Reflexions: Decisions lead to progress and protypying

Prototyping

The team worked on various projects tonight including: VEX robots for the education team, programming with a motor and the camera, prototyping decisions of ball kicker/puncher, testing of slow recovery foam effects on the soccer ball, and arena layout cut sheets. We had several different groups working on the previously mentioned activities. It was nice to see the new faces of the robotics team working with returning veterans. The new faces not only included students but new mentors as well.

Programming

Vision targeting was successful in following a red target with the camera as well as getting a motor to spin and change speeds. The mentors worked with the students on the LabVIEW environment.

Education/VEX robots

A small group of students worked on squarebots from the VEX kits. They completed 4 robots in the evening. Many of the students working on the VEX bots are new to the team but worked with a few veterans such as Jonathan Dahm.

Prototype design ideas

Students broke off into two groups to continue to discuss and research possible ball kicking/punching devices. One group decided to use the ball roller mechanism on the 2009 FRC robot to evaluate the effect of rollers on the soccer ball. The roller imparted a backspin on the ball. Each group also worked on scale drawings of their designs. These started out as napkin type drawings but lead to scale drawings sketched with pencil and CAD drawings.

In addition to the kickers, some experimenting was done with the slow recovery foam that will be placed in the goals. The foam stops the rotation of the ball upon impact but it does not have the spandex cover that will be placed over it in the goal.

Chassis SolidWORKS

Stephen Bracken began the SolidWORKS of the chassis and drive system. He utilized the .stp files provided by FIRST and ANDYMARK.

Course Build and Cut List

Three students worked on salvaging wood from last years robot crate. They utilized Tim Jordan's cut list and layout sheets he worked up from the course drawings. We will begin building the course pieces on FIrday.