Week 4: Build Season Progress
We have just wrapped up week 4 of build season. With the grade 11s back from the outdoor education trip we made lots of progress towards finishing the robot! The programming team created our official 2019 robot code project. We populated it with base code that provides human operated functionality such as driving and manually operating the arm. We also wrote a program that uses the gyroscope sensor to let the robot maintain a pre-determined heading. In the coming weeks we will continue to improve these programs by adding vision systems and tweaking the current code to increase the autonomy of the robot for more consistency during matches. In media, we continue to collect clips that will be used in our Chairman’s video. The video will highlight the diversity of our team and our involvement in international outreach as a rookie team. As well, our student-run Instagram page continues to provide updates on the team and our progress. You can follow us @frcteam7558 to see these updates or go to instagram.com/frcteam7558.
In Mechanical we started the week by designing a mechanism to pick up hatch panels. Throughout the week the design was altered until we settled on a mechanism that uses suction cups. After calculating the force required to get our robot to climb to level 3, we were able to finalize our endgame plan. We await the arrival of two pistons that will deliver a combined force of 900 pounds to lift our robot. The endgame mechanism will be CADed by Monday to send to the manufacturer.
The highlight of the week was our self-designed robot parts arriving from our manufacturer on Thursday; precisely cut using a machine of which only 6 exist in Canada. The parts arrived painted a glossy black. We began assembling right away. The entire team breathed a sigh of relief when the gear boxes, belts, wheels, and rivets all fit nicely according to the design. We had a blast deburring countless bearing holes! On Saturday, we finished assembling the current designs and we are ready to make alterations as we see fit. The parts for the robot cart also arrived and we assembled them on Thursday. The cart is painted in our team colours – red, white and black.