3/6/2014-3/8/2014 Week 2: Hub City Regional, Big Test #1

This is our first regional.  After having scares on the way from El Paso to Carlsbad involving gas and not being any gas stations for about 150 miles or so, we were ready to play with robots, and see other designs/approaches to problems.  Also, it was time to make the several fixes (and rebuild half of the robot) needed, as the tweaks are a large part of the detailed design phase.

Shooter

Shooter requirements for the robot:

- Winch back consistently and effectively

-Shoot consistently

-Have a continuous hit range (make the peak of the shot only reach the top of the goal)

-Keep the ball on the shooter for shots

Bonus for shooter:

-Hit from 20 feet back

Unfortunately, we did not get to test the shooter much on Thursday, since almost the entire day was spent trying to make the changes to the robot.  Since the field for practice matches closed at 4:30, which was when we finished, we did not get to play around with the shooter on the field, but got to begin to play with it on the small practice area.  While we did get to play around on the practice field, we did realize the black tubing was far too weak for the energy output compared to the energy input/the friction within the bands made the bands not return as quickly as the other thinner walled bands.  Before we could really replace the bands, it was about time to go.

Friday morning was a bit more interesting, as there was the driver's meeting and everything else.  After the night before, we went ahead and changed the surgical tubing out from the shooter and went back to the thinner walled stuff.  This worked extremely well, but now the winch had trouble winching back, and would stall just before latching.  After looking at it, we realized the churro we were using was bent, which definitely is not a good thing.  After seeing this, we went ahead and pulled our extra hex shafts from the practice robot (which we brought along for some reason as a just in case we needed parts), since they are a lot sturdier. After burning a decent amount of time with this, we went ahead and tried it again, but again realized it was having trouble.  Because matches were happening, we had to just decrease the amount of tension and shoot from much closer.

After a while, we realized the way it was wrapped for the competition bot was different from the way the strap was wrapped for the practice bot.  After seeing this, we realized the strap was constantly pulling on the middle from the sides of the catapult, rather than pulling straight down on the sides from the sides.  Because it was pulling on the middle from the sides, there was a quick angle change, meaning the force was no longer radially perpendicular to the rotation of the axle, so that the two motors would have to work harder and harder by a factor inversely proportional to the sine of the angle between the strap (spanning from the side to the middle of the catapult) and the axle.  This was an easy fix, since it was just changing the way the strap ran on the catapult, so that the winch was pulling on the sides rather than the middle, so that the sine of the angle between the strap and the axle would stay nearly perpendicular.  Once we changed that, the winch worked perfectly again.

While the winch still worked well, we also remembered how important the radius of the "spool" is, as that was the original reason we couldn't use the yellow strap.  Since the radius is more important than the angle of the strap with the axle (although both are important), and it is harder to pull back the further back the surgical tubing is pulled (or it is easier to pull back if the tubing hasn't been pulled back much), it doesn't matter so much what the angle is between strap and bar when the catapult is beginning to be pulled back, but rather toward the end, when there is the most upward force.  Because of this, we went ahead and mounted the strap to the axle a little further in, decreasing the radius, but keeping the angle between the strap and the bar nearly perpendicular as the catapult was beginning to be latched.  This allowed for smoother operation with the winch, and, finally, the winch problems are solved.

Finally, after seven matches or so, we had the shooter winching back and shooting consistently.  Saturday was a similar day to the end of Friday, in that we just made sure the latch was okay and continued to shoot consistently, although from much closer up.  By the eliminations, we finally realized we had to re-tension the surgical tubing, and get it back up to the power it was supposed to be, and, since the winch was now working.

Requirements met by end of Regional/first test:

-Shooter winches back consistently and effectively

-Shooter shoots consistently

-Had continuous hit range (did not miss shots due to ball being too high)

Bonus trait of shooter by end of Regional/first test:

-Can now hit from 20 feet back after re-tensioning

The ball still stays on the shooter while shooting, but can be knocked forward when nudged, or when the robot abruptly stops.  Also, while the shooter still works, the surgical tubing seems to be way overstretched. After looking up how much surgical tubing is supposed to be stretched/the most efficient amount, we found it to be about 150% the original amount, so that would be something we may possibly change.

Intake

Requirements for the intake:

-Pick up the ball quickly

-Spit out the ball quickly

-Actuate/move outside of the frame perimeter

-Be sturdy/able to take hits from other defending robots

Bonus for the intake:

-Keep the ball held on the shooter

-Pick up from a wide range

The intake worked well, except for the second and third matches.  With the physicality of this year’s game, we did not realize how semi-ineffective the rivets on the intake were.  After the second match, we realized a large portion of the rivets were entirely knocked out and broken, which caused the intake to flop around during the match.  Unfortunately, we had matches close to each other, so we ended up getting to replace some of the rivets with bolts, but not all of them, so some more of the rivets holding it all together were knocked out.  Also. the chain slipped a couple of times, but, luckily, it was in the same matches as when the rest of the intake wasn't working.

In terms of the worries of picking up over inflated balls, as almost all of the balls were inflated to pressure rather than size, the intake did just fine, and the motors did not stall at all.  At most there were two times where the robot had small amounts of trouble picking the ball up, and just needed a bump, either from a wall or another robot to pop the ball the rest of the way in.

For the shooter, we will need to add something extra to the intake to try to keep the ball somewhat contained.

Requirements met after regional/first test:

-Can quickly pick up balls from the ground

-Can quickly spit balls out onto the ground

-Extends out of frame perimeter to get balls

-Loads ball directly onto shooter

Bonus traits for the intake met:

-Can pick up smoothly from the sides due to the side rollers

Need to work on something to keep the ball contained and stable on the shooter, so the ball stays even if the robot is hit.  Also may need a second motor, so that if the chain slips on one, there is a back up to still drive the intake.

Drive Train

While the drive train works, we need to make the robot have a higher top speed/be faster, based on the style of play.  Also, due to what happened, we found we need to increase the friction of the wheels, because, often times, the wheels would just start slipping.  Overall though, pretty much it was solid, except for those two things.  In terms of the wide, square, or narrow debate, the robot was just fine in terms of stability, and tipped over forward a total of once (immediately got back up by putting the intake down.  For maneuvering between robots, everything would most likely have been easier if the bot was square, because it would have a slightly smaller footprint in the width department, but would still be easy to turn and have a large enough intake.

Catcher

Thursday, we went ahead and added the catcher, as well as the yellow straps on the catcher.  Pretty much, it did everything we could ever ask for.  As a human player, I was able to throw to the robot from between 12 and 15 feet away, which made it easy when defense was beginning to be played against us.  As the goal was just to make the human player job easier and allow the human player to have a larger range for error, the catcher was doing exactly what it was built for (and, it made the top half of the robot look like the top half of a lawn chair).

Regional Summary

In terms of requirements set and completed for our final product, every requirement set was completed and done by the end of the regional, and it is just a matter of adding the things that would be nice for us to have, but the final product is definitely finished and working as it is supposed to work.

Overall, we ended up as 29th seed at the end of qualifications and ranked 12th in OPR for the regional, including the first 5 matches where we were not working.  Once we were working, we were one of the obvious top teams, which is why we were picked second overall, meaning we were at worst the fourth best robot at the regional, and, pretty much showed, we were at least one of the top three robots out of 45 there.

While we ended up getting eliminated in the first round, partially due to the alliance partners (easily defended and had trouble with mechanisms when defense played on them), we did with the Quality Award.  The Quality Award, as described in the FIRST Administration Manual for this year's game, "celebrates machine robustness in concept and fabrication".  This, of course, is a huge award for us in terms of showing that the engineering design process has worked very well for us, and, for the sake of the engineering design process, is one of the more important awards in judging the build season as a whole.

In terms of things to do once we get back, to improve performance for the Arizona Regional, we need to change the gearing so it goes faster, change the wheels, figure out a ball retaining device, and (preferably) figure out a new way to mount the surgical tubing (and add lights, although it probably would more so add a cool factor rather than enhance performance).  While the latch has been working alright, it would also be nice to see if there is a different latch we could make that would not wear down as quickly, although it is okay for now.

Approximate times of working Thursday: 8:30 AM - 8:00 PM

Approximate times of working Friday: 8:00 AM - 7:00 PM

Approximate times of working Saturday: 9:00 AM - 1:30 PM

3/2/2014 Week 2: Preparation for Hub City Regional

Today was the last meeting day before heading off for the Hub City Regional.  We went ahead and made a list of what was needed in terms of changes made on the practice robot since the competition robot was bagged.

Shooter

While the winch was almost entirely changed yesterday, we went ahead and got to test the newly built winch, as it now had the two CIM motors as well as the new yellow strap.  As expected, everything worked as needed, and the winch operated smoothly.  Again, from the way it was wrapped, everything went as it was supposed to, and it worked until the battery would dip below 12 when inactive.

Things to do with the shooter once we get to Lubbock
-Change out winch motors
-Rewire winch motors
-Replace Kevlar rope with yellow strap
-Attach the surgical tubing

To summarize the above, replace everything on the shooter except for the structure/shooter itself (replace the actuators)

Intake

Today, as before, the intake worked decently, and, while the intake was not really tested much with the larger overinflated balls, we found it shouldn't be that much of a problem due to the gearing/the intake motors should not stall at all (nice to have it 25:1).

Things to do with the intake once we get to Lubbock
-Change the gearing on the intake motor to the 25:1

Drive Base

As we had to take out the motors from the gearboxes to put in the winch, we had to take those mini CIMs previously on the winch and put them into the gearboxes for the drive base.  This happened yesterday, and, as before, not much difference was made in the driving as a whole, just not quite the same amount of acceleration.

Things to do with the drive base once we get to Lubbock
-Change out the CIMs and mini CIMs with the winch

Catcher

Today was the first day in a while of getting back to the catcher in a while.  After seeing what many teams did, we figured all we needed was some sort of extension upwards, and angle it downward to bounce the ball into the robot.  Before, we tried playing around with plywood, but that seemed a little odd to mount at an angle that we would have wanted, so we went to what we used before, conduit.  Pretty much, all we had to do was bend the conduit to be mounted on the tower bars supporting the top bar (the bar that holds the surgical tubing), so it looked like a large rectangle on top of the robot.  We went ahead and mounted it to the robot using hose clamps, since it wouldn't be hit too hard, and angled it slightly downward, and added strap so that the ball couldn't go through.  Overall, it worked extremely well, and bounced the ball straight down into the robot, which is exactly what is needed.  While it may not be what was thought of in the beginning of the year, it was useful at least to me as a human player, where I could just hit the target/catcher, and know it was going into the robot.

Things to do with the catcher once we get to Lubbock
-Mount it on the robot

Approximate times of working: 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Competition Season and Regionals Week 1: Alamo, Inland Empire, Southfield, and GTR West

While the title only has half the events that happened this week, those are the major ones with some of the national powerhouses and interesting happenings.

Alamo (San Antonio, Texas): 118, 148, 624, 2468 (seeing at Hub City)

From Alamo, most of what was shown are that 3 robot cycles are possible, and a much more plausible way to go than originally thought (this was found when watching matches with primarily 118).  Also, we found that defense was a big factor for teams that had slightly lower shooters (148), and quick turns will definitely be needed to maneuver around defense, rather than pushing, since the clear shot is needed.

Inland Empire (Grand Terrace, California): 1678, 399, 1828 (seeing at Arizona)

For Inland Empire, 1678 was definitely the team we would like to be.  Although they would get continually hit, it was about quickly maneuvering, lining up to shoot, and getting the ball out as fast as possible, and, just in general, trying to go around than through.  Also, one of the main strategies seen with them is the over truss to human player, then getting the ball from the human player and scoring, allowing them to do quick 20 point cycles and not have to rely on other robots if other bots on the same alliance were built primarily to be defensive.

Southfield (Southfield, Michigan): 33

Main thing here was watching how great the Bees are (Team 33, the Killer Bees), but watching how teams would respond to them.  Pretty much, I saw a new strategy not previously seen or heavily talked about, which was double team the powerhouse, and one of the other bots run back and forth doing the 20 point cycles (video can be found here).  This will definitely be helpful for anything we may run into at either Hub City or Arizona.

GTR West (Toronto, Ontario, Canada): 610, 1310, 1241

This regional was particularly interesting due to the teams attending.  610 and 1241 are the current defending world champions, so it was nice to see what they had planned.  Overall, the general strategy taken by these teams were similar to 1678, but, rather than doing everything on their own, they would have a different bot positioned next to the human player, and that different bot would be the one that scores.  This opened things up to the 30 point cycles, and does not burn much extra time in the process.

Palmetto (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina)

Pretty much, don't violate G40!

Central Illinois (Pekin, Illinois): 1986

This regional showed the physicality of the game, as can be seen in the last finals match, that people really hit each other hard, and there are not any fouls called if bots are hit hard

2/23/2014; 2/26/2014; 2/28/2014; 3/1/2014 Week 1: Detailed Design Continuation

2/23/2014

Today, we went ahead and started making clamps for the winch axle so we can prevent the strap from ripping out.  General idea is to secure the strap by wrapping it around the axle, then adding clamps with bolts that both hold the clamp and the strap, and have the clamps squeeze the strap and into the axle.  Hopefully, we will be able to add these to the axle Wednesday and start to test the winch again.  Other than this, not much else happened in terms other design things.  For now, the winch is now the only mechanism that has not reached or exceeded the standards and requirements set for it thus far, so it is not as far along in the detailed design process as the other mechanisms.

Approximate times of working: 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM

2/26/2014

Today was a heavy programming and making the other things for the bot day (finishing bumpers, making extra parts, finishing making conveniences for the regionals like battery cart, etecetera).  While we did get to attach the stuff for the winch, we did not get to really test it extensively.  We did try to winch back a couple times, but, when it wouldn't work, we saw that we were missing a screw that tightens a lock collar, which caused the bearing to pop out, so the shaft wouldn't really turn.  By the time we found that, we didn't have time to change it out, so we couldn't really test the part we wanted to.

Approximate times of working: 3:30 PM - 7:30 PM

2/28/2014

Today was another day without changing too much, although the winch was further tested.  Unfortunately, the clamps were not going to be the solution, because what they add to the radius of the axle is far too much, and it stalls out the two mini CIMs.  Because of this, we went ahead and figured that possibly still using the backpack strap could work, as long as there is a heavy duty safety strap/hard stop of some sort, to prevent the backpack strap from breaking due to overextension.  Also, we cut down the clamp a bit, and realized we didn't have to have it encircle the entire axle, but just part of the axle, which definitely helps with the radius of the axle.  Other than working on the winch strap, lights were worked on, but that both doesn't change the overall design and is only to help the drivers.

Approximate times of working: 3:30 PM - 7:30 PM

3/1/2014

Today was Maketopolis, a public mini Maker Faire, hosted by Xerocraft (where we're building).  We got to demo the robot in public, but also got to heavily test the winch and the robot as a whole.  Overall, it worked extremely well, and the shooter was extremely consistent, as well as intake and so on.  Everything worked well, until the strap broke again, but, rather than while firing and unwinding, while winching back.  This showed us we absolutely need to use the yellow strap.

After the strap broke, we went ahead and decided to look at the stall torque of the mini CIMs, and found that it was at about 200 inch pounds, which, by far, is not high enough for what we need, and that is why it stalls with the yellow strap.  Stall torque is the amount of torque needed to stall a motor, and inch pounds is one of the units, which means how many pounds of force the motor can take from one inch away from the axle (foot pounds is more commonly used, but, since we are dealing with smaller distances and motors, it's a lot easier to use inch pounds).  From this, we knew we couldn't stay with mini CIMs there unless we really changed the gearing, which would be complicated and a bit of a process.

Because of this, we figured we could switch the mini CIMs with the CIM motors on the drive train.  When we looked at the stall torque for the two CIMs, we saw it was 360 inch pounds, which, as can be seen, is much better than the mini CIMs.  Also, this would only make us lose about 12% power in the drive train, so, overall, it seemed like it was gaining a lot for not giving too much.  By the end of the day, we were able to change the motors out and reconnect everything, but not test it, as it took the last hour or two of the day.  Hopefully, this ends up working, and all that is needed is testing it tomorrow.

Approximate times of working: 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM

2/19/2014 and 2/21/2014: Week 0 of Competition Season/Week 7 of Build Season

2/19/2014

Over today, not really anyone came, since most of us were working until at least 9:30 PM on the robot last night, and had school, so people were mostly wiped.  As I was expecting no one to really show up and not much to happen, I ended up leaving early at 6:30 PM.  Today kids went ahead and built a battery cart, and we began to talk a bit about the catcher, although not much.  Also, the reveal video got lots of work done on it, and should be ready by tomorrow.

2/21/2014

Today the release video officially was released, and is right here.  As shown, the shot is nice and flat, but we definitely can increase the shooter power still to make sure autonomous goes in.

In terms of things that happened today, the unfortunate happened, and we continue to struggle with finding a permanent fix for the winch.  Today the kevlar rope ended up snapping, so we went out and just got the heaviest duty stuff we could find finally, which is in a way a double strap with nylon in it rated at 4000 pounds, which better hold up when we end up installing it.  Also, we ended up deciding we needed to use some sort of clamp for the strap to make sure it wouldn't rip off entirely if it ended up not being to stay together near the holes for some reason.  Pretty much, as before, the main thing still bothering us is the winch, and everything else is pretty a okay.

End of Build Season: Comparison and EDP Post Build Season Conclusion

As compared to the past years, we went at a pace more than twice as fast.  While in past years we have only bagged everything but the main mechanism, which needed work, this year we bagged a fully working robot that could play the game, and built two different practice robots that were both functional, in addition to anodizing one of the robots.  Overall, the Engineering Design Process was worth it, as it was a lot more organized than past years, and is not too heavily affected by time, which has an effect inversely proportional to the preparation of the people within the group.  Because we were fairly prepared this year, we did not really have that much of a problem with the time restraint, and, as we have been getting more and more prepared, we have gotten further and further in the process as a whole of building a bot.

In terms of my hypothesis about the Engineering Design Process, it is basically the same as my current conclusion of the Engineering Design Process.

In terms of everything else that will be happening, and seeing other robots and so on, most things will just be confirmations of our conceptual design process.  All that is left is to get the results for the performance of the product, and that will conclude my project.

2/18/2014 Day 45: Bag Day!!!

Today was the final day of the build season, and, finally, we got to bag a fully working robot.  While we normally don't meet on Tuesdays, as it is the last day of the build season, we went ahead and finished what we needed to finish since this past Sunday.  Also, we began watching some of the videos that were beginning to come out, mainly those of teams 610 (defending world champs) and 11 (a really good and nationally known team) (click on the numbers to go to their release videos).

Shooter

Today we went ahead and added the kevlar rope to the winch, and, as shown with the practice bot, was effective.  Also, we went ahead and added the surgical tubing, so, by the end of the day, we bagged a robot that had already made shots, which is a huge improvement from past years.

Intake

Today we went ahead and only had to add the pool noodles onto the shooter as the thing that helps retain the ball, and, as it worked on the practice robot, it worked well on the competition robot.

Drive Train

As we finally had a fully driving robot, we were able to play with it, so we got to drive it around and play with it.  As expected, the moving of the battery to the back of the robot was huge, and the robot was no longer rocking back and forth at all.

Overall, the competition bot did everything it was supposed to do, and there was not really anything more that we could ask from it. The robot is pictured below.

Catcher

After looking at the 11 robot, and from our experience at Duel in the Desert, where someone had built a full-out catcher, we figured all that was really needed was the ability to catch/receive from a human player, and all we had to build was something that would settle the ball downward into the robot.  As of now, the general ideas are just attaching what 11 had, or adding an angle to that so it bounces it downward more.

Approximate times of working: 3:30 PM - 11:00 PM

2/17/2014 Day 44: Almost Over

Today was somewhat unproductive, as the meeting was cut short by a steering committee meeting at Xerocraft and a lot of loading so we could work on the bot into tomorrow.  Because of this, as well as a lot of programming stuff, we really only worked on robotics things for an hour or so.  This being said, not really anything can be said about today, other than we got more wiring stuff done on the competition bot.

Approximate times of work: 3:30 PM - 7:00 PM

2/16/2014 Day 43: Tuning and Adjusting

Today was a day of primarily adjusting and playing around with the shooter angle and way to keep the ball on the shooter, as well as trying to figure out how to change the angle, as well as change the winch strap, since it snapped again.

Shooter

Today we were able to play around with the shooter and the angle, and went ahead and did what most teams did to lessen the angle, which was add pieces onto the back of the shooter.  While this worked before somewhat with the pool noodles, it was much easier to do this with PVC and tennis balls to hold the PVC pipe down and stable on the catapult.  Quickly, we were able to test this, and found it to be true, and it worked almost perfectly, in terms of keeping the angle just right for the peak to be just barely at the top of the goal.  A video of this can be found here, and the top of the pole is just below the top of the goal. While one of the uprights on the shooter kinda flew off, the angle was, as could be seen, was fairly flat.

In terms of the winch, the strap began breaking again, so we were now beginning to enter the process of finding a better material and better way to mount the strap onto the axle.  For now, we were thinking it would be a good idea to use Kevlar rope, which had been used before with other things we have built.

Intake

Today we changed the tennis balls off of the intake, and replaced them with pool noodles.  While the tennis balls were somewhat compressible, the pool noodles were smaller in diameter and more compressible, so the ball came in a lot more easily, while staying on the shooter.  Finally, we have almost perfected our intake and ball storage, and it finally works.

Drive Train

As usual, nothing was changed with the drive train, since it was all just fine.

In terms of the competition robot, we went ahead and finished mounting the tower and intake motors.  All that was needed for the competition bot for tomorrow and Tuesday was adding the surgical tubing, the stuff for bumpers, the parts on the back of the shooter, the new winch changes, and wiring.

Approximate times of working: 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM

2/15/2014 Day 42: Duel in the Desert

Today was the first event in which we got to see a handful of the other teams attending the Arizona regional. At one of the high schools in Phoenix, people set up a half field (half the long ways) for everyone to practice on.  This was pretty much time to see what other teams came up with, and the different designs that were thought of and created.  Surprisingly, there were not many robots with the same design, although many of the robots had mechanisms that we had previously designed and built, but found not to work as well.  Overall though, it was a day to calibrate and tweak everything.

Shooter

Today, we did not focus too much on the shooter, as we knew it would be just fine, and that was confirmed by basic off field testing.  Although we did add stuff to the shooter assembly, it was primarily for ball containment and the intake, and is more so for the whole intake assembly. Once we were able to get the intake working, we could further play around with the shooter, and saw that it was overall fairly consistent, although we do need to change the angle of the shot so we have a solid range of hitting the shot, rather than a range within the range of missing.

Most other teams had catapults that weren't operated by surgical tubing on the back though. Instead, most teams had pneumatic catapults or catapults actuated by motors.  While most teams had this, only 842 was able to shoot and hit from 18 feet. There was only one other team that used elastics of any kind, and, while they had decent range, just needed to tune their shooting angle.

Intake

It was an interesting day in terms of playing around with the intake.  While we mounted front of the catapult a little higher and had the tennis balls on top to try to hold the ball on the shooter, the ball could not be picked up at all, and was just being pushed against the front of the catapult and the tennis balls, as it was trying to compress the ball to less than 2/3 of the original diameter. This was originally solved by removing the tennis balls, but, without the tennis balls, the ball would slip off when the bot wasn't being driven, which was somewhat of a problem.

After talking to one of the other team's mentors, he helped us with a possible solution to it all.  Since the distance between the ball and roller is what matters, we just moved the tennis balls back, so it would increase the distance from the roller to the surface of the catapult/increase that closest distance the ball has to travel through.

While it didn't keep the ball on perfectly, as it would sometimes pop off when the intake would be lowered, we figured out we just had to spin the intake while dropping it to keep the ball in the same spot, so it should be just fine and work how well we need it to.

In terms of other intakes, there were quite a few of the intakes similar to ours, but without the side rollers, so they would be a little inconsistent at times, as well as a couple claws and forklifts.  In terms of claws, only 842 was effective, since they have sensors on their claw that allow them to immediately pick up a ball when it hits, and most of the other stuff took a while to pick up.  The most interesting was by far a team that built a vacuum to pick up the ball.  Once we got our intake working, we definitely had the best intake there, as the side rollers would prevent the ball from getting stuck on the side of the intake.

Drive Base

After fixing the intake, we finally got to drive the robot around, and, as expected, it worked pretty well overall, and did everything it needed to, other than being a little front heavy.

In terms of other teams designs, the drive bases were mostly square or narrow, and not really many wide bases.  Also, all were tank drive with either Kit of Parts wheels or mecanum wheels.

Overall, today was the first day to look at the strategy that may be applied by some teams.  While it doesn't really affect the engineering design process now, it helps with verifying the strategy decided upon in the conceptual design process.  From what was seen, an effective strategy was just having one robot stay in one position, and other robots come to feed the balls, so the shots would never be missed and two ball cycles would be made every 15-20 seconds or so.  Also, it appeared extremely hard to catch a ball, even while not being defended, so that may be something we don't spend as much time on.

Approximate times of working: 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM

2/14/2014 Day 41: Magic Smoke, Fun Smells, and Catching Fire

Today was a bit of a fun day.  After playing around with the robot and noticing the winch was not working very well, smoke started coming out of the robot, so that halted/severely slowed most robot stuff for most of the day.

Shooter

Today was a good yet bad day to find out something was not properly connected to a motor controller. While it was much better to find out today rather than tomorrow, since it would be Duel in the Desert, we were very shocked to see the smoke today and get a whiff of the result, and had to take it apart and get a backup for Duel in the Desert.  Pretty much, one of the mini-CIMs was disconnected from one port on the motor controller, meaning there was no current going through it, meaning the other mini-CIM was doing all of the work the entire time.  As it was doing much more work than the motor was meant to do, the motor soon overheated, and smoke could be seen rising from the robot, and the strong smell of burnt plastic (to me it smelled oddly like old mashed potatoes and gravy) was smelled when approached.  Since we knew something was overheated, one of the mentors came over to check, and, after checking both motors with the back of his hand, it was pretty obvious one of them was basically gone (since he jumped back, said ow, and told us not to touch the robot for a while).  This pretty much halted any testing today with the shooter, intake, and everything in general.
After taking the gearbox apart, we got to see what the inside of a motor looked like. (badly taken photos below, and yes, it is not supposed to be that color)

Intake

Today we had more struggles with the intake while the robot was still running.  Pretty much, the robot has to be driving at a decent speed now in order for the ball to be sucked up.  I am beginning to now think it is a mix of the tennis balls and the height of the gussets on the front that cause the ball to not go in, as it was much worse today than it was in past days, and today we just installed slightly taller gussets, but, we didn't really get to really test it.

Drive Base

Today not much happened in terms of drive base stuff, as there was the big distraction of the burnt out motor, but the frame did get mounted to the rest of the drive base, and the only thing needed on the bellypan was the pneumatic stuff.

2/13/2014 Day 40: 5 Days Left

Today was a big day in terms of the creation of a robot as a whole.  While it was a short day today (since it's a Thursday), we were able to hit a big mark or two, and were beginning to be ready to mount stuff on top.

Shooter

Today we continued to play with the shooter and the angle, of everything, but found something pretty big with the way it all shot.  Most of the time, the shot would be consistent, but it would shoot somewhat of a dud about one-third of the time.  When we looked back, one of our first guesses seemed to be correct. While sometimes the winch would unwind a teeny bit after it shifted to neutral, there were a couple other times where the winch wouldn't unwind at all.  This meant most of the time there was no resistance until a tad bit after the shot was fired, but, when the winch wouldn't unwind, the catapult would experience a small amount of resistance immediately, which changes the acceleration, changing the force and the energy put into the ball, making it travel a much shorter distance.  This ended up being fixed at the end by the programmers, who added an extra command for the winch to unwind a bit more after latching the catapult back.
Also, in terms of angle changing, we played around with adding something to raise the back of the catapult, so, as the ball rolls to the back of the catapult, it is pushed slightly downward, changing the angle and making it a little more even, since the goal is to have the highest point of the ball be just a tad above the top of the goal.

Intake

Today the intake was starting to die a little on us again today, and just would not pick up the ball at all sometimes, which was a bit on the disconcerting side, but it was mostly due to the size of the ball, as the diameter of the ball is 2" above the diameter it is supposed to be.

Drive Base

Today we finished all of the bellypan stuff, and went ahead and mounted the bellypan onto the drivetrain, completing most of the drive base, as all we have left to do is mount the robot frame on top.  The drive base was not heavily worked on today.

Approximate times of working: 3:30 PM - 7:00 PM

2/12/2014 Day 39: Putting Together the Frame

Today was another day of putting things together.  As we finally got our black rivets, we began doing the riveting work needed (no pun intended).  Also, we continued to play with the practice robot, and started trying to do some stuff to play with shooter angle.

Shooter

Today was our first day of playing with some shooter angle stuff.  To get us a slightly higher angle, but a lot more power, we went ahead and increased the height of the gussets that held the pivot point, or the gussets that hold the front part of the catapult.  This increases the time of contact the catapult has on the ball, allowing the catapult to add more energy to the ball, and also changes the "release angle" of the catapult, making the ball go a little higher.  This definitely did help the shooter with its range and power.
While this worked, we noticed a somewhat bigger problem with the surgical tubing.  While the shooter shot decently, we looked at the loops, and noticed they were beginning to shred, from the inside out, at the brass fittings.  While it would have been okay for another 50+ shots, we went ahead and took it all off as a safety precaution in the case of one of them snapping under tension (basically, would have same effect as a whip, and hurt close to as much).  We ended up replacing with the slightly cruddier tubing for now, but went ahead and ordered the same type of tubing, but much thicker.

Intake

Today the intake was a little inconsistent for the first time, and the motors would stall if the ball hit a certain area of the intake, which was highly disturbing for most of us.  This could be for a handful of reasons, whether it a slightly over-inflated ball, or a lack of bumper.  Pretty much, it should be just fine once we have the semi-compressible bumper, which can act like a ramp for the ball, rather than a large step that the ball currently has to go over without the bumper.

Drive Base

For most of today, we went ahead and worked on riveting the robot frame together, and all of the gussets that go on it, so we will be ready to mount it reasonably soon.  Also, we continued the wiring and mounting of electronics onto the bellypan, and got fairly far today with all of that (around 3/4 done with the bellypan stuff).

Approximate times of working: 3:30 PM - 7:30 PM

2/11/2014 Day 38: Last Build Season Day Off and 7 Days Remaining Alert

Today not much happened again, as it was our last day off (next Tuesday we will most likely be working, unless we are able to finish the competition bot).  Pretty much, everyone was in crunch time.  Some videos came out (pretty much just video from 842's working claw), but it won't be until closer to another 6 or 7 days that all of the release videos start coming out.

2/10/2014 Day 37: Anodized Parts!!

Today was a very exciting day, as we got our anodized parts in! (and we'll be the first team in Arizona to have an anodized robot).  Pretty much, since there is Duel in the Desert on the upcoming Saturday (and end of build season 3 days after), it was time to get down to business and try to build the competition robot as quickly as possible.

Shooter

Today not much happened with the shooter, as we wanted to start assembling the robot, starting with the drive base, so pretty much nothing happened.

Intake

Similar to the shooter, basically nothing happened with the intake since focus was on building the anodized drive base.

Drive Base

Today we went ahead and began assembling the drive base, as well as setting up components for the bellypan.  Pretty much, just back to putting things together, except for the bellypan, with the basic and essential components down, giving enough space to put the battery in the back left corner of the robot.

Above: A picture of the bellypan with digital sidecar, cRio, and talons (motorcontrollers)

Below: A picture of the beginning of the anodized drive base with gearboxes installed

Approximate times of working: 3:30 PM - 7:30 PM

2/9/2014 Day 36: Beginning to Make Stuff for Competition Bot

Today marked the first day of the creation of our competition bot.  Most of the day was taken by cutting out the same wood parts we hadn't cut out yet (mostly extra latches), but the day did consist of a few interesting design tweaks we wanted to implement to possibly better the bot as a whole/make it easier for drivers to drive the robot.

Shooter

Today not really anything happened with the shooter.  While we did mount tennis balls onto the shooter, it was for the intake rather than for the shooter.  Also, we had to replace the winch strap, since it broke/snapped, but that was just doubling the strap.
In addition to changing out the winch strap and redoing that, we went ahead and added a limit switch to the latch area.  This makes it so that winching back can just be pushing a button and letting go, rather than having to hold the button down until it latches.  Overall, this just lets the operator not have to pay as close attention on the shooter, and pay attention to the surroundings and timing the shots.
Below is a picture with a clear view at the catapult setup.

Intake

Today we did the main thing we had to do with the intake, which was make it so we could still pick up the ball, but let it still sit in the shooter.  To do this, we just added tennis balls to the front of the catapult, so that when the ball is being sucked up, it bends the tennis balls back a little, until the ball pops over the tennis balls. Once it pops over the tennis balls, the balls go back to their original position, and keeps the big ball from rolling out.  We went ahead and tested it, and it seemed to work well, although sometimes the ball would not go back after intaking, but would stay back after moving the intake up.  While it did make picking up the ball slower, it did do just fine as a whole, and did everything we needed it to do.

Drive Base

Today we started up the whole bumper frame building process, since we plan on using slip on bumpers to make everything easier.  Pretty much, we just cut out the wood and put it together in the 23"x34" frame (since the pins add a little extra).  Pretty much, for now, the bumpers just look like a wood frame and scattered cut up pool noodles.  Also, we went ahead and cut out a new wood bellypan and spray painted it black, as it will go on the competition robot that we should be getting parts for soon.  The bellypan organization will be one of the big design changes on the robot, since we need to make space to stick the battery in the back.

Approximate times of working: 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM

End of Week 5: Comparison Update and EDP Evaluation

As it is the end of Week 5 and everything is wrapping up, I should be reaching my end of build season hypothesis for whether or not the engineering design process is worth it, and am.  Since I haven't seen the results yet (haven't gone through competitions/regionals yet), I can not yet make it my conclusion, but can base the hypothesis just on the general feeling of everything compared to past years.  As figured from past posts, we are way ahead of where we were in past years, with just barely beginning to test the intake and finishing the CAD of the shooter for 2013, and just getting the sheet metal parts for 2012 (did only get parts 2/8/2012), so we are ahead as said before, having a robot that could be bagged and play the game just fine.

For now, the question is pretty much "why?", and the main two parts of the answer are: "It was the engineering design process" and "It was having funds and experience/knowledge", and it's just a matter of what is the mix for the answer.  Another big part of what needs to be answered is how time affected the process as a whole, which means the identification of the other factors would also be needed.

Up to this point, I have found that the factors that may change the engineering design process are time, money, (non-financial tangible) resources (how well can you machine things how quickly?), and knowledge/experience.  Overall, I do think it was primarily the engineering design process for each of the mechanisms that helped speed us along, and, so far, has been worth going through it.  Also, I feel that, as I already have stated, time is not the only factor, and not bigger than the others, but time's effect on the process depends on the levels of the other factors.  As of now, it seems as though if one has high amounts of two of the four things that act as factors, and mediocre amounts of one other will allow for the last factor to not matter (in this case, plenty of non-financial tangible resources and knowledge/experience, so so funding, and not much time).  In past years, we had decent experience, mediocre machining capabilities and funding, and not much time, so we weren't able to do much.

I have come to this conclusion mostly because time has not had that much of an affect on the process as a whole.

2/8/2014 Day 35: End of Week 5 With a Working Bot!!!

Today was the beginning of testing in the duplicate bot, and it was (mostly) working how we wanted it to. The day started off a little slow, because it was our first time taking out the field, so we had to make our measurements so we knew where the distances/field indicators are/were.

Shooter

Today the shooter did work, but we had to add quite a bit of surgical tubing.  Although we did add all of the surgical tubing, and the winch was struggling a little with it all, the latch worked exactly how it was supposed to, and the ball fired, but a bit highly.  One of the other problems was keeping the ball on the shooter, but that should be solved fairly easily by just adding tennis balls or something of that sort to the front.

The biggest thing that needs work is probably the shooter angle.  Since it shoots on the high side, there is a band within the band of the hit range that is a miss range, meaning there are two ranges for the shooter to have to hit.  This we want to change, as it is best to have one continuous range rather than two separate ranges, and the next big design question is how to change the angle so the maximum height is at the top of the goal.

Intake

The intake pretty much did everything it was supposed to today, and worked effectively as expected, so we don't have to do much with the intake anymore.

Drive Base

Today the drive base did its job, in terms of it was structurally stable, but the biggest problem that will need to be accounted for is the amount of weight on the front, as the front was much heavier than the back, since the battery and intake were both on the front (the two heaviest things on the robot other than the drive train itself).  This meant when the robot would suddenly stop or accelerate backwards, more so when the intake was out, the robot would rock forward first, rather than staying steady.  This should be an easy fix, and the only thing that will probably happen while still working is moving the battery to the back.  Also, though, this is one of the slight disadvantages to using a wide base over a square or narrow base.

Approximate times of working: 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM

2/7/2014 Day 34: Finishing the Bot

Today was finally the end of the whole process of building the practice/duplicate bot, and we went ahead and got the robot ready for testing for tomorrow.  Today consisted on primarily finishing wiring and pneumatics routing.

Shooter

Today we went ahead and attached a couple loops of the surgical tubing to the shooter, mostly to make sure it all worked.  Also, we went ahead and went through latch stuff, making sure the latch was just fine, and both cleared the bar and was able to return to hold the bar on the catapult.

Above is a picture of the current practice bot, and us attaching the surgical tubing loops.

Intake

As before, nothing happened with the intake, but it should finally be used and tested tomorrow morning.

Drive Base

Today we finished the rest of the wiring and pneumatics for the robot, as well as the routing, so we could have the robot ready to go tomorrow morning for testing.


Today we went ahead and finished painting the other sides of the gussets green, so now all we have to do is rivet everything together once the anodized metal gets here.

Approximate times of working: 3:30 PM - 7:30 PM

2/6/2014 Day 33: Dropping Off Parts and Finishing Bot

Today was just another day/continuation of the building aspect of things, pretty much other than the latch. Also, the parts, being tubing, gussets, and metal parts of the drive train, were delivered to be anodized, so those should be back between 3 and 5 days to work on.  Since the first robot was the preliminary design bot, and the mechanisms were the preliminary design mechanisms, and those concepts haven't really changed much, we will be entering the second part of the whole detailed design process when we get the nicer parts back from the people anodizing them.  For now though, as previously stated, we have to finish building this bot before any more design changes will be happening.

Shooter

We finally are finishing latch stuff for the shooter.  Today we went ahead and drilled out holes and mounted the angle, so we could mount the piston and latch, although the two pieces of angle for the latch were a bit off center.  Pretty much though, the shooter just needed to have the surgical tubing loops and wiring stuff finished.

Intake

As everything else is getting close to finished, and intake is already done, nothing happened with the intake today.

Drive Base

Today we went ahead and finished mounting everything needed, as pretty much all that was still needed was the battery area and finishing wiring.


Today we also went ahead and cut out the gussets for the robot, and spray painted each of them (just one of the sides, because it was too late to do the other side)

Approximate times of working: 3:30 PM - 7:00 PM

2/5/2014 Day 32: Confirming Designs

Today was another day of putting stuff together, but we did begin cutting everything to get anodized tomorrow, mostly the tubing, but also the gussets we got back a couple days ago.  Overall, not much happened, just continued building.

Shooter

Today was another day of playing around with latch geometry.  We found that if we attach the piston to the latch itself, things wouldn't work, since the piston shaft pushing open the latch travels linearly, while the latch rotates around an axle.  After thinking about just creating a slot so the piston could slide within the latch, we figured it would be easier not having the piston attached to the latch, but just pushing the bottom and using the latch like a lever to open the top.

Intake

As said in previous day, not much happened with the intake.

Drive Base

For the drive base, the general layout of components for the bellypan was beginning, as we now knew the shape of the bellypan and the general components need on top.

2/4/2014 Day 31: Week 5 Tuesday

Today was not a heavy day at all in terms of robots, and pretty much was used entirely as a break.

2/3/2014 Day 30: Beginning of Latch Design

Today things continued to come together, and some designing began again, as the latch needed designing.  Also, the drive base was worked on a little today, in terms of the organization of the bellypan electronics, tanks, compressor, and so on.

Shooter

Today was a big day for the shooter mechanism as a whole.  While the latch was the pressing happenings, as we needed that before we could get the robot fully functioning, we began figuring out the surgical tubing loops.  With the latch, we figured we needed something with a progressively increasing slope, so the bar could slowly open the latch, then let the latch close at the end from the surgical tubing getting it back to a closed position.  The only question was how sloped does it have to be, but, since we have the wood cutter available, it was easy to immediately start playing around with it and begin the iterations.  So far, the current iterations just haven't had a big enough slope, so it was a bit hard to open.

In terms of the surgical tubing loops, we went out and bought some brass barbed fittings, and went ahead and put them into one of the sides of the surgical tubing.  To keep the tubing on the brass fitting, we went ahead and used thick wire and wrapped it in the grooves of the barbs, squishing the surgical tubing between the fitting and wire.  This seems like it will work well, and looks really flashy.

Intake

Not much should be happening with the intake for a while, since it's all finished.

Drive Base

Today we went ahead and worked on the organization of components mounted on the practice bellypan, and mounted the compressor and rest of what needed to be on the bellypan.  Pretty much, it was just putting stuff on and seeing if the current positions of motor controllers and everything else was okay.

Approximate times of working: 3:30 PM - 7:00 PM

2/2/2014 Day 29: Beginning of Week 5 and Crunch Time

Today was the official alarm bell for most teams, as it signaled 2/3 of the season gone, and the fast approach of the final stretch.  Still, not much has been happening in terms of the design of any parts, but the latch should be beginning soon.

Shooter

Today we finished mounting all of the shooter stuff to the robot (bolting in the catapult and putting in the winch), and it was time to figure out how the latch stuff should be mounted, both the piston and the latch itself.  While the shape still needed to be further thought through, we just need to figure out what to use and where to put things.  As we had a single-action piston (a piston that is spring loaded, so it will go one way when air is pumped into it, but not return), and plenty of surgical tubing, we felt that was probably the best actuator to use, as the surgical tubing would allow for the latch to easily return to a closed position, and the piston would easily allow for hitting the latch to open it briefly.
While we easily decided on doing it this way, we did have reasonable amount of debate involving the positioning of the piston.  Originally, most wanted it to be placed vertically, but then it would be sticking out and made the thought of a designing a simple latch a little more difficult, since the latch would be oriented in the same way as the piston, but actuated in a different direction, perpendicular to the orientation of both the latch and the piston.  Also, a random piston sticking out would appear visually unappealing.  From this, we decided mounting the piston parallel and beneath the catapult would be the best idea.  This would allow for a simple latch shape, as well as easy mounting, as it would only require three pieces on angle.

Intake

Today we went ahead and added the pneumatics to the intake/robot frame, so we could actuate the intake and move it from inside the drive base to outside the drive base.  That was about it for the intake stuff.

Drive Base

Today just consisted of adding the pneumatics from the intake onto the robot frame, and, other than that, nothing much happened with the drive base.  Most likely, once the latch hinge and piston mount is confirmed upon, pieces of angle will be added to the frame.

Approximate times of working: 12 PM - 6 PM

End of Week 4: Comparison Post and Evaluation

While last week I said time has not had much of a limiting factor as of now on the process as a whole, that continues to stand true for right now.  As of now, we have been running fairly well and maybe a tad behind schedule, but way ahead of where we were in past years.  In 2013, we were only just beginning to prototype the intake mechanism, and had only just built the shooter out of wood and prototyped a firing mechanism, but did have a finished drivetrain. While we haven't yet made a concrete version of the latch for the firing portion of the catapult mechanism, we definitely have done everything else, and the bot could function and do what's needed in a competition.  In 2012, we were just finishing all of the CAD drawings by now and getting ready to send them in.

Overall, we are definitely at least 2 weeks ahead of past years, and have stayed fairly on schedule.  In terms of the process of evaluating the engineering design process, not much more has happened since the last week in terms of moving along the process, since most of what has been happening is the building, rather than designing or testing parts of everything.  Pretty much, we have just been going off of what has been already designed, and are continuing to do so, but should be done sometime soon.

2/1/2014 Day 28: End of Week 4

Today was the last day before the signal for the alarm bells will be going off for most teams, not only because the month of February has arrived, but also Week 5 is beginning tomorrow.  While we are basically just manufacturing and assembling whatever we need to be manufactured and assembled, so not much has been happening recently in terms of the engineering design process as a whole.  But most of today was recapping what was happening, and making sure everyone was on the same page, as well as reminding people that there are things other than robots due relatively soon, so it wasn't too productive in terms of robot stuff, but some stuff did get done.

Shooter

Today we spent a lot more time on shooter stuff today, just putting the catapult and tower together, mounting it all to the frame, as well as the winch, and beginning to design the latch.  Pretty much, it is the exact same as the practice bot, but made with square aluminum tubing entirely, rather than both tubing and wood.

Intake

Today we finished up adding the zipties onto the intake to make sure the wires didn't get in the way or caught on anything while driving the robot around, and not much else happened today for the intake, and it is just a matter of waiting for everything else to be finished.

Drive Base

Today the frame was worked on again, but just for mounting stuff, mainly the tower, and beginning to mount the shooter stuff.

Approximate times of working: Meeting Not Attended (out of town)

1/31/2014 Day 27: Everything Slowly Coming Together

Today was another day of working on awards and other things, but we did start getting everything together, and should be done by either end of this week or early into Week 5.

Shooter

Today was the beginning of cutting the catapult parts and assembling the catapult and tower.  The shooter was only worked on lightly due to trying to get everything else mounted and attached.

Intake

Today, the structure of the intake (intake without the pistons or motors) was finally mounted onto the robot frame.  Also, we went ahead and started attaching the motors, chains, and sprockets, so we entirely finished mounting the intake subsystem onto the practice bot.

Drive Base

Today we finished the frame stuff, and started mounting things, and ended up getting all of the intake on today, and began mounting parts to the frame to mount the frame onto the drivetrain.  After the difficulties of last year, we decided this year to use pins to keep the frame on the drivetrain, so we can easily take the frame off to get to the electronics within the drive base.

Approximate times of working: Meeting not attended (out of town)

1/30/2014 Day 26: Day/Night Before Disneyland/Assembly

Today was my last meeting attended not during the normal SRP time frame.  For most of today, Chairman's Award was worked on, and the assembly of the frame/subsystems continued.

Shooter

Today we started cutting out parts for the catapult, but didn't do a ton in terms of trying to mount shooter things.  Pretty much another slow day for the shooter people.

Intake

Today the intake was lightly further worked on, and everything was beginning to come together, in terms of the structure of the intake, and making sure all of the holes are in the right place.  The intake is pretty much ready to be mounted, and is just waiting for the rest of the frame to be finished so it can be mounted.

Drive Base

Today was the continuation and beginning of finishing the robot frame.  We finished drilling out whatever holes needed and riveting the remaining gussets needed onto the robot frame.  Below is a picture of the frame with gussets.

Approximate times of working: 3:30 PM - 7:30 PM

1/29/2014 Day 25: The Strength Test

Today was the beginning of figuring out whether or not the wooden gussets work/are sturdy enough to be on our robot.  As everything was prepared yesterday, it was just a matter of riveting everything together, testing, and deciding whether or not to wait for the metal gussets for both bots.

Shooter

Today, after we found the wooden gussets will work, we began cutting square tubing for the sides of the tower, which was just 2"x4" on the prototype, and cutting the conduit that runs along the top.  Not much happened again with the shooter because people were working on making the robot frame and the awards that were looming ahead (the Chairman's Award especially, as it was only 15 days away from being due, and hadn't had much work on it yet).

Intake

For the intake, we went ahead and cut out the tubing needed, and started drilling holes for mounting the motors and for attaching the gussets to hold everything together, but didn't get too far, as we waited to do the robot frame first to make sure the wood was good enough before moving on.

Drive Base

Today was a big day and moment of truth for our robot.  If the wooden gussets were to work, everything would resume and be on schedule, but if they ended up not being structurally sound enough, we would be delayed at least half a week, just from having to hand make the gussets out of sheet metal, or waiting for the gussets to be finished by TMM Precision.  We went ahead and riveted everything together, and the wooden gussets ended up working very very well, and was plenty strong enough to hold everything together for the frame, so that was our indicator that the wooden gussets were a okay.  We ended up getting most of the frame finished, and we were now set up to go ahead and drill whatever extra holes to mount stuff to the frame, which will be worked on tomorrow.  Below is the frame before any gussets were added to connect everything together.

Approximate times of working: 3:30 PM - 7:30 PM

1/28/2014 Day 24: Another Tuesday

Today not much happened, as there was no meeting, but we did look around and check for who would anodize our parts, and, unless there is a different company that is up for sponsoring us, we pretty much found what we need.  Other than that, 842 released another set of videos of their claw system, which somewhat effectively can pick up either rolling or bouncing balls, and of their shooter again, which seems to have two things sticking out of the top to change the angle of the ball.  This was helpful to observe, as that is something we may try for changing the angle of the ball when shot.

Overall, we are definitely in the detailed design process, and entering the second iteration, or the robot that can play the game decently but doesn't look quite as pretty/not as precise.

1/27/2014 Day 23: Beginning of Building the Practice Duplicate Bot

Today was the beginning of no longer playing with our current bot, but building what we will use for the next large part of time.  Unfortunately, our laser-cut metal sponsor, TMM Precision, had a lot of people gone and were really backed up, so we weren't going to get our metal gussets until the beginning of next week, so today was a day of creating a slight change in bot.

Shooter

Today was yet another day of not testing or playing with the shooter much, as everyone was either focused on programming stuff, the drivetrain, or frame of the robot.

Intake

Pretty much, intake was same as shooter, in that it wasn't worked on at all today.

Drive Base

Today was the big day for the drive base/drivetrain.  We went ahead and took everything off the prototype practice robot today, and started cutting the pieces down to size, so we could go ahead and send it all off to get anodized.  Also, we began to cut out wood gussets to use rather than the metal ones we would get in another week, since we have a wood laser-cutter in house, so we decided we probably could really take advantage of it.  In addition to cutting everything down to size and designing/cutting out the gussets, we began cutting out a new frame out of square tubing, so we can go ahead and rivet everything together and see how the wooden gussets hold up.

Approximate times of working: 3:30 PM - 7:30 PM

1/26/2014 Day 22: Beginning of Week 4 and CAD Presentation

Today was the big reveal from the CAD team of what the robot looked like on Solidworks, as well as continuing to play with the intake.  Also, this was the last day of testing with the practice prototype bot, as we were going to have to start taking it apart to cut down the drivetrain, so the metal bits of the drivetrain can go off to get anodized.

Shooter

Today not much happened with the shooter.  We went ahead and reattached the surgical tubing, so we could practice the basic intake procedures, which are to winch shooter back, intake ball, then move the intake up to hold the ball in place.  We also found that the moving up of the intake centers the ball onto the shooter, which definitely helps to make sure the ball is shot consistently.  Although this is nice, it is an easy indicator for most teams for when we are going to shoot, as the intake drops, which takes a second, then the ball is shot, so teams who scout may see this flaw then know when to bump us to knock us off target.

Intake

As before, the intake works beautifully, and the only problems are keeping the ball in the shooter.  Today we practiced getting the ball while driving, and everything seems to work.  As of now, the biggest problem with the intake is very minor, and shouldn't affect anything.  For the intake, since the square tubing acting as structural support for the intake sits at 25", some balls may scrape that top bar, or not hit the roller, but this has been solved by just driving at it.  This problem has thus far only happened with rolling a ball slowly toward a still robot, so it really isn't enough of a problem.  Also, we have found it is entirely necessary to winch the catapult back while running the intake and picking up a ball, otherwise the ball gets rolled into the middle of the robot, bounces off the catapult, and popped out a couple feet in front of the robot.
At the end of the day, everything seemed to work the way it was two days ago.

Drive Base

Since we finished the other drivetrain to the correct size, we were ready to put together a frame and everything else to put on top of the frame, but not until tomorrow.  Also, we were ready to rebuild everything/take stuff off the current robot, so we can take apart the drivetrain, cut it all to size, and get it all anodized.

In terms of CAD model stuff though of the robot, here is a picture of the bot in Solidworks without the intake.

Approximate times of working: 3:30 PM - 7:30 PM

End of Week 3: Comparison Post and Evaluation Beginning

As we are finally approaching the middle of build season (tomorrow), and Week 3 has just ended, it is time to do a comparison for this year, and the past two years, as well as what has happened with the engineering design process thus far.

This year, we have a fully functioning bot that can so far pick up the ball very efficiently and pass the ball well also, as well as score in the one point goal.  We cannot shoot yet because the latch has not been fully developed yet, in terms of how and where to mount the piston and latch.  In 2013, we were just beginning to build the shooter based on the linear shooter design found to be effective by many teams.  In 2012, the team was also just beginning to CAD the robot as a whole by the end of Week 3.

Overall, this year, we have been consistently multiple weeks ahead of past years, but is this all because of the engineering design process, or much better machining capabilities in terms of skill, turn-around time, and experience?

This is the big question to ask now, and continue asking throughout the rest of the build season.  While time was the biggest question for this project when the project began, it seems as though time has not had a big effect this year.  The major changes between this year and the past two years were preparing this year for build season, access this year to a more complete machine shop, and a little more funding.  The preparation had consisted of what everything does, how to use tools, and what are structures/concepts everyone should know or understand and be able to apply during build season.  This preparation has allowed us to jump right into the build season, and not waste the first two weeks trying to learn how things work.  Also, it has taught us how to research/find concepts and ideas that work, just by looking at bots from past year's games (2008).  The mostly complete machine shop has allowed us to quickly manufacture/make our own parts with a 10 minute turn-around time (time it takes for finished design to become a part), where as before we had to rely on a company that took a couple days.  This means we can rapidly prototype and test concepts just to see if the concepts work, which speeds up the preliminary design phase immensely.

Overall, so far, the time has not had an effect due to those two major factors that have changed, where as time was a big factor when we spent more of it waiting or doing things we could do during the offseason. From current observations, the four major factors that effect the engineering design process are time resources (machining and so on), and experience/knowledge, and money being one with a little less influence for FIRST.  So far, we have plenty of each but time, but the lack of time is having a negligible effect on everything.

In terms of how each of the phases are being put together, the conceptual design phase has been the biggest in terms of continuing to drive everything.  The preliminary design phase and the detailed design phase seem to basically blend into each other, and, while there is a very clear boundary between preliminary design and conceptual design, there is not a very clear boundary between preliminary design and detailed design in practice.

Because everything is going quickly due to time, each of the phases don't really need to be lengthened or shortened.  If there is extra time, I feel, so far, only completing the conceptual and preliminary design phases, the conceptual design phase is actually the one to keep steady or add more time.  Of the three phases, it seems as though the preliminary design phase is the one that can be cut down upon.  So far, the team has spent around 1/6 of the time in conceptual design phases, and 1/3 of the time in the preliminary design phases for the build season, and will end up spending 1/2 the build season on detailed design plus more.  Most of the cutting or adding depends on the other factors, primarily machining and experience, more than time, although both end up relating to time.

As a wrap-up, the use of the engineering design process has been huge, and, while it may not be responsible for all of the progress happening, it has still been a big factor in why the team is constantly ahead by a couple weeks.