Today we had a meeting that started at 9:30 am and was meant to go until noon but extended until 2 pm. This was a really cool extension because we actually got a lot of progress on the shooter part of the competition robot. Below you will find pictures of the frame for the left and right conveyor assembly before we put it together and after. As Navid once said, with our different parts and pieces, we have created for ourselves a sort of “Lego kit” which we are now assembling through the means of pop riveting. We have lots of pieces cut and detailed instructions to guide us as we build – which is actually pretty nifty.
Some other highlights of today were that we placed the panels along the “esophagus” of the competition robot and that one of our air pop rivet guns broke on us. It stopped chopping off the rod that sticks out the head of the pop rivet for the gun to clamp down on. We are now down to one fast pop rivet gun so Coach said he would buy one sometime soon. As for the riveting we did, one of the pictures indicates how we used bigger heads on the ends of the metal connectors to support more stress from the panels bending along the ends. It was exciting to work with these panels; it impresses me how resistant they actually are.
Though I am not sure what other sub-teams did for today, I know that the programmers were busy at work and that our small crowd of skunks was also spread out in the gym. Our rollers are being completed in the shop and soon we will be mounting our nice looking conveyor assembly (or as we lovingly call it, the esophagus) onto the robot . The pictures here are us testing that our parts actually fit well with the drive base. On a bit of a side note, I think we are pretty happy with our drive base this year since it is about 5 lbs. lighter than last year’s. Also, I would like say a quick thank you to Aiden for taking the pictures.
Back to the story, as far as this weekend as a whole, we had work on the field and both the practice and competition robots. Yesterday we mounted the pneumatic cylinders on the practice drive base and the valve assembly was well…assembled. The practice drive base and competition one were pretty close to each other yesterday, though you would be surprised by how quickly things change in the shop. Its fun to walk in and see the progress with the robot.
Well, thanks for sticking around!
Camila
