pic: 1067's robot (almost done)

[Frank(Aflak)]

Ok, some updates (and a shameless bump, though I do hate double-posting)

We have a sprocket drilled out to fit our turret shaft. The big (3") hole visible in the motor plate is for a FP motor, and the sprocket will fit inside the robot on the big pole, and be driven by the FP motor. thus we can turn our arm around and around. More difficult to build, but it should be awesome to have the driver park the both and let the arm operator do his thing, without all the inefficiencies that happen in less-thatn-perectly trained teams.

Driving is becoming harder with the arm, but it is still much faster and handels much better than our 2003 robot. It requires experience, though. The dedicated freshman can tip it over while driving, although all of us were putting it through a stress test and he is the only one who almost made it flip. Inexperienced as he was, he reacted fast enough to save it. Maybe he has potential as a driver, but not this year. If it goes over without something else causing it, its our driver's fault. Hopefully we will get one smart enough to know whats what. Turning with the marbles is great, although we may look into non-glass replacements. Its gotta be something with balls, though, its just too funny of an idea. Back to the point of this paragraph: as of now the controls for the arm aren't finished, so the arm is unpowered when we drive. Therefore it has a tendency to flop around some, especially the rotating (turret) part of is which is not connected to a motor, so if the driver makes the wrong move, the arm freewheels around the robot. No major problems, but its something we are keeping an eye on.

The claw is marching steadily towards completetiong (especially because we still have 9 days till ship!) and I don't think there will be a problem with that, but then I did design it and I am building it, so I may not be that objective. Everything works so far.

I hope to get some more time with that hand-grinder soon and do that finish. Its ridiculously cool. I hung that one sample peice from the ceiling of our room with a few zip-ties. Its our substitute for art. Or maybe its our art. Maybe.

Well, theres the update. Hopefully more pics tommorow. Anyone know where I can host ~5meg divX files, I took some of them and would like to show them off.