how far have you gotten on your robot?

[Ian Curtis]

To put this in perspective...

At this time in 2004, my team was sitting around in a computer room, tossing around ideas, after physics of the frictiony ball surfaces made our original one impossible. I think this was also the week where the frame was started in construction, and CADing began.

At this time in 2005, we had a prototype claw, later abandoned for a more effiencent one, a CADed arm which was built and changed drastically in the 72 hours leading to the arrival of the FedEx guy*, and we knew what our drivetrain would look like. Our code master was hard a work trying to get the camera to work, and when he gave up, turned to encoders.

Right now, we have 5 prototypes in the shop, 3 of them fuctional, a sixth recently taken apart for testing purposes. We have the drivetrain to a T, V1 of the frame is constructed, and our electronics board is together. Our much larger than previous years coding team is hard a work, and after a rough start with the camera, is making progress in leaps and bounds. We know exactly what our shooter will look like, and have only one or two refined choices for other systems.

That doesn't mean much though, we're still behind schedule.

*Yes, there's a reason why I said 72 hours instead of 3 days.