Update11/3/2022
PR/Outreach/Fund Raising
Now that Cowtown Throwdown is over we shift our focus to our craft fair fundraiser / outreach event.
11/12/2022 we will be holding a craft fair as a fundraiser.
This is our first year running a craft fair event. In addition to manning the event and aiding the vendors we will set up our pit and bring Sidewinder our 2022 competition bot
In addition to showing off our competition bot we will be running some STEM activities for kids. The activities will be similar to those in our Girl Scout Lego robotics camp
On 11/19/2022 some of our mentors and students will be attending a workshop put on by the KC Stem Alliance and KC First.
Mechanical
The mechanical team will be reorganizing the supplies after competition as well as taking an inventory of what we have and will need for the upcoming season.
One thing we had hoped to do was upgrade from the SDS mk4 to the SDS mk4i. However they are currently out of conversion kits. We aren’t budgeted for 5 (4 mods and 1 spare) new swerve modules. We may opt for 3 so we can have one side inverted and the other not. Then net year we could get the 2 additional modules. Then we could have 2 full swerve chassis. One for mechanical and one for drivers an programmers. Given monetary constraints and long lead times we may be using regular mk4 (if the game calls for swerve)
Programming
With the announcement that Charged Up will include April Tags we have been closely watching the development of Photon vision The Beta Thread has a lot of great information on the upcoming release as well as very responsive help from the volunteers programming the new features. There are also examples of getting field position from transforms off of the detected tag.
We believe it will be in our best interest to use the field location provided by the tags to keep our field position up to date. As such we have been looking at WPILIB Pose Estimators This would allow us to move to a target even if we can’t see it with our camera at that time.
Competition
We are currently confirmed for Week 3 Heartland KSLA in Olathe KS and week 6 Green Country OKTU in Tulsa, OK.