Day 6
Today’s meeting ran decently and could have been improved if we didn’t have so many shipping issues.
We finished manufacturing our entire alpha bot, and we got a bunch of assembly done, but we are waiting on things to arrive, so we aren’t entirely done. Mostly got our intake worked on today, as well as reinforcing our drivetrain for the new superstructure. The superstructure got repaired as well as we had some issues with cutting the box tubing wrong with maxtube grid pattern (i think mentioned in an earlier post. I printed a jig, but we’re always looking for more efficient ways, the tube is great though, it saves so much machining time. Tube plugs are awesome too.
The manipulator needs to still be built, but it’s simple enough that we can build it in the morning of our Saturday meeting, in parallel with finishing up our intake and arm.
With mcmaster somehow taking six days to ship from order, that kind of messed up our planning when the estimate was much sooner 
We had similar issues with shipping last year, so I can’t really be surprised, with our kitbot drive train arriving week 4-5 last year lol. We’ve planned out accordingly this year, but there is only so much you can plan out and predict.
Currently, we are down 28t 20 dp gears, 6 inch Omni wheels, and a lot of tube plugs, so we need to find a solution to that tonight. I think a local team offered some 6 inch omnis, but we’re going to be putting in an order tonight for a bunch of stuff.
The piston we wanted arrives on Monday, so we have to wait till then if we want the robot to be truly “complete” I think there are lots we can do beforehand, and maybe we run string and surgical tubing as a temporary solution.
Can’t really get much prototyping done till the robot’s done, so we’ll probably have lots of videos once that happens.
Programming Accomplishments
Auto balance code working! Uses bang bang.
Also auto alignment with April tags works using odometry
Yeah, I don’t know how it works, expect a programming post soon though.
Mini motors mishap
We suddenly lost a few falcons, so now we can’t get a 2nd falcon drivetrain. I still havent gotten around to calling VEX about our four missing falcons from a year ago, but I think it’s too late now. I think we’re able to ethically source them from borrowing from a local team, so thank you to them!
Design
Mostly been doing refinements, so nothing new here, adding supports to the tube and getting reviewed for impact and loads.
Trying to get an absolute encoder enstalled 1-1 w/o the backlash, but it’s hard with the tradeoffs. Do I want mech to suffer or do I want to gamble on our assembly tolerances? Last time we did cross belt, we were too loose, and I’m worried that might be a problem, could add an idler maybe? Belt tensioning systems are hard if you want to make them perfect, but I might be overthinking it.
Design requires so much attention to detail 
it hurts my brain sometimes. Even 1dof arms are hard, this was wayyyy more difficult than I expected, and every design decision impacts the rest of the robot.
I’m having a new designer try to cad the cone shooter, though we need to get the field elements done before we can test and prototype it. We have a lot of room and weight avaliable, so I think it’s worth it to invest in this.
My internet is down today, and I dont have an adapter to attach my mouse to my laptop for a hotspot, so not much cad is happening tonight I think.
Maybe the CAD gods decided it was time for me to take a break. lol
Anyway, we have a large block of time on Saturday to get stuff done, hopefully, the robot gets mostly finished! Lots to learn in the incoming weeks, gotta fail fast and iterate fast, and hopefully, by building early we can get information from a real robot as soon as possible. We’re still pretty inexperienced, so there will be lots of stumbles along the way, but the experience has been really fun.
Still think this game is a software/drive practice game, so you got to have robust mechanisms that work consistently, and get lots of time for both on a working robot (your robot breaks a lot when you first build it).
Anyway, thanks for reading! Not sure what people really want us to post still, so questions are always appreciated. Trying to get more engagement so that we can help yall more.
Thank you!
