how far have you gotten on your robot?

[Dulaney1727]

I was wondering my Rookie Team was far behind. My teacher insists that we are right on schedule but it is hard to tell, knowing that there is so much to do and so little time left.

We have experimented on the devices to try and discover a system that would effectively shoot the 7.5 inch ball. We discovered that pneamatics would not be powerful enough and using springs was good idea but also did not work out so well in the end. We also tried using a pinball machine design, where a "hammer" would hit behind the ball and launch it forwards, but it again turned out not to be powerful enough. We are now trying to build a system with wheels and a motor to shoot the ball out similar to softball machine at batting cages.

For the electrical stuff, we have laid out the most of the electronics and created the circuits and have screwed everything down to the plywood.

We have built the chasis for the robot and started to play around with the camera, but are running into some technical difficulty.

We have yet to look into a hopper system and a system for picking up loose balls.

Thanks
Scott