Silly String

 Nik and Pierce troubleshooted our lift system and decided to scrap the string being wound on the side, as it would not wind correctly and started to destroy the string. Instead, the string was moved to an axle beneath the arm that is turned by a gear attached to a motor. This arrangement prevents the string from stretching when the arm is lowered- another problem we encountered- and provides more torque for raising the lift, making it a much better solution.

Feeling Rather Spoolish

Apparently, the spooling system we have now isn't quite working as expected; it has a tendency to fray the string. So, I went off to SolidWorks to draw up a concept for a new one.

 Unlike the last spool – which was mounted on the side – this one goes between the two bars in the arm, meaning that it's a more direct route for the string than before. In addition, the string uses the arm's axle as a pivot, meaning it will always be the correct length regardless of what angle the arm is at. Pretty nifty, I think.

Going Up

I attached the slide to the arm on Monday and today Travis and Casey attached a motor and string to the robot  so that the slide would be operational. The decided on attaching the motor near the base of the robot to improve weight distribution and have the string feed through the channels to the slide so it wouldn't get caught or damaged.

Decoding

Casey took the time to fully comment his program for the robot and improve the readability of it thanks to the presentation we viewed last Saturday at St. Thomas. The code will now be much easier to edit by Casey and the rest of the team if we need to make changes to improve performance.

Chutes and ladders

We acquired a drawer slide for Sonic. We plan to use this slide to reach the third and final level of the rack, thereby completing the arm of our robot. The first major challenge is deciding where to place the slide on the robot, balancing stability and functionality. We decided to initially attach it to the top of the arm and proceed from there, moving the arm if it proves too unstable. In the future we will need to drill additional holes in the slide to attach it firmly, but this arrangement seems promising.

News of the World #2

Final: 150 to 1

FTC Engineering Notebook

Cypress Bay High School Did a presentation on the Engineering Notebook and what they did to win the Think award for their notebook from the previous competition. Aspects we learned to add to our notebook are more specific figures about our engineering process and the challenges we face daily.

FTC Programming Workshop

The St. Thomas team presented a power point on the basics of Robot C. They discussed Robot C tools and the  programming language, as well as an efficient way to code the robot using comments and functions to clean up and improve the readability.