Monday, January 21, 2013

Day 16

Into week three and we're charging ahead.

We briefly tried prototyping a floor pickup mechanism that shot the discs up a ramp to the top of a tall robot. We think the idea has merit but we would need to do a lot more prototyping before it's ready for the field. If any other teams want to take the idea and run with it, feel free. We think it would be a great way to have a really fast pickup mechanism.

This morning we went and picked up a piece of official FIRST carpet from our friends the Discobots. They got it after the 2011 Lone Star Regional and haven't been using all of it so they gave us half. It was quite the adventure getting it to the third floor of the school but we managed.

Over the next week and half we're hoping to have finished CAD models of the robot to send to the laser cutter. We're trying to prototype all of our system completely before make the runs on the CNC machine. That way, we can be more confident about our designs and specifications and make fewer changes to the laser cut pieces.

We did a weight estimate and it looks like we are going to be way underweight with our current systems (< 100lbs). If we get everything done well, we may be going for a 30 point climb before our second event. We are saving room at the back of our robot and with around 20lbs to play with we should be able to come up with something. These smaller chassis dimensions make your whole robot lighter, plus VEXpro aluminum shafts, gears, and sprockets help as well.

- Spectrum

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure." - Colin Powell

1 comment:

  1. The 30 point hang is really brutal this year. Do you have any kind of hanger in mind or are you just saving the weight to see what comes out of the wood work after bag day?

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