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