Progress

Things really came together Sunday. I missed out Saturday and some work was done to fix up the frame for competition and mount the motors. Sunday we fixed up the wheel spacers, finished mounting the motors, built and mounted a chain tensioner, started fitting the chain to length, built out the platform for mounting electronics and battery, worked on the belt system, and worked on coding to control all the stuff. Basically we got a ton of stuff done and, I think, we'll have a robot running around picking up balls by the end of the week.


FIRST 2009: [Lunacy! | Five Week Flurry | Under Pressure | Away | Progress | More Progress | Done Building! | FRC Regional 2009 ]

Away

We spent some time last night working more on the chassis to figure out the layout of the ball pickup, motors, electronics and so on. We're getting closer. The ball pickup seems promising. The students did a great job on everything and had lots of smart ideas.

We're still trying to arrive at a final design and hopefully will get there soon. We have a tendency to make big changes from session to session because we can't all attend every session and because we have some communication challenges that makes it difficult to maintain continuity of design across build sessions.

Hopefully the team will work something out tonight and Saturday.

I am indisposed until Sunday, and am being called away to Orlando by work next week. So my contributions will be pretty limited for awhile. I think the pressure will start to get pretty high by the time I get back.


FIRST 2009: [Lunacy! | Five Week Flurry | Under Pressure | Away | Progress | More Progress | Done Building! | FRC Regional 2009 ]

Under Pressure

I don't know. Team 443 has only 13 sessions left, about 50-60 hours. I missed out on a few last weekend as I had family obligations. Unless a miracle happened tonight (I was in class so couldn't attend) we don't have a complete chassis frame. And we don't even have the parts to make a chassis frame.

I feel like we should be a lot farther along. I think we could be more communicative and more cohesive in our efforts. I just hope we can finalize most of the chassis frame by the end of the weekend, along with having a suitable mockup of the ball harvester mechanism. If we can do that, we might have a chance, here. Hm.



FIRST 2009: [Lunacy! | Five Week Flurry | Under Pressure | Away | Progress | More Progress | Done Building! | FRC Regional 2009 ]

Five Week Flurry

Five weeks left, and Sunday saw a flurry of activity on a number of areas by FIRST FRC Team 443. In one corner the team worked on the controller and programming toolchain. We had another team building a mockup trailer while learning about basic woodworking. Another group was designing the moon rock collection systems.

Our prototype robot, Gwen-a-gear needed a controller transplant so several students learned how to use an end mill while working on a lexan controller mounting platform to bolt onto the chassis which already has the moon wheels installed.

A couple of the students worked on decomposing the work into a work breakdown structure (WBS), plan, and rough schedule to help the entire team stay focused.


FIRST 2009: [Lunacy! | Five Week Flurry | Under Pressure | Away | Progress | More Progress | Done Building! | FRC Regional 2009 ]

Lunacy!

Lunacy is the FIRST Robotics Challenge 2009 game that was unveiled at the kickoff this morning. Many of us on team 443 were able to make the kickoff presentation in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science IMAX theatre. Here's the game animation.



We got our parts kit, did our inventory, now it's time to think about strategy...


FIRST 2009: [Lunacy! | Five Week Flurry | Under Pressure | Away | Progress | More Progress | Done Building! | FRC Regional 2009 ]

Happy New Year!

Happy new year to you!!

We're just two days away from the Tech Challenge Kickoff! Can't wait to find out what this year's contest is all about!