Day 5. Jan 11, 2017

Everybody was back to work today from the rockets demo so we got a full days worth of work in.

  1. The programming team got all of the code for the shooter and drivetrain finalized
    1. Had issues connecting to load the code to the rio
      1. Figured out the problem was in eclipse
      2. When you install JDK, JRE and Eclipse, eclipse make sure to change the default JDK to what it says in this image. The initial installation puts the JRE folder here instead. CODE WILL NOT DEPLOY if you do not do this.
      3. After doing this everything seemed to work fine. Now to load the code tomorrow and try driving.
  2. Electrical team worked mostly on helping the programming team
    1. 4 more talons were wired up
    2. The talons were renumbered to have drivetrain 1-4 and shooter 5-8
    3. The electronics were put on the prototype drivetrain
  3. Drive train prototype was completed and is waiting programming for testing
    1. 25 chain break was not available to since the 12tooth 35 sprockets came in those were installed instead
    2. Currently testing out 4 traction and 2 omni setup (with back and forward interchangeable)
  4. Shooter prototype team finished wiring and chaining the gearboxes
    1. Next step is to cut the wood to the right height (to be able to test the 2ft as well as the 3 ft versions)
    2. It will be put on the drivetrain to get connected to the same electronics
    3. The string was added to keep the hood from falling back for the shooter tests in hopes of keeping the compression the same.
  5. The gear intake/mechanism was prototyped today
    1. A passive gear holder was tested for basic ability to catch a gear sliding from 2ft.
    2. It seemed to work fine, now the next stage is to make one we can test with the deposit of the gear onto the spring
  6. The CAD team finished up the prototype shooter CAD
    1. They also started thinking about and got the basic dimensions of the real size drivetrain for this years game CADded up.
    2. They added bumpers as well
    3. Next step is to put the wheels and decide where we will put the gearboxes and such
    4. Before that though we need to sketch out the rest of the robot to see where we have space and where everything else will go
  7.  Finally, some of the chairmans team met to discuss ideas for the paper due Feb 9th
    1. Starting point is to get all of the information for the last 2 years of our existence
    2. This will be recorded and we will start getting ideas for paper topics from there
    3. Created an idea for the theme of the paper
    4. We also created a survey for the team members to fill out
      1. Quotes from this could be used in the paper
      2. This information can also be included in some way in the chairmans video

Day 4. Jan 10, 2017

One more day down!

Some of our students went to the Rockets game to demo our last years creation and shoot some baskets with it:

The others stayed at the lab and made some more progress on the prototypes.

  1. The programming team finished code yesterday for the prototype drive train.
    1. Spent most of the day trying to use the new FRC Radio Configuration utility
    2. In the end used the old one to configure the prototype electrical system.
      1. Still need to figure out why 2017 tool does not work (firmware?)
      2. Set the roboRIO to 1114 and the radio to the same
      3. Renamed the CANTalons to 1-4 for the drive train
  2. The drivetrain team finished building the drive train and attaching all of the wheels and sprokets to the proto drive.
    1. The current plan is to use 25 chain for the prototype but we did not find our 25 chain break so we will need to get one before tomorrow to continue and finish up chaining the drive.
  3.  The shooter team finished up the prototype and at the end of the meeting we even tested it using a drill
    1. The shooter prototype needs to now be chained to the motors that are attached at the bottom of the wood panels
      1. After this is done we can truly test the shooter with different speeds by changing the sprockets between the wheels and gearbox and also testing different wheels (currently Andymark Pneumatic wheels)
  4. The intake team started their prototype by creating a carcass on which to put pulleys with polycord. They will also add a backing to this, so that the ball will be between the polycord and the back wall (lexan)
    1. Tomorrow we will print the pulleys for the polycord and get the intake running with a drill to see if polycord is good enough to pick up the fuel.

       

  5. Last thing that we did was create a Gantt chart to keep track of our progress and whether we are on track. This contains our subteams as well as CAD and Electrical to make sure everyone has a schedule to follow and so that we can finish both our robots this season as we are only allowed to stay at the school until 7pm.

Day 3. Jan 9, 2017

Sundays are our days off so its day 3 now.

Today was extremely productive. Here are some of the things we worked on:

  1. Prototype Drive Train
    1. Took last years prototype west coast and started adding back WCP VersaBlocks and Gearbox and wheels.
    2. For now it is a 6 wheel drive train and we want to try and change the orientation of the wheels (omni vs traction) to see what will work best, yet still give us the ability to not be pushed around.
  2. Shooter Prototype
    1. To see how the balls fly we decided to make a quick shooter prototype
    2. For now we are using pneumatic wheels (as we have a lot from last year and they grip well)
    3. We are hooking up some gearboxes that we found that we will use chain to get to the speed we want.
    4. The holes on the top are to get different positions of the wheels with respect to a hood (to be mounted)
  3. The CAD team created the prototype drivetrain in Solidworks to hone their skills and to make sure everything fits
  4. The electrical team did a fantastic job at getting the electronics quickly wired up and ready for the prototype drive train.
    1. Started installing all of the FRC Updates to format the RoboRIO and get the Talons assigned.
  5. Programming team wrote some simple code to control the 4 motor West Coast drive train.
    1. All FRC software updated to 2017, and plugins as well.
    2. Programming team started investigating changes in the 2017 version of the WPILib.

 

 

Day 1. Jan 7, 2017

Kickoff Day!

We went to Katy STEAM Center for kickoff and to pick up our kit of parts.

 

After coming back we started to go through the rulebook and making sure that all of the students know what the game entails.

We also started to brainstorm ideas for the different subsystems of the robot:

  • Drivetrain
  • Shooter
  • Intake
  • Gear collector/mechanism
  • Hanging mechanism

The team was divided into 2 and each group came up with their priorities for the robot:

We then went through the priorities together as a team to finalize and combine our list. The students also put their names under what group they want to be part of:

Day 44. Feb 21, 2016

Very big day today! The Awtybots went to Katy ISD STEM Lab to have a full practice field to test both of our robots. Thank you to FRC Team 624 – CRyptonite for letting us use their field.

Many things to fix like loose electronics and loose bearings.

Driving

Field_check

Compbot

 

 

 

 

Low_bar

Practicebot

 

Broken_intake

We went out to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner too!

 

Dinner

Day 43. Feb 20, 2016

Today we finished labeling the motors and we correctly defined the talons in the code

Compbot_wiring

We also tested the competition robot a lot while having other teams over at our lab

Compbot

And we shot scenes for both our reveal video and Chairman’s video.

Filming

Day 42. Feb 19, 2016

Objectives for the day: Install the electronics on the final robot, set up the pneumatic system on the practice robot, and code code code.

What we did today:

I. We labeled our talons to match the PD board numbers. We also wired everything up , but we still need to work on the wench system and have the motors connected. Otherwise all the electronics are properly Velcro-ed to the final robot.

Finalbot_electronics

II. The pneumatic system on the practice robot is on its way to being assembled…

Practicebot_pneumatics

III. The code for the shooter is running properly and it seems to be very consistent.

Day 41. Feb 18, 2016

A lot of work was done on:

  1. Final robot intake (some parts were remade and the bracing is a lot better now)
  2. Drivetrain (all of the chain and wheels and sprockets are ready to put on, bearings are in the drive)
  3. Electronics (all of the electronics were neatly done and look/work amazing for now!)

IMG_20160218_224718

The electronics are all done and are neat with Weidmuller connectors and andersons on everything. This helps with cleanliness of the wires.

Now just to put it on the final robot and organize/ziptie wires.

 

We did also get our aluminum wheels but most likely will not have time or weight (they are 2 times heavier) to use them. But hey fun offseason project to anodize them and put them on the robot!

IMG_20160218_161829

 

Day 40. Feb 17, 2016

Final robot starting to come together. For some reason no pictures of the final robot being assembled… Will have to fix that but in the meantime here is out todo list for the next couple days. (this does not include programming, they have a lot of work)

IMG_20160217_161144

Day 39. Feb 16, 2016

We finally got all of the tape measures and motors on the practice robot. These will be used to deposit a hook that we will use to winch ourselves up onto the bar.

IMG_20160216_002649

We also got our anodized parts and put them together without any fasteners to see how it all will fit. We found out we are about 1/4 inch over our perimeter dimension. The reason is that some of the bends stick out more than others (yay doing everything by hand!). So we just got a dremel and had to dremel the sides off a little to get back in the 120 inch perimeter.

IMG_20160216_201926