor is trying to move but can't, and then it keeps trying until it burns out. In the future, make sure the motor is free to move before you turn it on, and be ready to turn it off right away if something doesn't seem right.
A lot of other things could go wrong. You said you were using the kit, so I hope you were using the correct motor. It's the regular CIM motor, not the larger ones; part numbers FP801-005 vs FP801-001.
When motors are gone, they're gone. Spare parts are in 5.4.5 of the manual (you feel kind of crazy when you have a copy of the manual on your bed) the URL for the IFI store is http://www.ifirobotics.com/0-index.htm and I don't know how long it'll take for them to get there, so hurry.
I hope some of the things covered in this post were already familiar to you.
If you need more help, CD is the right place! Good luck!

[sanddrag]

We have made a prototype shooter (including some CNCed parts) that will send the ball 60 feet! The accuracy still needs a little working on, but it was hard to know on a windy day and outdoor testing space.

The gearbox design is almost done. CIM motors have been ordered. The wheels and frame construction has been decided. Frame design is starting. Wheels, gears, bearings, sprockets, and chain will be ordered on Wednesday.

The ball manipulation group is still working on conceptual pickup, conveyance, and feeding technique and volume allocation.

Overall, I'd say we're slightly ahead with the drivetrain and pretty much on track with the ball manipulation.

Team 949 has gone through our concepts and we are now going through the designing period.

We are planning to build a prototype launcher and the target tomorrow and by next sunday we should have everything autocadded and ready for building..

Maybe we should build the kop bot.. hmm.. other than that we haven't done anything else

[Sgraff_SRHS06]

We've also finished designing. We are just now in the final stages of prototyping and putting the finishing touches on our designs. Tomorrow we are going shopping for a good portion of the additional parts we need.

As programmer, I have no say in all of this, but I can make special interest advocacies. We finally got our Gyroscopes and our rights to the CMU Camera and the Accelerometer. The programmers, including myself, are currently writing pseudocode.

But we have made much more progress in our design than any of our teams in the past, outside of our rookie year.

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As for kitbots, we are using the kit, but we are not staying inside it. This may be the first year in which we don't use the kit wheels, though. Our drive team wants "tricks" (trick wheels) and "grips" (grip wheels). After their experiments with Deeper Thought, the decided that the kit wheels were not going to be sufficient for climbing up the hill. So, I'm not sure if the kit wheels will hold. However, the chassis will be from the kit and we'll do better weight management (so we actually have a good frame).

[Nuttyman54]

We've got the design figured out and are tweaking a few dimensions. some of the team is building a test launcher and a goal, and we've got the Kitbot build (but not running) as a test bed for the sensors.