Some of the ongoing projects and activities are:

1) Year End Report
-Google
-Western Digital
2) Chronograph Speed Sensor
-Measures the speed of balls; can be used for shooter testing
3) Drivetrain Design
4) Key Tracker
-Make improvements
-Implement a line follower as a side project
5) Auto Aim Improvements
6) 2CAN Reliability
7) Control System Improvemnts
-Drivetrain
8) IMU
-Move I²C communications to BeagleBoard
-Auto-balancing
9) Second Workstation
-Specify parts
-Assemble
10) GibbsCAM
-CNC wheels
-Write down questions
11) Local Machine Shop Sponsor
-Plasma cutting
-Laser cutting
-Water jetting
-Power cutting
12) Prony Brake
13) Constant Force Spring Motor
14) Broach Press
15) Team Schedule for Build Season
16) Build Season Report: What Worked and What Didn’t
-Annual report
-Weekly report on schedule/progress
17) BotBall
18) Demos
-Sponsors
-Middle schools
19) Physics Turntable
20) Website Improvements
-Add content
-Technical improvements
21) High Altitude Balloon
22) CD Bot
23) Battery Tester
24) Because Robots!
25) Ideas on How to Make the Club More Fun
-Remote controlled cars

If you have any more ideas, come in and share them with us!

We have a ton to do before Silicon Valley Regional, starting next Thursday, March 18. We have a good robot, but some parts still require tuning and we can always improve our performance. We also really need to practice driving, and to do that we have to reassemble the practice robot!

If you’d like to help out please put your name down on the following spreadsheet and select the dates that you’d be available. (We won’t ask you to come on every day that you check–we just need to coordinate people’s schedules.)

https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/iceboundflame.com/viewform?formkey=dDBnTTVHYmVoTkFEWmJUWDdJRWF0ZUE6MA

Tasks that need to be done:

• Putting on wheels
• Experiment with roller for better ball control
  • Install the roller on the practice robot.
  • We’re thinking of switching out the roller for a foam noodle
  • Need to calculate the correct speeds for the roller based on the robot’s motion.
• Get room 608 for practice
• Machine parts and assembling a new lift using updated design
• Install the kicker on the practice robot.
• Experimenting with kicker damping to protect from “dry firing”
• Test autonomous mode
• Install proximity sensor to detect the ball, or design a new ball detection sensor.

It’s a lot of work for a week and a half, but if we concentrate our efforts on working efficiently, I really think we can do this. This means that each day at the garage, we should go in with a plan to accomplish one of these tasks, and finish the night at a reasonable hour.

Let’s go win SVR!

• movable roller is ideal
  • prevents too much force being applied on the roller when the robot drives over the ball
  • space issue, there may not be enough room
  • maybe have the motor on top of the roller, and the pivot point of the roller will not obstruct a kicker
    • might limit how much the roller can move up and down
• how to reliably roll the ball towards the center of the robot
  • at a shallow angle from the forward plane, the ball doesn’t want to go towards the center

Kicker

• kicker size
  • smaller, compact kicker is better because the force is transfered better
  • a larger kicker would allow you to shoot the ball without having to position it in the middle
    • will need reinforcing structure to prevent the sides from flexing
• again, room conflict with the roller
• torsion spring fixation
  • if attached to either kicker or to frame, then we’ll need a guide to prevent the torsion spring from turning out of place
  • if fixed to both the kicker and the frame, then we will need a torsion spring that is more than 90 degrees
  • different locking system to hold a cocked kicker in place
    • implement a spider locking system, which is a set of teeth on the kicker leg, and the shaft, and the once the teeth pushes the kicker to the cocked position, the teeth on the shaft retracts
    • trigger can either be a ratchet or teeth that locks on the base of the kicker
    • low friction surface on the ratchet

Alternate Winch

• telescopic design based on that of Howler (2008 robot)
  • better thought out, easier to design due to previous experience
• maybe implement a spring loaded stage similar to the working of a magic cane

Software & electronics

• have better layout for the wires
• start with the programming soon
• Mr. Yang (Annie’s dad) will help with this
• Use proximity sensor to detect the balls
• Shooting the ball accurately at long range may be hard
  • passing the balls to the near field may be good enough
• We might use a vision camera for a cockpit view
  • can be used after autonomous mode to provide aim assist

Sensor inventory

• Encoder on gearbox
• Hall-effect sensor for speed
• Camera
• Ultrasonic
• Infa-red
• Gyro

Robot arm design

• the arm raises sideways, and reaches up to 90 inches
  • if the arm isn’t perpendicular, then the total length of the arm may extend beyond 90 inches to achieve that height
    • may not pass safety inspection
• the hook accounts for some of the height of the arm
• robot must be right next to the tower to grab on
  • alternatively, the arm may swing beyond vertical
• folding arm vs. telescopic arm
• have a cable on the opposite side of the arm that also pulls the robot up
  • prevents the torque from having too much stress on the arm base
  • expose the smooth side of the robot to rub against the platform if necessary
• have a corkscrew that grabs onto the tower

Movable ball-controlling roller?

• acts as a tensioner
  • prevents the roller from applying too much force on the ball, and prevent driving over it
• wooden mockup shows that there is very little room for the roller, so an adjustable roller will be difficult to implement
  • the kicker shouldn’t hit the roller
  • a spacer that prevents the kicker from following its motion through
  • a kicker that can vary the amount of force that it provides

Kicker

• doesn’t necessarily have to hit the ball directly
  • spring loaded contraption hits a hammer that transfer the force to the ball
  • may be more flexible

Motor inventory

• CIM – 5
• Fischer-Price – 2
• Window Motor – 2L, 2R
• RS555 (30W) – 1
• RS??? – 1

Motor application (subject to change)

• Drive train – 2 CIM
• Winch – 1 CIM
• Righting & arm – 1 CIM
• Front roller – 1 RS
• Kicker – probably 1 CIM
• Kicker charger – probably 1 RS
• Climber – 1 RS or 1 Fischer-Price

No design meeting today but time to go on Youtube. Teams started posting simple tests and Chief Delphi is buzzing with activity. Plenty of new threads and posts J. Everyone is thinking and waiting for tomorrows design meeting. Mr. G brought in a hammer today and we tried hitting the ball in different heights. We are going to post the video on Youtube for other teams to see as well. We were able to make some conclusions regarding where to hit the ball (low, center, or high) Spin is important, but not as much as getting airborne.

Officer meeting and then back home to read more threads on effective drive trains. Some people are suggesting a robot with 8 small wheels. I don’t understand why, but I’ll bring it up at the meeting tomorrow and see if someone can explain it to me. Hopefully we’ll take 6-8 people to Mr. Hass’s house and build this weekend. We want to get the Tower and platform does. Then all that remains is the goal (we may not build one. Don’t know yet).

-Chinmay

Refer to Mr. Xie’s spreadsheet for details. Today was spent largely clarifying rules and discussing strategies. We haven’t considered how to do many of the tasks because we are still largely focused on deciding which tasks we care about. Random idea of having a swinging weight to help give us momentum but not practical because a large weight and moment are needed. Annotated agenda:

1. Decision on required functionalities of this robot (still no real conclusions

2. Review previous designs of our robots and other team robots for the same or similar functionalities (04 Hang em’ High)

3. Understand and update rules (worked a lot with the subtleties of the rules. No updates b/c Q and A not up yet. )

4. List questions or issues related to the functionalities.  Resolving these questions and issues will lay out our design requirements.  Some prototyping tasks may emerge. (building a kicker, possibly a vacuum? take it off 08?) Conceptual design will possibly be discussed at the same time. (not here yet)

Questions to answer as soon as we can are…

- What is the initial speed for a ball to go over one bump or two bumps assuming a ball roll forward without rolling friction resistance.  (***can’t ever really roll ball over 2 bumps*** if it’s going to fast, will get airborne off the top of ramp. Topspin helps)

- Design Issue:  Given the restriction of that a ball is only allowed to get into a robot frame 3 inches, what is the best way/design controlling a ball in our robot possession, not arbitrarily bump a ball away?  How can a robot get possession of a ball if the ball touches boundary/wall? (does it need to be in possession ever? Is simply kicking away such a bad idea?)

- For going over a bump, what is min. robot bottom clearance to the floor? What is max. height of the center of gravity before tipping (assuming the center of gravity is along the vertical center line of a robot)?

- For hanging robot, if elevating speed is 1 m/s and total robot weight is 150 lb (68 kg), what is power required to do that?

-Autonomous mode will be an afterthought not of utmost importance.

-Chinmay

Two meetings today. One was at David’s house for software people to get all the software installed and functional. The other meeting was arranged by John and I to get a field element made. We scouted out parts at the garage and found the supplies we needed to make the bump in the center of the field. We worked from 2:00 till 8:00 and go the entire thing done.  Some of the by-products were getting the table saw to the garage, and also contacting Mr. Hass about possibly building at his house (next weekend). We build the bump with Minimal outside help with Karena’s mom simply supervising while we did the measurements, cutting, and assembling.

Both the Software and Build meetings went well. The software group got everything installed and we finished building the bump. We’ll do tests with it tomorrow to see how it affects the ball’s movement. It seems a LOT bigger in person than it did in the videos. This seems like a much harder task. I’m glad we built it because it emphasizes how significant the 45 degree angle really is. Look forward to kicking balls at it. (need to pump them up)

-Chinmay

Today was kickoff, the long awaited event for our entire team. WE received the game and started discussing online immediately. I had to leave early to go and get soccer balls so we could experiment with them at the meeting in the afternoon. We had a great turnout (over 40 people) for or kickoff meeting. Lots of familiar faces of mentors who we haven’t seen in half a year were present, and we had a great time analyzing the game and game rules. Some key points

-Lower score than previous years and lots of double penalties definitely avoid.

-Many different tasks (driving over bumps, shooting, passing over 1 or 2 bumps, possessing, hanging, providing bars, hanging from other teams bars.

-Field elements. Complex field. What is on it?

We arranged times for meetings to build field elements (which are most important?) and get the software installed on Sunday, as well as design meetings throughout next week.

-Chinmay