Suit Bots

Attendance

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• Mark
• Evan
• Hunter
• Chris
• Dante
• Erik
• Fletcher

Journal

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Tasks

• Install elastic bands
• Install new encoders
• Test TeleOp
• Get permission slip forms out to whole team
• Test and fix the scissor lift

Reflections

Today we put the finishing touches on our robot.  We put our last encoders on two of the motors that power the scissor lift to make the autonomous more accurate.  We twisted the elastic bands together to further increase the tension on the lift.  We started to test the autonomous and had to make quite a few changes to it because it didn’t really work at first.  we also tested the TeleOp a little and had to make changes to that as well.

We discussed a lot about the competition on Saturday at Cochilla valley about things such as who the drivers and coach will be which we will finalize after more testing on Thursday, we finalized our spreadsheet of questions to ask all of the other groups.
Mr. Dobson confirmed that we would all go on Thursday to Bradoaks, one of the elementary schools, to bring our robot and talk to the GATE (honors) program about robotics to try to get them interested in it so they might join robotics in middle or high school.  A lot of testing took place today as well as a lot of changes to the programming because there were many problems.

We found that the servos on the robots are crazy; especially with coding it.  Most of the day was spent attempting to code the servo with no success.

After Evan attached the encoders to the scissor motors, Fletcher wrote a test autonomous that told the robot to rotate the scissor motors 400 units and it succeeded!  Hooray!

Attendance

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• Evan
• Hunter

Journal

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Tasks

• Create more tension in the chain
• Correct Serial Issues
• Change tension in the rubber pieces for the fork

Reflections

Evan messed messed with the chain to add more tension to it so it won’t come off the gear. He messed with the wiring by putting different cables in the correct ports. He also put the motor controllers in the right serial pattern. He determined that before competitions, we are to check chain tension, wiring, and bolt tightness. We got new steel pieces for the fork lift. We changed the tension in the rubber pieces on the fork, which will make the scissor lift have an easier time going up for the fist inch of travel.

Attendance

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• Mark
• Evan
• Hunter
• Chris
• Dante
• Erik

Journal

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Tasks

• Fix the gears on the robot for the scissor lift
• Test the new gears

Reflections

Today we re-geared the robot from having a 1:2 ratio to having a 2:1 ratio, or the opposite of how we had it.  Since we only need to pick up rings that are very light, we did didn’t need to gear it down so we made it for speed.  We tested it and it did work, and it was faster, but not quite as fast as other robots may be, but we were fine with it because it would still allow us to get points.

Before:

After:

We continued to program the TeleOp and are still in the process of making all the bits in it work with the robot, specifically the servos.

Attendance

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• Mark
• Evan
• Hunter
• Chris
• Dante
• Erik
• Fletcher

Journal

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Tasks

• Reflect and perfect the changes done over the break
• These include enlarging the drive shaft, gearing down the motors, using a servo to move the hand left and right, and installing elastic bands

Reflections

Only a few adjustments were made over the break.  We took off the driving space on the top of the robot because we decided not to lift robots at this competition, and instead just stick to rings.  We geared down the motors that power the scissor lift and we made the drive shaft bigger.

In addition we replaced the single motor for each side with two for each side to increase the overall power of the lift.  We added more tension to the lift so it could go up easier.  We made the hand able to pick up 2 rings using metal pieces for it instead of Legos.  We employed surgical tubing to replace the string that moves the hand left and right.

We tested the robot today and it was able to drive and the scissor lift actually worked for the first time!  It went up to over 50 inches which is high enough to put rings on the top peg with our hand that can also swivel up and down.  Although excited that it could go a considerable height, it was too slow to be really effective in getting us a lot of points because we geared down the motors.  We resolved to fix this at the next meeting.

Attendance

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• Mark
• Evan
• Hunter
• Chris
• Dante
• Erik
• Fletcher

Journal

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Tasks

• Plan for how to use the sensors
• Program a lot for the autonomous
• Pack the robot to bring it home

Reflections

We brought the robot back to the school and worked a lot on programming because we needed to improve our autonomous and TeleOp.  We made some concept drawings for possible placement of sensors on the robot like IR, color, and weight sensors.  This was our last meeting before Thanksgiving break and we took the robot home again to make some adjustments to the lift.