We started at 9, took a quick lunch break, most people hopped back to work right away and we worked right up until 4. Today was a needed and well executed work day. We got a lot done, but the repetition can be frustrating, and sense of progress is hard to discern.
However, we did celebrate a few achievments:
-The electrical team put together their semi-final design for the electrical panel/board. I say semi-final, because it is subject to change, depending on if the lift or other robot components need the used space. Anything beats last year in this department though. We all know how gross it got last year, throwing it together last minute. With multiple stacks and little planning, it won’t be hard to top. It looks good to me, take a peak:
They even have a few wires routed!
-Another thing to applaud: The lift can be seen in a raised position below. The lift drive is assembled, as well as the braking assembly. We just need the chain for the dual reduction and for raising part of the lift. Maybe this can be finished tomorrow (fingers crossed).
Much of the necessary Spectre roping is ready, the freshmen have stepped up to the task and powerhoused through the prepartation process. I really hope that all this work means we’ll see it running tomorrow.
-Milling the Inner gripper components to save weight was easily the most painful task today and I would like to give a shout out to Alex, the persistence and perseverance was amazing. I don’t think I could work on only two parts, on one machine all day. They certainly do look pretty!:
-The OI prototype should be pretty much done, I hope that programmers can get that set up with the practice bot. Tomorrow, I’ll show you some side-by-side snapshots of both the prototype and final concepts 
-We actually got some serious work done with the Popping mechanism, but ran into some unforseen problems.
The Raptor Claw (Acquring/Scoring assembly) is easily becoming the most resilient sub-assembly. With set-backs due to component requirements, shipping, having to remake parts and general struggles, I am not happy to point out yet another. Today, I pointed out a critical design flaw. Take a look at this Picture [Note: Inventor was taking forever to open on my laptop, so I used Paint, I was done before Inventor opened. Don't ask questions, it might not be pretty, but I think I painted the picture 
]
The way it’s currently mounted, the two fixed positions hold the braces, the braces can be pushed forward (so as to extend), however nothing keeps the pusher frame itself from flopping out! YIKES. This may be easily fixed with some sort of middle mounting location (which attaches both of the brackets together), but no matter what we do, a re-design is in order.
Besides the problems we run into, we got a lot done and have another full day ahead of us tomorrow. Still feeling positive about our situation, but we are running a fine line at the moment. This is our last week coming up and we have a lot to do!
P.S. I got complaints that my pictures were too big, better? I HOPE SO.
