Today we met quickly in the morning before people left for their vacations. This allowed us to make a list of parts that we wished to get ordered, and also be able to enjoy our break with a little less stress. We widened the robot a little as well to add extra space for the robot arm, due to the fact that we want to be confident in the ability of the robot to pass robot inspection and the robots ability for it to be allowed to compete. We also attached servos to the front of the robot, in preparation for the sweeper to have ability to move up and down, which allows it to sweep balls into the bucket and be productive when we want it to, and also be able to be out of the way when we want it to.
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(we lost our past blogs, so all of our documentation was lost for these next few posts. This is what we remember, but all of the specifics were unfortunately lost :( )
We did a lot of work on the robot today. We worked on the extending arm. We got the linear slides and put them together with two of the 416 mm and one 288 mm bar. The only problem was that it was sticking a lot. We tried putting Vaseline on it, but it didn't help. We sent a tweet out to ask and we got a few replies. One said mineral oil, but we didn't have that. Someone else said that we should try WD-40, which worked like a charm! It now moved very smoothly now, the only problem was moving down. With the new arm (future arms, we figure that one arm would be too jerky and unstable so we are going to make two. We don't have enough slides for the second one now), the arm was out of the 18 inch square box. To solve this problem, we were going to move the poles between which the arms were to be mounted, but we noticed that that meant that the robot had to be taken apart and made wider, in order to create enough space for the arms. Once that was completed everything began to go smoothly with the arms, however when we measured the arms with the extension, we realized that there wasn't enough space for the arm in the robot and it would not be the correct size. In order to fix this problem we decided to switch around where the arms are mounted in order to push these beams to the back of the robot in order to allow the arm to have extra space. Today we met to figure out the details on how to get the arm to move. We decided to use a pulley system which helped to extend and retract the arm which allows us to only have one motor controlling the whole arm. This allows us to conserve weight when it comes to the arm, as well as making it easier to move. We watched a lot of you tube videos and brainstormed a variety of materials that we could sue as string. We also made a cardboard prototype of the bucket that we would be using to pick up the blocks. We decided that we want it to be able to pick up 3 blocks at a time and also to be able to have blocks be swept into it by the sweeper.
Today we met from 9-12, working hard to make improvements on the robot, and our presentation board. Rachel and Izzie, created a plan to extend the robots arm, and give it the ability to fold so that we can out the debris in the top basket. They took off the plexi glass, and planed on folding down the arm, and each of the half arms will extend, so that the debris will be dropped into the top basket. They struggled with taking the axle for the arm off. Ava and Isabella printed out the outreach sections for the top right side of the board, and created the "name tags" next to the bios. Now, we have the left and right sides of the board finished; and hope to make progress on the middle part. |
This blog covers details about our outreach events and other events that are important to our team, and our season.
AuthorHi, we are the Rubies, FTC team 9890. To learn more about us, visit the "About Us" page Archives
April 2016
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