Up we go

Early start to a long day: its 5:45. During Build, if I want "spare time," this is how it happens. I'm going to go make stuff.

Until tonight...

13.1.12 Friday Meeting

Long day. We had a ~2-10 meeting in which we made some good progress. I was working on chassis and drive-train with Aron Linker, and had some very serious design issues. We had problems due to maximum dimensions and creating the ability to go over the 4"x6" bump in the middle of the field. We are still quite unsure as to what to do, however we settled (pending...) on a very short, wide chassis design with a high-strength, dual purpose "arm" for both tipping the bridge, and for assisting in balance when crossing the bump.

Not much more tonight. I want to get to bed early as I have early-prototyping plans for the morning. More on that tomorrow.

Also hoping to load some screenshots of the CAD files from Project ÜberTank, as well as some truly inspiring footage of our main technical mentor Adam Reif.

12.1.12 Thursday Meeting

I do not have a lot to report on from today's meeting. I started out doing some  CAD work for Project ÜberTank, mostly cleaning up/reworking existing design drafts from Tuesday. I have most of the designs cleaned up so they are not only modeled, but well modeled. I have never had much problem making things in Solidworks, but thinking ahead towards more complicated assemblies etc... has always been a challenge for me. This project is forcing/enabling me to take my CAD skills to the next level by creating a well done, complete set of designs for the project.

After spending some time on ÜberTank I went on to work with Aron Linker on some fundamental design decisions regarding the chassis and drive-train.

I left 2 hears early for a quasi-emergency doctors appointment so I look forward to being brought up to speed tomorrow.

10.1.12 Tuesday Meeting

Today we met from 3 to 6. As a whole, the team spent a good deal of time discussing design (even more), however I was not as involved in that as previously. I focused on Project ÜberTank with Sam Sedgwick. ÜberTank will be the operating name for the development of OmniTreads. We spent most of our time (apart from design discussions) CADing the preliminary design, under special orders of the team coordinator Mrs. Lindborg. We were able to complete a model of both a single tread link, and a working flexible chain of several links. This is a preliminary design and will be refined greatly, however a first pass in under 48 hours from concept to full CAD model is better time than I could have asked for. Due to my involvement in such a covert (sideline) mission, I am hoping to be issued a Solidworks capable computer to enable me to work on such things, as well as other (more central) team related CAD assignments from home. Unfortunately I was unable to prepare screenshots/renderings of the model. I hope to do that during our meeting Thursday (no meeting Wednesday), however I will be leaving early so I don't know whether I will have time. When I have them, I will show them here.

The design (as seen in a basic, incomplete sketch in yesterday's post) is as simple as could be managed while maintaining ease of fabrication and relatively low cost.

No meeting tomorrow, I will post Thursday night after my appointment (for which I am leaving early).

9.1.12 Monday Meeting

Today was my first day at Shenandoah High School. School went by quickly enough, and I was able to get on with robotics. We spent another entire meeting researching and discussing design, we are several days behind schedule now. While this does not sound "good," at the some time it is to be, to a point, expected. If we are able to get through and finish the big picture design tomorrow so that we may come back Thursday and hit the ground building, I believe we will be in good shape. We talked about different types of ball collection devices, ball launching devices, and we dabbled for moments here and there in different possibilities for the drive train. My opinion with the 4"x6" rectangular-profile obstacle running across the middle of the field, treads may be our best option. In the 3 regional competitions I've been to, I don't remember seeing any group of 5 or 6 winning teams in which there were not at least a pair of treaded 'bots. It provides incredibly effective traction, mobility, and in the case of the obstacle in this years game protects any components mounted to the underside of the robot. For my homework tonight I did a couple of sketches. I sketched the parts needed in a semi-fantastical idea I had to create OmniTreads: tank treads with the holonomic aspect of omniwheels (not mecanum wheels). I also diagrammed a few key points regarding a collector consisting of a 2" spinning "roller' with sticky, compliant foam wrapped around to suck in any basketballs that are unfortunate enough to come it contact with said device.

The closest things to decisions we made today were eliminating about 95% of the possibilities for different types of collectors, elevators (a mechanism to bring the ball from ground level where the collector is up high to the launcher), and launchers. Tomorrow we still have to finalize decisions regarding those, as well as discuss our drive train.

8.1.12 Sunday Meeting

This morning I woke up to my mother saying, "Avery, maybe you should get up..." When I asked what time it was and she answered 10 (the time robotics was starting this morning) I amazed both of us with my speed. In the lab we decided upon a final game strategy. Personally I am very happy with where the team ended up. While our decision is far from the strategy that I initially envisioned, that is far from what is important. What I believe is important is the fact that the team has, with some time and effort, unanimously agreed on a game strategy that is (once again, subjective here) simple enough for the team to successfully build a robot that could potentially dominate. We decided on a robot that will have the ability to rapidly gather (foam) basketballs from the ground and fire them to the other side of the field, as well as have some significant thought put into balancing on the appropriate alliance bridge in the middle of the field.

Tonight's "homework" was to consider and sketch some different ideas/designs for a gathering mechanism and a firing mechanism. I skimmed through a book on the 2006 FRC game which in some aspects was similar to this year's and settled on a firing mechanism that was discussed today in the meeting as well. I sketched that up very quickly, but spent most of my time brainstorming the strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities with a system like that. I also put a few ideas on paper all together in a detail-free semi-comprehensive sketch of a robot chassis with a gathering mechanism roughed out.

Monday school starts and after school we have a meeting from around 1 until 6.

Kickoff

Well, today was the big day. We got up at 5am and trucked all the way down to St. Francis to discover the nature of this year's FRC. I am VERY excited about the game this year(Rebound Rumble). A derivative of basketball, I believe the 2012 competition will be an incredibly intense and difficult season for even the most seasoned veteran teams. It seems after 2 decades of hard work, FIRST wants to push us even harder!

Actual Kickoff went quite well, and the brainstorming session held in the 3189 RoboLab also went well for the most part. Tho good about today's meeting was that a LOT was said and the structure that was put in place by last year's Task Force did a great job of forcing the team to learn the rules and understand the game before we even started discussing possibilities for the season and robot. Unfortunately I feel some of the other work done by the Task Force is being partially ignored by the majority of the team. The conclusion made by the Task Force over last summer was that the greatest source to date of 3189's failure is our tendency to try to create a robot that is capable of doing everything on the "checklist" of tasks FRC gives us each year. The Task Force also concluded that the "solution" is to choose a select few functions for the robot to perform, and perform well. At the end of today's meeting the team was split with the majority leaning towards a multi-purpose robot: exactly what the Task Force recommended against. The final discussion will happen tomorrow morning when people are rested and less irritable. Time will tell what game strategy the team chooses.



Without watching the Game Animation (above) or reading the Manual, it is difficult to really understand how the game works. It is played on a 27ft by 54ft field, with 4 basketball hoops on each end of the field at 3 different heights. The MS Kinect sensor seems to be legal in virtually any use or configuration. From usage on the 'bot to as a controller, FIRST really wants to let team creativity rule all with this particular donation. Apart from the Kinect, the Kit seems to be pretty standard. It appears the included wheels have changed this year, and the First Choice program (used by teams to purchase additional parts with points allotted by FIRST) is back for a second year in what appears to be a much more streamlined version 2.0.

Tomorrow (Sunday) all-day meeting will be used to
     1) Finalize game strategy (was supposed to happen today).
     2) Inventory KoP (Kit of Parts) in order to ascertain whether a missing parts request must be sent in.
     3) Develop (Discuss, evolve and finalize) overall robot design