pic: Our Robot of Masterpiece

[fordchrist675]

loading photo ...

[vivek16]

Loving the legal duct tape.



-Vivek

[Otaku]

Our prototype platform is a masterpiece.

Thinking about it... 40min for the chassis, about a half hour to get the right wheels on it, about an hour for electronics... what's that make? just about 2 hours? not bad.

EDIT:

What you can't see: The word "Tim" underneath the duct tape.

That's right.

We named our '08 Batteries.

This year I think we're going to stick with a numerical scheme...

[R.C.]

Nice Job, but turning is gonna suck. How are you guys dealing with that.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by rc_cola1323

Nice Job, but turning is gonna suck. How are you guys dealing with that.

The code running on our RC isn't done properly right now and we can't turn. It's purely linear movement at the time.

Also, this frame and such we've only really used for traction testing under 60lbs weight (one of our mentors has a 67lb "Box of Gravity" that we got some goodies from).

[Mike Hendricks]

You ever plan on adding chains to the front (or rear, depending on how you look at it) wheels?

[The Pre]

don't see any of the new 09 parts or the sweet wi-fi n gear that came in the kit this year, lol

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by PhatMike

Oh don't worry .. those wheels don't stick to the regolith enough to cause that problem.

Haha.

I think he meant with only 2wd turning would be difficult.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by PhatMike

You ever plan on adding chains to the front (or rear, depending on how you look at it) wheels?

they're the front wheels.

Not sure on that one yet. We only have two Rover wheels right now, the two up front are last year's HDPE wheels we used for more agile turning. We're probably going to lathe them smooth and round for testing purposes because two of our Rover wheels are going to our Trailer proto.

Originally Posted by The Pre

don't see any of the new 09 parts or the sweet wi-fi n gear that came in the kit this year, lol

That's because the Programming team is working on code and such for that while we only really needed a working control system. No use for the fancy cRIO, Jags or such. The proto bot still has Vics, the IFI RC/OI, Radios, etc.

[Mike Hendricks]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Haha.

I think he meant with only 2wd turning would be difficult.

Err .. you were too quick. A few other things after looking at it closer ..

Why not the new controller? Why 4 CIMs?

I'm going to go out on a limb for my 3rd question .. using steel as the chassis for weight? (as opposed to the new kitbot)

[The Pre]

nice small crate too, you can almost fit that bot in an envelope and slap a 41cent stamp on it, lol

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by PhatMike

Why not the new controller? Why 4 CIMs?

No new controller because Programming has their hands on it and this isn't the Programming testbed, it's the Manufacturing testbed.

4 CIMs because we didn't want to worry about taking one of them out. Was easier just to wire them all up like this.

Originally Posted by PhatMike

I'm going to go out on a limb for my 3rd question .. using steel as the chassis for weight? (as opposed to the new kitbot)

The chassis was actually an off-season exercise to see how quickly we could build a strong chassis. Four bits of steel square tube, 8 gusset plates, a handful of self-tapping screws, some wheel mounts and about 4mins later and we had built a chassis that could support at least 330lb of vertical force. Not bad. Seeing as how we just wanted to make a quick testing platform, it was already built (well, not as much as you see in the pic, there was ~1-2 hours work on it today to get it there), we figured why not. Got the electronics off of last year's competiton bot (seriously just unbolted the bits and moved them, didn't take any wires off or anything) and shazam, test platform.

The new kitbot chassis... we might use that for the real construction this year. Wanna keep from cutting until we have a finalized design.