Just sharing from the experiences digging through the blog code. Before looking through the code I had never looked at PHP before. What I wanted to express is learning multiple languages is a way to gain skills to be able to quickly look at a new language and be able to understand what it is doing, even if you never have programmed that language before. Almost all languages share common structures, styles of design, and operations.

So, moral of the story, learn as many programming languages as you can in your career as a software developer. Read, research and try languages on your own. With that background it will increase your skills and give you abilities to quickly learn other languages.

Our blog was compromised and infected with malicious code. Thanks to Jerry a co-worker of mine for pointing us in the right direction. I would also like to thank our programming mentor (Randy) for spending about 4 hours last night finding the malicious code. The malicious code has now been removed making our blog safe once again. We are continuing to investigate what exactly the code was doing. We know that it was accessing a server in Russia. We have some information on the server and continue to look into the issue. Our goal is to understand what if anything was installed on user’s computers.

Our blog is once again safe and will be monitored closely.

Thanks for your patience during the time the blog was offline while we resolved this issue.

Bullbots

For the ball harvester I think we will need to slow the intake roller down to a speed just slightly faster than our robots max speed. If it spins to fast as we come up to a moon rock it will kick it out because of the slick floor rather than pulling it in. Of course this is just a theory and needs to be tested. So if we want to spin the intake roller to match the robots max speed what RPM would we need? Below is an example of the math that I used to calculate the RPM. Some of you math wizards should make sure this is correct.

Formula for circumference is: Circumference=3.14*diameter
The formula for inches per second based on RPS (revolutions per second) and the circumference of the wheel is: in/s = RPS/circumference
RPM=RPS*60 In order to get RPM we need to multiply RPS by 60
Diameter = 5 Lets say our intake wheel/brush has a diameter of 5 inches
5 * 3.14 = 15.7in
Let’s say our robot can travel a max speed of 12 feet per second. Now let’s convert that to inches per second: Inches per second = 12 feet per second * 12 inches per foot = 12 * 12 = 144in/s
Now calculate the RPS: 144/15.7 = 9.17 RPS multiply by 60 for RPM and we get 550 RPM

The software team started into the development of the final version of the program. Switched to the advanced template after the labview software updates were applied so we can flash (deploy) the program to the cRIO for use on power up.

We also went through and talked about software requirements and the process of using UML use cases aka user stories on how we expect the robot to function. We went through what an actor is and how the actor interacts with the use case.

We are targeting to complete all the manual interaction by Saturday, then work on the automated parts (autonomous and automatic camera targeting).

Dashboard design is almost complete for the physical part, the software part still needs to be developed.

Jose, James and John made great progress on turret modifications on Monday night. Why modify the turret? Due to the elevator position the turret drive motor and pinion gear would have extended beyond the 28x38 max size envelope. With the turret modifications we now have total flexibility on turret motor position. Well done, "J" team!

Last night we continued to work on the turret limit switches and encoder. We test ran the turret motor and were impressed by the RPM we have (<1 second per turret revolution!). We may want to test it with an unmodified gearbox. The limit switch bracket was completed, though it still needs to be mounted. (James is all over it!) We are still looking at encoder solutions and Daniel has designed a gear to drive the high-res encoder.

Sherbot take note: I did not have any small screws to mount the limit switches. I can pick some up today, but will not bring them until tomorrow night.

Thanks team! As Cody would put it: "Get Ballin'!!"

Dean

Hello team!

James and I had a good day yesterday finishing up the elevator and trying to shoot orbit balls through the ceiling. (Yes Sherbot, we were clear of the sailplane! ) Bottom line is that the elevator works pretty well, and we were only running one motor!

Tonight we need to finish more on the turret. I found a cold solder joint on the encoder board I had, and we will swap it into the turret tonight. Also need to get an encoder board mounted to read the turret position. Maybe we'll even have the rest of our ring gears?!

Lots of work shaping up for the electrical team. We'll take a look at our list of challenges tonight. One thing we need to get prioritized is getting encoders on the KOP and competition chassis. Do we have 4+ encoders???

Yes, I know this is all taxing our time and abilities. Time to stretch and get through the season!

Dean

Good morning team! Big day today. All teams have been working hard this week and this is the day for integration. As a mentor, I've found it very rewarding to see everyone getting engaged in the tasks, mastering new skills, pulling hard towards the same goals and creatively solving the problems we've encountered. I'm sure today will be no different!

Last night I threw together some MDF into pulleys to have as backups for today. They are just roughed to shape, so we can finish them on the metal lathe to get the precision we want.

I also picked up the turret limit switches at Radio Shack and some connectors for the F-P motors.

We still need the white Fischer-Price gear. If anyone knows where it is, please get it to Cody or Ian.

See you in 26 minutes!
Dean

Tonight we mounted the elevator and the ground hog faceplate onto the chassis. Score... It seemed to go together smoothly. Dean, Jose, and John started to make the shafts for the belts. Saturday should get us far. Oh, and the grease in the gear boxes stinks amazingly bad. Unbelievable

made a sub vi named camera stalking.
This routine sets a value to the motors based on the position of the camera to turn towards a target. It then goes towards the target until it is a certain distance away. (as of the moment too close to be read by the camera).

problems we had
connecting to the autonomous.vi terminals
executing our own sub program camera stalking. It was labled as non-executable.

Today we almost finished the assembly of the elevator. It took longer than I expected. Don't judge. We also had to change up the design a bit to accomadate for the ball to enter, not a big deal. Next session we should have it done. The assembly seems to becoming along well though.