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