The Raptor Rises

Tonight there was a lot going on, a lot of accomplishments to speak of and expectations/deadlines which are coming up.

We had a parent meeting tonight, obviously I can’t speak much to that. However, I do feel bad for the freshmen parents, some of them weren’t entirely sure about the specifics on finance and it’s not cheap to be on the team. I’m sure things will work out, but it’s less than two weeks until ship and that’s also when the money is due

On a much happier note, we fixed the main mechanical problems with the “Bunny Hook”.

STOP, Let’s hold on for a second. That was the last time you will hear it called as such. It is done with it’s old name. It has NEVER been the “Praying Mantis”. It will not be remembered as anything else. However we do have the final mechanism name:

–++==THE RAPTOR CLAW==++–

Above are the two main reasons it got it’s name. Also, I have been told and keep getting told that the previous name, which we shall not speak of, was a little wimpy and not vicious. So there you have it. Is it deathly, creepy and manly enough for you? Hope you are happy with this non-pretty and cute/cuddly name…

Other changes to speak of. Let’s see… the field is even further along. I don’t remember if I told you but both alliance stations now have racks and the field team is working on re-wiring the chicken-wire protection. Also, two more towers are on their way. Tomorrow they will be putting down official tape, so the programmers can test their line tracking.

Speaking of programmers, they got the 6WD fixed. They also changed the output of the motors from power to speed, meaning that we have a consistent and constant output for a specific joystick input. I attached a video url from tonight with it driving around in 2nd gear. It’s scary enough as it is and certainly hard to control. It’s not even at the max speed for this practice bot and will only be faster with super shifters!

The Lift is the primary focus in the shop right now, a lot was accomplished in that respect tonight, and it should be ready by Thursday. Hopefully we can have the lift and drive mounted together this weekend and driving!

We have had some setbacks, but our schedule is still fine as long as we keep at this pace and cross our fingers we don’t have any more hindrances!

Fixing the Old & Welcoming the New!

If you have amazing Sherlock Holmes-like logical deducting skills, by looking at this picture, you may be able to guess at why Jordan appears sad. If you took it at face value (get it, it’s eating his face!), you’d probably be right too. However, I’m going to describe his sadness and relate this picture to the mood and results of tonight.

Deduction Point 1) Yes, the Bunny Hook appears to have come to life! It’s now a some-what working system. Which brings me to my point:  it’s missing a key item or two. The pneumatic cylinders! Unfortunately we ordered the wrong size cylinders and the Bunny Hook’s progress may be delayed a week. This is scary as we have only 14 days left to ship!

Deduction Point 2) If you look at the reflection coming off the lower part of the metal frame, you might notice that insanely bright and Windows 7-ish color. That’s because it is! This picture was taken next to the CAD machines which went unused tonight. All present CAD members were in the shop hard at work on some project or another. That is also somewhat nerve-wracking, but we need the labor.

WHICH brings me to my next big topic. Remember how the lift had some major functioning issues? Well, Ken dropped off the frames for weldment this morning and picked them up on the way to the meeting. Most of the people in the shop were working on bringing this back up to speed, since the new weldments arrived.

Others were working on preparing our second drive base, by adding chain, sprockets, wheel assemblies and chain tensioners.

The Creative Resources team (a.k.a. P.R.) hasn’t recieved a major part in the blog yet, so I inquired as to their status and got the following quote:

“A lot of edits are done, pages are mostly updated. We are coming close to switching over to divs tables. The switch will make the pages smaller and quicker to load. Check out the journal pages (http://ahsrobotics.us/journal/index.html) to get a taste at the new format and minor style change.” -Roxy

Well, I have a lot of photos from this evening which may interest you. I shall saturate tomorrow’s post with them as this post was lacking in that respect. I also have on my agenda that I should inform you more about what the programmers are up to and how the prototype OI (Operator Interface) and CAD model of the OI is coming. Stay tuned!