November 30, 2010

People present- , HoldenGrant, Mr. Tinker, Mr.Reidy, Mr.Pontius, Sean, Logan, Andrew, Connor, Matt
Grant is continuing to make the presentation.
Sean and Holden are tsting the servo that push's the unbalanced bridge down, they are also building a desighn that can pull the roller goal on the bridge.
Everyone else are tightening the bolts and adding the internal Plexiglas. They also thickened the robots frame.

November 28, 2010(Connor's back)

Connor is back to be the engineering journalist. I give Jared a thanks for taking my place during my time of need. Thanks Jared!

People present- Brad, Jared, Pontius, Mr.Lanterman, Connor, Scott, Logan, Matt, Grant. Grant is working on the robot presentation Brad is making a robot stand to hold the bot. All others are completing the conveyor belt to collect the baton.

The baton collector got stuck. There was a stuck bushing. They are fixing it.
The baton collector axle is too short. We will fix it.
A big problem, 2 pieces of aluminum are rubbing together. We are putting a bushing in between them.
We also used a wrong bracket on a gear.

November 22 Meeting Report

Tonight we worked on the conveyor belt for the baton arm. Sean and Jared worked on prototyping a storage device for the robot. Holden downloaded the programs onto the LEGO® Mindstorms® device, and Brad worked on mounting a second conveyor belt to stabilize the batons. The Lantermans brought cupcakes for the team to enjoy.

Practice update: 11/22/10

A lot of progress was made on the mobility programming - through the use of exponentials Holden, Andrew and Sean have designed a drive program that has multiple speeds - fast for moving around / going over the mountain and slow for finesse driving (approaching the baton dispensers and rolling goals.

The program will still need to be tweaked but the team made great progress

The ground clearance issue we had at the last scrimmage seems to be fixed as the bot easily goes over the mountain.  We still need to reinforce the design to withstand future practice rounds and the competition itself.

Arm Replaced by Conveyor Belt

After a lot of unsuccesful testing and the "smoking" of one DC motor, the team decided to replace the pivot arm with a conveyor belt drive system.  We think this has the following advantages and disadvantages over the arm design:

Advantages
- A lot more stable as the bulk of the conveyor belt is fixed in place - less strain on the engine and less chance that it can come loose or out of alignment as the 'bot bumps around on the field.
- The conveyor allows for some additional baton storage - which will be helpful as storing the batons from the low goal was proving difficult

Disadvantages:
- The arm design that was replaced had a dual function to push down the balance bridge.  That functionality will need to be replaced with some servo's and swing arms, which may add complexity to our design and, more importantly, the programing

Programing Notes

Here are Holden's notes about the exponential factors we are trying to use in the programing for the joy stick control of the drive motors.  The team feels it's important to have both speed and finesse driving capabilities given the need to dock with the baton dispensers and the fact that this will be a very crowded field.

Using exponentials for motor power should work but we've been having issues with control.

sCRIMAGE NOTE

We participated in a scrimmage at the Glenelg Country School with 6 other teams

We were able to test a lot of the robot's functionality and discovered the following:

The exponential factors used in the programing for the Joy-stick drive are not allowing any speed modifications - we need to rethink this approach

We need an arm to push the balance bridge down at least an inch so the large front wheels can go over it.  One team had zip ties on their wheels to act as treads

The baton dispensers work fine but are rotating too fast - hard to keep track of the number of batons

We need to reverse the direction of some bolts that are holding an undercarriage brace so the robot clears the peak of the mountain

The robot goes over the mountain easily and is braced well.

November 21,2010

People present: Scott,Brad,Logan,Andrew,Connor,Sean,Holden,Mr.Reidy,Mr.Pontious
Software- Debugging program, graphing to figure out the best powercurb
Mobility and maneuverability-They are TAKING OUT THE ARM and putting a conservator belt.
We need to 3/16 in from the paddle

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR TEAM MEMBERS

Everyone needs to post at least 2 strategies for the AUTONOMOUS period.

The Scoring is as follows:

parking a robot on a cliff: 3

parking a robot on the mountain/unbalanced bridge: 5

parking a robot on a balanced bridge: 15

Robot on dispensing side: 10

Dispensing Batons: 2 per baton

Get That Survey In!!!

The Engineering Notebook needs the survey results of the survey Connor sent out.

If you forgot the questions, please see below.

1. What are some hobbies you have?
2. How old are you?
3. Can you give us some family info (optional)?
4. What sports do you play?
5. Why do you want to be on the team?
6. What is your favorite food, football team (college, pro or both), baseball team(optional), color, and animal?

Thanks!!!

November 14,2010

Attendance: Jared, Scott, Connor, Logan, James, Andrew, Grant, Sean, Holden, Brad, Mr. Lanterman, Mr. Reidy, Mr. Parry, Mr. Pontius

Programming is doing the wiring instructions, which will help with the programming of the robot and running it.

Baton Manipulation is working on an arm to convey the batons to the goals. They are considering either a conveyor belt or a moving arm with a bucket on the end to hold batons.

Mobility is helping baton manipulation.

Connor is doing a "flat plan" of the field, and will be doing one of the robot when it is done.

Programming had a bad setup. This means that what does what is wrong. They fixed this HUGE problem by recoding the system.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE: PLEASE POST COMMENTS ABOUT STRATEGY TO HELP WITH OUR AUTONOMOUS PROGRAM STRATEGY! THANKS!

-Jared Lanterman

2010 November 11, 2010

Tonight, we have a small attendance, with 4 people. Holden and Sean are on programming, and Jared and Logan are working on the actual robot. Of course, this is only at the start of the meeting. The Riedys have provided pizza, with two cheese, one white, and one pepperoni. To day we will start to temporary wire the robot up to test if the programs written by the programing team, ( the programs written do work on their test bed) work on the real robot. We will then finalize a arm design for the robot.

November 7, 2010

AN ANNOUNCEMENT FROM CONNOR: I WILL BE STEPPING DOWN FROM BEING THE ENGINEERING JOURNALIST TEMPORARILY BECAUSE OF SOME SCHEDULE CONFLICTS, I WILL BE COMING BACK SOON BUT JARED WILL BE TAKING MY PLACE.
People present: Grant, Holden, Brad, James, Scott, Andrew, Jared, Mr. Riedy, Mr. Lanterman, Mr.Pontious, Mr.Parry, Sean.

Brad, Sean, and Holden are doing the strategy for the autonomous period.
All other teams are working on widening, and wiring the robot. We are also building prototype baton baskets.
Programming- Working on strategy during autonomous and all the code for telop (RC) is working. They are also working on code for the autonomous period.
AROUND THIS TIME I THINK OUR TEAMS NEED TO START COMMUNICATING BECAUSE WE HAVE EXCELLED SO FAR IN SUCH SHORT TIME. SO START POSTING ON THE BLOG, YOUR IDEAS, PLANS, AND OPINIONS. TALK TO OTHER TEAMS AND START CONNECTING OUR LITTLE CREATIONS INTO A MAGNIFICENT #1 ROBOT!

Here's a picture from the 11/7 session where we are rebuilding the Robot's frame to make it both a bit wider and more rigid.

November 4 Meeting Report

The meeting tonight was very successful. On programming, Holden and Brad worked on

a program for a dispensing arm and a program for the baton manipulation device. Baton Manipulation, including Jared, James, and Logan, worked on a superstructure, or a frame, for the robot. They also prototyped a baton scoring arm. This was starting as a thing with a bucket on the end used to hold batons. this changed to the same plan from the bottom, which was prototyped and named by Logan as "a Claw". Finally, Jared added a different end, which allowed it to dispense into one of the rolling goals. This is the prototype in the picture. He calls this the "T-Bar"