What better way to start the first week of the season, than to start with a full week of finals! Even with finals on our schedules, we have worked after school to prototype, design, build, and test potential mechanisms that we may implement this season. As the week progressed, we prototyped, worked on essays, and surfed the internet for new ideas and other feedback.
Our build team has completed a vast majority of the practice field. It was great to see the Upper and Lower Hubs completed. On the same day, we finished building a shooter prototype so we were able to extensively test that in terms of compression and angle adjustment.
As we prototype, we start to hold multiple design reviews. In these critical design reviews, we essentially have broken down profiles and ideas of the soon-to-be robot. Making sure we follow guidelines from our season-strategy priority list, we take into consideration the benefits and necessary improvements our robot must have this year to compete vigorously in competitions. Currently, in our prototyping phase, we have observed many challenges, in that compressing this year’s game piece, the CARGO, is proving to be quite difficult. This was seen through our intake and shooter prototypes. The problem was essentially developed when we were deciding the way our shooter was to work. This was a heated topic we discussed over the last few days, as some wanted a static shooter and others wanted a turreted one. With design reviews, we were able to agree on how to approach this better. Finding a compromise between both ideas, our solution was to make the shooter modular in that right now it would be static, but if needed in the future, a turreted shooter may be implemented. With that in mind, we also broke down the components of the shooter itself. As the components vary ideas being tossed around, the problem with compression was also brought up. From a little bit of testing, we figured that a hood was needed so that the point of contact would be better distributed and the problem of compression would be less of an issue. The major problem of compression was that the ball would become lopsided after many uses. This could potentially increase variability and harm our test results since we want to have an accurate shot in the same direction every time. As of now, we plan on testing the shooter prototype more this week. Simultaneously, other teammates will be prototyping the intake - testing compression and roller placements to find the most efficient way to get the balls into the robot. We have this ideology that “once you touch it, it’s yours,” and therefore we want the CARGO ball to always be touching the roller and/or the bumper at all times during the intake process.
On Tuesday and Wednesday this upcoming week, we will be testing a compliant intake along with a reiteration of the shooter mechanism. Soon after, we hope to be testing the climb as well. Our goal is to hopefully traverse the rungs this year to secure a Climb ranking point every match. In our design, we saw a need to have our center of gravity located centrally because reducing swinging would essentially allow us to climb faster. The idea of our climb essentially rests upon two static hooks in the middle and a pair of telescoping arms on the sides. As we prototype this week, we will be observing how the idea of torsion-spring, compliant hooks will support the weight of our robot on the rungs.
Having these designs came from profiles that were made. Each profile included a similar idea - such as to have a climb that is able to traverse the rungs, have some form of towered shooter, and have a compliant intaking system that will effectively collect balls. In this past week, we have held 3 critical design reviews in which we each presented our ideas, checked them with our strategy priority list, and collaborated to make a combined profile - showing the best implementation of sketched mechanisms for the robot. However, a detailed profile requires testing. This past weekend, we went to school and began to test the shooter prototype and found that the power and angle wasn’t quite what we had expected it to be. At the same time, we have been using the ball a lot, which in return has shown us how lopsided a call can be. Recognizing this as an issue, we have to account for that in the way we adjust compression in our robot design. As we narrowed down the scope of what we want to accomplish with each mechanism, we reviewed and finalized a profile that encompasses all these ideas.
Likewise, each of our subteams have been on task and working hard. New season shirts are in design from our marketing team and they have also been working a lot on supplemental essays. The electrical team has been hard at work, building and testing an electrical and pneumatic system that they could possibly implement on this year's robot. They also have been checking supplies for inventory just in case we are missing something and need to buy it. Alongside that, our software subteam has been working alongside the Design subteam in prototyping. Software has been taking part in design discussions to determine the feasibility of our robot design for the year. In specific, the shooter became a hot topic of debate on the team currently, but we have finally decided to have a modular system for the shooter - in the case that we decide that we should implement a turreted shooter and continue to iterate throughout the season. On the other hand, the Build and Design subteams have been working on the practice field for the season and snippets of the season robot respectively. It’s been a solid start to the season so far, and in the coming days, we will finalize a design plan!
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