Build Day 10

We put together the frame for this year's robot after we painted it on Saturday. We are starting to produce the real parts for the robot, like gussets, angle brackets and little things like that. It's hard to get precision measurements with the tools that we have in the shop (drill press, band saws, and a miter saw) but the team has figured out ways to get close.

We are continuing to change our shooting prototype, until we get it to 50 ft we're not stopping. Hopefully we'll have another test video tomorrow night.

The programming team is starting to work with the camera and our not so secret inertial measurement unit. Hopefully, we'll be able to release drivers and walk throughs for the IMU before the end of build season. Until than if you're interested all our code is posted at http://code.google.com/p/spectrum3847/.

We're moving forward, with as much as we can until parts arrive; which should be late Tuesday night. We'll have them for Wednesday's build session. We're waiting on the roller materials, wheels, motors, key stock, and a whole list of other parts.

Tomorrow we are going to do a really quick design review to make sure the whole team is up to date with any changes in the design and to see if we can come up with any design improvements.

We still have a few questions to answer.

• Will the small (sub 11 inch) collector opening be enough for the driver to gather balls? 
• How do we actually get the shooter to be able to shoot across the length of the court? 
• Will the Banebots 775 have case shorts like they did last year (we will make polycarbonate mounts for them either way)?
• How are we going to practice balancing with out a bridge?/How do we fit a bridge in our work space?
• How much of a problem will running over the balls be?
• How accurate can we get our shooter?

- Allen Gregory

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction." - Einstein