Building a competition robot, especially object manipulators can be frustrating and slow at times. Also reminding the team that we're committed to doing all we can to develop ERB (expected repeatable behavior) in our robot means that it's not OK for things to be "good enough" nor is it OK to work some of the time can slow progress even further for the average student making these last few meetings, truly, the dog days for us.
However, the members of 1414 are to be commended for how fast they are buying in, including our rather vigorous testing and iterating I have asked the team to put our arm/accumulator through.
On August 9, we cut, drilled, and fitted two polycarbonate sheets to the top and bottom of our accumulator, tying everything together neatly and keeping any game objects from falling out of our hold. Then came the tedious part as the polycarbonate was banging into a drive motor, was holding our entire manipulator outside of the 18" starting size, wasn't positioned well enough to direct objects into the 30" goal, and was digging into the field preventing movement of any kind. So, four interdependent variables led to a LOT of minor iterations, shigting of pieces, moving chassis rails, trimming and filing edges, etc. However, by the time we broke up for the day we were able to successfully "hand test" (not under power) a manipulator that fits, reaches, rests appropriately on a rail hard stop, and scores objects successfully in the 30" goal. WOOT! We also brainstormed, researched, and tentatively selected a robot name (we will share it when we are sure).
August 12, then was all about testing the arm and accumulator under power. BUT, before we could do that we discovered loose motors, a broken gear that needed replacing (caused by an alignment issue we believe we have fixed), and the fact that our foam attached to the treads has split in a few places (this didn't require any work, and we believe it is not a long term issue, but have to keep an eye out as we wear in the system. We also wound up learning a HUGE lesson on the effectiveness of using latex tubing as a spring assist for motors that lift. All of the details of our testing under power can be seen here:
See you next time,
Kressly
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