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