July 19: Positive Progress, but slow...

One of the real human parts of a project as complex as competition robot design and development is that things always move more slowly than everyone wants them to, however our progress remains positive and we're getting close to an integrated design.   Today we were far enough along to do some lift testing for the arm under similar-to-competition weight/mass/time conditions.  Conclusion: we definately need to add surgical tube assist to out 4-bar linkage lift and possibly need to add a third motor too.

July 13: Powered Roller Testing

No driver training today as we focused on hands-on design work throughout our time.  The most significant milestone of the day was our first powered roller testing for our accumulation system after the roller was wrapped in no slip pad.  We tested handheld using the temporary frame mount.  Not too flashy a set of tests, but they did show that we should continue forward with this system.  Here's a short video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TChcbBz9Pjk

Looking forward to getting all of the systems integrated together.

July 10 Meeting: Back at it

Today arm/lift work continued for our four bar linkage as well as work on the accumulator roller and driver practice continued as well.  Arm/lift is now powered by two motors and a 7:1 gear reduction (84:12) which was the determined target ratio based on earlier lift testing with our Gateway robot.  The accumulator roller prototype is now mounted to a temporary frame for initial testing purposes.  In all, one of those solid workmanlike meetings thatwill certainly pay off in the long run.

Why Bother? July 9th @ Drexel

In the grand scheme of things, other than competing to "win", why would a team bother participating in VRC?  Simple ... so students can learn and be inspired to consider pursuing a career in the STEM fields.  Well, competing alone without knowing what opportunities exist won't get it done.  So this summer we scheduled a series of visits to expose our students to the possibilities that lie ahead of them.

Today, that meant a visit to Drexel University's College of Engineering in Philly, where we learned about the overall Engineering program at Drexel, visited robotics and race car team labs, got a guided tour of the nanophotonics operation, and saw presentations from a variety of the engineering departments.  Special thanks to Weena Doyle for coordinating our visit and to all the Drexel staff members and students who took time from their schedules for us.  Our visiting students and parents certainly good a great inside look at the Drexel experience, which serves as a great motivator for us all.

July 6: Manipulator Design Execution Begins

Today we made a VERY important decision:
To design, build, and fully prototype of lift and accumulation systems on one of our team's chassis, while we continue driver practice on the other two.  From this point until these systems are complete students will switch out between designing and building to driver practice and back again. 

With our remaining meeting time we were able to assemble our full set of troughs (thanks to an anonymous donation), get in a lot of full field driver practice, begin build on our FRC-style roller for accumulation, and - borrowing a little from past New Zealand type 4-bar linkages - get the key elements of our lift in place.

July 3rd Meeting: Driver Competition

With the 4th of July holiday upon us, we decided to suspend design work and focus on our driver skills by setting up a competition.  Each student had to flawlessly complete a sepentine course without touching sacks or driving off of the tile surface and set a time.  It was fun, it was competitive, and after more than an hour of students refining their skills and lowering the best time to beat the coach posted the best time of all.  However, the important part of the day was finding one more way of refining driver skill while having fun.  Mission accomplished, happy 4th!

Blog Info Blackout Lifted: Sorry!

We know some folks like following our blog and it's been a little over a month since our last post.  Sorry, sometimes life happens and we get behind.  However, all of our archived info is ready to roll out and I'll start putting up blog posts just as if they had been made in a more timely fashion, covering meetings on July 3, 6, 10, 13, 19, 20, 31, and Aug 3 as well as reports on trips to Drexel Engineering and the Rutgers Univ Coastal Ocean Observatory Lab's Underwater Robotics Program.

-Kressly