Tuesday February 19-- LAST DAY!

Today is the very last day of this year's FRC build season.  We are all very sad, very happy, very relieved, and very STRESSED at the same time.

We worked in the garage literally all day to finish the robot.  The intake still had a lot of problems, and the gearboxes still hadn't been mounted yet!  To add to all that, the electrical board that we were provided didn't fit on the robot after all.....

There was a lot of tweaking, and finally, we decided that the intake wasn't really necessary.  It didn't work too well anyway, and might cause problems.  We used the intake to mount electrical components instead.  Since the electrical problem was pretty severe and last-minute, we decided to just quickly mount the components with zip ties, and take care of the rest when we get to Sacramento.  Then we took a picture of the robot and put it in a plastic bag.  We are hoping for the best when we get to Sacramento!

Overall, this was a fun year.  Even though we faced a lot of problems, the only thing that matters is that we learned as much as we could, had fun, and grew closer together as a team and family!

Monday, February 18

Today, the gearboxes finally were delivered to us after getting lost twice in the mail!  Now we are cramming to assemble them and mount them onto the robot.  Also, some of the electrical components were attached and wired up.  There is only one more day left of FRC!

Sunday, February 17

Today was the third-to-the-last day of FRC.  We were were working as quickly and efficiently as we could so that we would be able to finish on time for shipping day.  We witnessed some problems with the intake, because we didn't have enough contact with the frisbee in the area where it would be picked up by the conveyor and dropped into the shooter.  Instead, the frisbee was getting stuck by the bottom of the intake.

The other half of the team went to Pearl Ridge Mall for a Bristlebot demonstration.

Saturday, February 16

Today, we finished the shooter! It works very well and was mounted onto the robot. Some work was done on the essay also. The spacers on the intake was finished.

Friday, February 15

More work was done on the intake, shooter and website! On the shooter, more tweaking was done on the chains and wheels, in the end someone had to retrieve more shafts for the wheels. On the intake, duct tape was applied to the spacers and latex tubing was added to the intake rollers. On the website, some things were added to the gallery but it doesn't appear for an unknown reason. Cammy started the Chairman's Essay, it is welcome to be edited by any team member, the document can be sent on google docs.

Thursday, February 14

Today in robotics, we worked really hard on trying to get the intake and conveyor to work.  We had a little bit of minor difficulties, but they were eventually solved.  The shooter also needs a lot of work... we currently have a shaft stuck in one of the wheels, and are trying to get it out somehow.  It also has some problems with the chain lengths.  It's either too loose or too tight.  We are also figuring out how to mount our climbing mechanism, since we realized that there is a chain in the way that could get damaged by the bar when we start climbing, so we tried attaching an angle liner and some shafts to protect the chain from damage.

Wednesday, February 13

Today, we did work on the intake, shooter, bumpers and website. With the shooter, we were fixing the chain and tweaking. With the intake, rollers were put on with surgical tubing. We put metal pieces on the bumpers. We looked at the website a lot today! Considering making major changes in appearance. Let's hope that goes well.

Tuesday, February 12

Today, there was no "mechanical team" or "electrical team." We all worked together on the same thing.

It was a pretty busy day, especially because this is the last week of the build season.  We only have seven days left.  We started by working on finishing up the shooter.  It had some problems with the chain, but we were able to fix that.  We tested the shooter, and it was functional.

The second thing we needed to do was to find a way to attach the bumpers to the robot frame.  We had some trouble, since the robot is designed really close to the ground this year, and we also needed to avoid covering the intake.  However, we have a slight idea of how we would do this and started cutting out pieces of metal to attach to the bumpers.

We also continued to fix up the intake and the conveyor.

Monday, February 11

Today, we all worked really hard on the robot.  Since this is the last week of the build season, we really need to hurry up and finish!  Today was spent mostly making things for the intake, such as installing the piece of polycarb and making little plastic "teeth" that will help with the frisbee's ascent up the conveyor.  We are almost finished!

Meanwhile, the electrical team worked on merging the rectangular target program in with the rest of the image proccessing on our main LabView project.  We copied and pasted the whole thing, and it seemed to work when we tested it.  Then we went to go help the mechanical team as much as possible.

Sunday, February 10th

Today, both the mechanical and electrical team worked together to make bumpers. We got the bumpers completed today- both the blue and red sets. We still need to add the metal pieces for attaching them, and then we are all set! We also continued to work on the intake rollers for picking up frisbees.

Saturday, Feburary 9th

Today was a busy day- the team members had to go to three different places. First of all, some people went to demonstrate Bristlebots at the KCC science fair. Along with bristlebots, we also brought two VEX robots, and our 2012 award-winning robot named Daedalus. We taught many kids how to build bristlebots, and when we brought out the VEX robots to drive, they got really excited and crowded all around, each asking for a turn with the controller. Second of all, some people stayed at the garage and started to make bumpers for our new robot- which will be hopefully completed soon. The last group of people went to mill out some shafts at Sacred Hearts, and then went to UH to weld a few pieces together.

Friday, February 8th

The mechanical team bot the climber pieces finished and packed up to be welded. The intake was being adjusted, rollers being replaced. The electrical team worked on datalist(sp?) for KCC on Saturday. Research was also done on other teams going to Sacramento, checking out their website and looking at their achievements.

Thursday, February 7

Today, the mechanical team worked on the intake system, installed rollers and attached the poly cord.  They also continued working on the CAD design for the climbing mechanism.  We are trying to have the whole robot completed by Saturday.  The final construction has begun!

The electrical team continued to work on modifying the old program.  We were mostly trying to get the tank drive to work on the simulator, but had some trouble with the directions of the motors.  After hours of switching axis and polarity to different combinations, the robot still spun in circles when we told it to go forward and vice[-versa.  We think it could be a problem with the simulator.

Wednesday, February 6th

Today, the mechanical team worked on the intake, shooter and the arm. On the intake, the rollers were being added. Time was also spent on sauteing tubing together for the intake. On the shooter, we are adding chains. The arm was being worked on in CAD and is still in progress. The electrical team was fixing some errors in the program, working some things out. The main website is also being played around with, a slide show added on the homepage of the main website with some pictures to make it look more attractive. Some people started looking at other team's websites and comparing it to the main website to see what should be added.

Tuesday, February 5

Today, the mechanical team worked on finishing the rollers for the conveyor belt, and installing the intake rollers.  ZJ also went up to Sacred Hearts Academy for a while to mill out the shafts for the shooter.  The CAD design for the climber is currently being worked on.

The electrical team was also successful with programming the potentiometer to show angle instead of voltage.  We did this by simply multiplying the voltage by 50. We also tidied up our area-- it was pretty messy before.  Now we finally have space to work! Then we started trying to correctly calibrate the camera, but it was too dark so we decided to do that some other time when we have access to the gym.  Our goal for the next few days is to look over the previous programs and try to figure them out and put them together to make the final program for the robot.

Monday, February 4

Today, the mechanical team started making PVC rollers for the intake and the conveyor.  They also worked on making the CAD design for the climber.

The electrical team was finally able to successfully program the potentiometer to display the voltage on the front panel! Now we are figuring out how to convert the voltage into an angle so that it can be used for the shooter.

Saturday- February 2

Today in robotics, the mechanical team went off to U.H. to weld the shooter together.  We didn't see them much... but hopefully it came out great!

Meanwhile back in the pretty-much-empty garage, the electrical team had their own business to do.  We worked together to figure out the best way to put all of the electrical components onto the pieces of PVC that we were given to work with, and we were successful with it.  We also started cutting, stripping, and crimping wires for the fans on the talons.

Friday, February 1

Today, the mechanical team started learning how to use pneumatics. They also started making holes in polycarb for the shooter, cutting more metal for the shooter and started preparing the robot for welding.

The electrical/programming team did more research today on programming the potentiometer and analog inputs. Later on, they started trying to use the potentiometer on the practice bot. More work was done on the website, attempting to fix the image on the main website and editing the calendar.

Thursday, January 31

Today, the mechanical team worked on finalizing the CAD design for the shooter and trying to finish cutting the metal parts for it so that it can be welded together on Saturday.

The electrical and programming team spent most of the time discussing ways to arrange the electrical components on the space that we were given. We will shortly be starting to try and program a VEX potentiometer using LabView.

*Please note that the date and time stated above is way off...