Skip to main content

January 14th



Hello team,

Although most of the team is out for finals week, there are just a few notable updates concerning our progress. In design, a couple of small additions were made including a holder mechanism on the end of the tube (so that the balls don't automatically get shot) as well as a battery holder for the drivetrain. Drivetrain parts were ordered and special parts to be milled and waterjet (from our sponsors) were also sent. We anticipate for them to take about a week (or hopefully less) to arrive.



Pictures of the battery holder and added stop for the ball at the end of the tube.

In the meantime, build will be working on the leftover drivetrain pieces with the materials we have and once we get the rest, we'll finish that up soon. Design-wise, drivetrain is right on schedule and if the shipping is according to our planning, build should be able to be right on track as well. As per the field pieces, build is still lagging behind. They were, however, able to add the level and minimum position hardstop pieces for the shield generator. This should allow us to start prototyping some climbing adjustment mechanisms. If we spend some time working on the weekend, build should be able to completely finalize the field pieces as well as set up the room for driving.



Pictures of the shield generator assembly at the level minimum hardstop.

Slight side note: the room is a bit small. Essentially, the distance between the color panel and the power port is too large to be able to fit them both within the room. In addition, the top power port does not fit within the room. On top of that, the distance between the shield generator and power port might also be too big to fit within the room (has yet to be measured for sure). So, we will probably have to practice with a shorter distance between the shield generator and color panel as well as wheel out the robot and power port when we have to practice shooting. There is a decent open space right outside the room without a roof where we might be able to lay carpet and put up the whole port assembly but we wouldn't be able to practice with the rest of the elements. Nevertheless, the central point of all this is that the driver practice experience will be considerably different than the actual one so we must have that in the back of our mind when practicing.

Looking forward, build should start working on some updated shooter prototypes and some new climber prototypes and software should hopefully be able to spend some more time working on autonomous and limelight tracking after finals. Design will hopefully keep pushing on with the good CAD work and electrical should hopefully have a nice period of time to rest. Overall, there are a couple of setbacks (like a somewhat disorganized build room and slightly lagging progress with build and software) but with some more work after finals, we should be able to be right on track for success.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New and Improved!

Hello and welcome to the new blog for Team 2658: Σ-Motion! If you are new, this is the sanctum where our officers share some of the successes, failures, and lessons learned from ongoing projects and events. The blog originated from Toshko Andreev, a 2658 alumni and ex-president. He gifted us the blog posts for the 2020 and 2021 seasons on another platform (We are switching to blogger for more exciting features!). Now, we would like to share some of the progress on things that we have been working on.  Following our many successes from the 2021 season , the team has been hard at work in preparation for the approaching 2022 season. Due to the unfortunate circumstances during the season this year, the team has jumped to the idea of building our award-winning robot (Whirlpool) this summer/fall to help develop our hands-on skills. Whirlpool Breakdown From the use of our bandsaw and drill press to the use of our mill and CNC router, members of the build team are getting parts done on all l
1 comment
Read more

January 26

As we enter the second week, we have been designing the main structure of this year’s robot. Working over the week and going into the weekend, we’ve made many sketches and calculations along with dimensioning and optimizing the alignment of mechanisms. Starting from the base up, we have the drivetrain. This year we have decided to use a Tank Drive because this fast pace game challenges us to have speed in our driving rather than accuracy. We saw many advantages to a Tank Drive than a Swerve drive in that testing a swerve drive would be very risky for our software team. We have never used a Swerve Drive for our robots before, although arguably useful, the better alternative is the Tank Drive. Additionally, our drivers are already familiar with the controls that accompany it. This simple design allows us to maximize the spacing on a 29.5x29.5 square inch drivetrain and reduces the spacing issue we’ve had in the past between mechanisms and electrical designing.                            
Post a Comment
Read more

January 8th: Kickoff

Time for Season Welcome back! The season has started. Everyone has been so excited for this 2022 season and our team has been anticipating this game for quite a while. As we wrapped up off-season training over the past few weeks, our team closed out 2021 with 2 off-season competition wins, and a 7th place in the recent 11th F4 Cad-a-thon . Closing up the off-season, today was a special moment for our team - finally getting to have a season in over a year! The Winter Cad-a-thon took us to new heights. Great job to our designers for accomplishing such a feat. It was not an easy task, having to model the full robot in the course of a week! Nonetheless, placing 7th out of the 45 teams that competed has been our best record yet. Our team number was 566, instead of our FRC 2658, and the name was Σ-motion's Uprising. It was good practice and overall a fun competition to take part in.   Meanwhile, all of our other subteams have been busy finishing up their curriculums and learning the most
Post a Comment
Read more