the chains are on and working
we prototyped with carbors some steeper hopper sides with cardboard.
We also made 3 orbit balls (sort of)

Cut the wood for the bumpers last night per the drawing I was given. I will bring the pieces tonight and we can finish up the brackets and fit them together around the chassis.

Kevin came home concerned about the bumper color. Green was something the team had decided on quite early and the fabric was brought to a Saturday meeting about a month ago. This green is NOT the vision target green. It is a dark, forest green. I will bring it tonight for the team to approve. If we choose not to use this color we may have limited options. The only place that will sell us Cordura Nylon in town is Buck's Bags, and they have only a limited color selection. (Normally they don't sell fabric, but will make an exception for us.)

I will only be there for a short time tonight, as getting the bumpers finished is a priority.

Dean

I know there are people looking at some exotic stickers for the 'bot, but how abuot thinking about the basics for a bit? There are are some requirements we must adhere to: First, we need to have the team number on all sides of the 'bot. Second, we need to display sponsor logos. It is a REQUIREMENT!

Last year we put logos on the bumpers, but with green bumpers this year that may not work so well.

Thanks.
Dean

I will also be taking a half day Friday to help out. Looks like we still need to pick up a chain break!

We made significant progress tonight with lowering the loader brush.
We lowered the brush wheel down 1/2" and moved it in toward the elevator assembly an 1". The brush relocation also required the drive motor mount to be relocated. Looking forward to testing tomorrow!

Jose made progress on a new camera mount (in front of the drum) and on the turret wiring. He will continue to work this tonight.

Thanks for the bumper measurements. We will work on those tomorrow and Wednesday evening.

Looks like Friday is a school holiday. My schedule looks decent and I can probably work 1/2 day. Other mentors?

Note to Randy: I set the monitor out for Kevin to bring. It takes a 12V input at 3A. That's only 36Watts and is well in the range of the proposed batteries.

See you Wednesday!

Dean

Today we plan to:
1- Move the camera so that it can't be damaged and so that it will fit the height requirements/ game rules/ height
2- Refine the groundhog so that it can feed the balls better
3- Put the chains on the wheels
4- Get sensors wired
5- Refine the electrical stuff
6- Add game light
7- Review the rules of the robot
8- Practice with the robot on the practice field
9- Chassis refinemet/dimensions

Another observation from Sat. As we reduced the range our RPM fell on the "spinny thing of dooooom!" and would actually jam up. This is another place where we need to look to adding the PID block to keep the RPM constant. We may need to play with it as the PID block will need to feed more power as we launch balls to keep the rpm up and not jam. Another task for us to get working tonight is the encoder feedback from the "spinny thing of dooooom!".

Well we ran the controls in manual mode with manual speed control. Suggestions were made about being able to revers the elevator and the ground hog. Software will need to look at some options to do this with the controls on hand.

James worked with Dean to adapt a PS2 controller to work with the drivers station. This still need to be tested to make sure all the buttons function. The axis controls need to be fine tuned as well.

Final dashboard designs need to be done so we can have mechanical and electrical look at constructing it for us as software team fine tunes the robot.

We also have an issue with the new camera code bogging down the control system. We need to do some debugging tonight (Monday) and see what may be causing it.

Lots of software work to do still!

Hello all!

Tremendous effort from all teams culminated in a running robot last night. I think it was safe to say that all parties were pretty impressed by the initial capabilities and everyone is looking forward to the fine tuning we'll do this week as we wrap up the robot build.

This is not to say we're done with the build! Still need to machine more sprokets and clean up wiring. I will bring my label maker tomorrow night and it would be good for the electrical team to get labels on every wire running into the electronics package.

Several of us worked on a method of cleaning up the wiring from the turret. Randy had a good suggestion that we need to mock up. If we can make it work it is possible it will make things a little simpler. I will pick up a few parts to try. One of the possible implications would be that the camera might have to be moved slightly to one side. Stand by.

Keep on running! Only a week left!

Dean