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