Ok, I know we don’t have “build season” any more, since there’s no ship/bag day. But it’s been three weeks, and it seems like we should be further along than we are. We have prototyped (using the 2020 robot) something that can take in cargo, and with a bit of help lift them up, and spit them into the low Hub. We have assembled the KoP chassis. We have a design roughed out for the main body of the robot, and have ideas how and were to mount most of the subassemblies. But still no real drawings.
One of our big challenges is having very few students this year. As in, almost enough to make up a drive team, but that’s it.
We will be able to access our build shop for the first time this monday. We’ve been working remotely since day 1. Our students can’t wait to finally touch some physical parts!
Prototyped a climber and started the CAD
Continuing prototype work on an intake and launcher.
We only meet 11 hrs per week. M/W 7-9 and Sat 9-4. It does mean members have to do more research between meetings and we have to hope to it during the week.
If we still had bag day I’d be freaking out, but our first match isn’t until end of March.
Prototyping is going well. We “think” we know what works at this point.
Our CAD team has done an AMAZING job with the CAD, and we are starting to laser-cut wooden versions of the robot assembly, that way we can start testing what the robot can do as a whole unit (at least the things that manipulate cargo). Most detailed and fastest robot CAD to date on our team.
Overall excited by the progress. Can’t wait for the coming weeks.
You’re probably ahead of us. We’ve got a prototype built mostly of wood and various 3d printed prototyping blocks that can intake, sort and shoot cargo that’s currently clamped to an old robot chassis and another climber prototype that’s off on it’s own. Haven’t started on the actual robot yet, don’t have agreement on what the robot is going to look like, and our first large order of parts from WCP has been stuck in Iowa for the past week waiting for Fedex is unload a truck. It’s going to be a long season…
It sort of fluctuates. We have one issue that is potentially tricky, and we probably need to sort it this weekend. Also we have some parts coming, but not sure what all and when, and what we’ve forgotten or don’t have. Our intake is still a bit imaginary and can go either way, and the entire launcher concept is still a bit on thin ice, so we can get past it. Best result would be we pass all this stuff in a go, and then get to start working on programming and stretch goals. Worst result would be scrap everything back to drawing board. Expected result is somewhere in the middle where there are adjustments and changes from expected ways or even lower expectations on results to a small degree, but not a full change.
Timeline, I think we are doing mostly good. We should have been receiving all the parts this week, but it looks like early next week. We are operating more design as we go than I’d prefer so we could find it harder to incorporate things we need if adjustments are needed.
We have a drivetrain in CAD, might cut it this weekend.
(There’s a practice chassis running around with legal electronics and our design choices for the year, but its chassis was cut three years ago. Our students have some ideas about what to do with the game pieces but nothing past cardboard yet. They are very nervous to design, we didn’t practice that enough in the Fall.)
We’re doing pretty well. Our first regional is week 4, so we’re more like ~1/3 of the way in. Our drivetrain is driving, our shooter prototype is working pretty well and we’re going to start machining a more realistic (i.e. not plywood) version today or tomorrow. Our intake prototype is pretty good but there’s a fair bit of design work left to go (such as the mechanism to raise and lower it). Our climber is mostly designed and CADed, only a couple things left to work through. Our Hub is built and just needs polycarb, we’ll hopefully finish the climbing bars this weekend. I don’t know what software is doing but apparently they’re ahead of where we usually are in Week 3. We’re pretty much tracking to our Gantt chart.
Personally I’m doing well, not nearly as tired as I normally am in Week 3 (working partially from home is a blessing). The kids seem pretty relaxed, most of them have never done a regular build season or been to a competition so they’re just rolling with it. We’re meeting 6.5-7 hours, four days a week, which has been a mixed bag. Having the longer time blocks for machining made a big difference for finishing our drivetrain quickly, team dinners have been fun, and kids don’t have to get a ride back to school in the evening. But it is a loooong block of time, and a lot of students leave an hour or two early, and others stay but start to lose focus towards the end.
Rookie team here.
Absolutely nobody has experience.
We have close to no budget, students have no real idea on what/how to prototype…
But it’s a fun journey!
We’re doing very well, even with losing three build days to weather. Our prototypes are done and we have the full robot CAD ready. We’re on to building the major mechanisms, all of which are still at some stage of incomplete so far (the intake is most complete, the climb elements the least.) The frame is welded and ready for the drive train and mechanisms. Our big holdup right now is waiting for our new swerve modules, which are due early next week. Once we have those, we’ll have the drive base done. Electrical is coming along with the test assembly of the electrical system and the pneumatic system, both working well with the new REV control package. All in all, I’ve been very impressed with my team this year. They’re doing really complex work at an amazing speed, all because of good leadership and proper project management (all from an awesome student leadership team.) I expect that we’ll have a solid working robot before week 1, even though we don’t have our first district competition until week 4. The potential for us to get to competition with far more practice for the drive team than we’ve ever managed is very exciting.
We are also down to few students… but we are making decent progress. As others, we are doing a bit more design as we go this year, as we lost all of our experience to jobs, and other activities. We plan to have a really good shooter, and probably won’t have more than a basic end game.
We lost today due to sickness and this weekend due to weather, but we have a reliable and driveables base that is assembled, legal, anf most likely going to be our final configuration. The basic climber is half-done, and some ideas for prototyping the intake. We also have a completely plumbed pneumatics system.
I keep fluctuating between feeling good about the progress and feeling overwhelmed and behind.
However, every time I begin feeling overwhelmed, I realize that we have made all of our choices, design and otherwise as a team. All of the building, programming, and troubleshooting has been done by our team members with mentors truly facilitating.
I call all of that a win.
I am incredibly proud of them and in that respect, we are ahead. We are a bit behind on our goals, but we are meeting more often next week to make up for it.
We are… very much ahead of where we’ve been in the past. The closest we’ve come was 2014, where we finished the robot at the end of week 4… and I give us even odds that we finish this year’s robot tomorrow. The CNC machine we got last year has really made a huge difference - we were able to do almost continuous prototyping for 2 weeks, while the design was coming together in CAD, and then spend this whole week running parts. We’re down to 5 parts left to CNC (all fairly quick jobs, although two of them, the climber hooks, aren’t quite finished being designed), and we’re probably 80% of the way through assembly.
I’m looking forward to a solid month of programming, driver practice, and fine tuning before our first competition!
We are miles ahead of what we usually are. Shooter is near finished, Climber near finished, drivetrain near finished, and intake prototyped but pending drivetrain assembly. Optimistically we are done with core components by end of next week!
We only meet Wednesday Thursday 6-8:30, and Saturdays 8-3.
We lost week 2 to midterms, and are losing this weekend to school closure due to weather.
I haven’t been involved this year due to grad school, and I really wish I could help more. Feels pretty crappy to not be able to commit to help your team.
