1346 Far from Finished...

[dtengineering]

Here's a little updated video from Vancouver. Although we are far from finished and have some safety interlocks, a couple of bumpers, the "poker" that attches to the taller upright tube on the back of the robot to knock the trackball down, the entire hybrid/autonomous mode, a lot of practice and testing and a possible lifter/gripper mechanism left to go, we finally got the robot to drive and launch on Friday night.

It was actually kind of interesting Friday night as the school was hosting it's 50th Anniversary party that night and had about 3,000 alumni visiting. We were a "display" and people would drop by the shop, talk to the communications team members and watch the build team members do their thing. People who visited early in the night saw a disassmbled machine. Partway through the evening they saw a machine that needed the pneumatics hooked up and the code updated. If they came back towards the end of the evening they saw a big blue ball flying through the air and a robot rolling around the floor.

If you look up in the rafters towards the end of the video you'll see some of the things we do when we aren't building robots.

The specs are: about 80 pounds of robot so far (the first time ever that we haven't had to drop weight in the last week of build), with the launcher powered by four 1.5" x 8" cylinders with a 2" pre-load and two clippard tanks at 60psi downstream of the valve. It takes about 17 seconds after the shot for a complete recharge of the pneumatic system. There are two 6" IFI traction wheels on the front powered by two CIMs on the KOP gearbox driving a 32:22 sprocket set for speeds over 10fps, and two 6" AM Omnis unpowered on the back. Rotational stability is provided by a gyro.

See you in Portland and Seattle!

Jason

[Manoel]

Looks great!

Do you have to push the ball against an object to acquire it or that's just how you happened to be doing at the time?

Also, have you tested accuracy for placing the ball on the overpass?

Good luck in the next ten days!

[dtengineering]

Yes, at the moment the plan is to ram the ball into the wall in order to pick it up, although that may change as we test. We've left room for a gripper/lifter.

We aren't planning on placing the ball on the overpass at the end of the match. If we don't have an alliance partner who can get it up there, we'll just shoot it over and take the 8 points for crossing the line rather than the 12 for leaving it there.

Jason

[GaryVoshol]

Looking good Jason.

Isn't that welder a little close to the inflated trackball?

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

Looking good Jason.

Isn't that welder a little close to the inflated trackball?

Yeah, it kind of looks that way in the video, I guess... but it is several feet away. With stick or MIG it might be an issue, but with TIG there is no splatter to worry about. The student doing the welding has done an amazing job of learning TIG this year and now out-welds the teachers and mentors by a fair margin!

Jason