Not too bad for a team with zero mechanical engineers and working out of a garage.
Things have progressed a bit since photos were taken…
–Michael Blake
Congrats we know all to well the feeling.
Way to go 3481 !
That H-drive looks nice ! Does it only engage the ground when you turn the motor similar to Vader (148-2014 bot) ?
Fans of the Denver Broncos? 
Not bad at all. Though I would think that if you did have an ME on your team he or she would have suggested that you do something to triangulate your arm structure. 
What is your ‘slide’ geared for in free speed?
Awesome job guys…
Good luck this season!!
Aren’t batteries supposed to be charged in the upright position?
Thank you!
Yep we miss our ME’s this season… in 2012 we had one ME student, Charles Wensel, and one Astro-E student, Parker Francis, both former student leaders on 148 Robowranglers. We did exceptionally well at Champs that year on Archimedes, our sophomore effort, and got a taste of what it can be like to have that level of talent/abilities/experience on your team. PLUS the bonus of getting to know Parker and Charles who are just excellent and good people.
We lost Charles after 2012, the commute on weekends from Lubbock, TX to San Antonio, TX was just too much. And we had Parker for 2013 commuting down from Austin on weekends and in 2014 he had to pull-back due to school commitments but was still involved part-time. This season Parker has transitioned to pursuing his Master’s at Georgia Tech and is very part-time advising long-distance.
SO this year we learned to use the JVN calculator fully, which is a good thing…
But, having had a taste of what could be when you have gifted ME’s on your team is something I will try to re-capture sometime in the near-future but it’s difficult to pull-off…
–Michael Blake
THANKS, Andrew!!
Yes, similar to Vader… still working out kinks with twin practice bot. NOT SURE if there’s an advantage to having slide capabilities with this game… but the students were interested in spreading-their-wings mechanically and we decided to go for it.
–Michael
Eddie… the only sport I follow is competition robotics, so I’m not quite sure who the Denver Broncos are? Football, right?
Did the Super Bowl happen yet this year?
As for the colors, their the Louis D. Brandeis High School colors.
–Michael Blake
JCH… “triangulate your arm structure”…?!! I do not know what you are talking about? And if you reply using math I will hunt you down… LOL
“What is your ‘slide’ geared for in free speed?” THAT is like me asking you, “HOW TALL do you weigh?”
I will ask the student who primarily designed it and will get back to you with the info…
–Michael Blake
THANKS, Shamus!!
–Michael Blake
Bruce… I’ve never heard that before and this will be the 5th season we’ve charged that way and have never had a problem.
Maybe because we buy 8 brand new batteries each season we avoid any issues?
–Michael Blake
In your arm structure I notice that there are no triangles, only quadrilaterals. Thus the structures strength and stiffness is driven largely by the joints of the structures and not the beams themselves.
A *very *basic video on the importance of triangles in structures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvk_SiFGMZI
I like the arm idea! Good work!
Oh okay… you’re talking about our 2015 tower design… we know about “triangulate” structure design as evidenced by the tower design in our 2012 bot THE ADMIRAL II (see below picture).
We we just call them angle-trusses or horizontal-trusses.
We went with horizontal-trusses this year because we wanted to keep visuals as clean as possible for the driver/operator through the tower to the manipulator at the end of the arm.
Believe me you cannot twist that structure with any force experienced in this year’s game play and if it needed it we would have added angle-trusses for sure…
–Michael Blake
THANK YOU for the compliment!!
–Michael Blake