Driver Practice and Machining

Machining

Students worked on manufacturing the official robot stands.  They used the metal pieces from the previous robot stand, but cut those pieces to length using the horizontal bandsaw.  They also drilled new holes into the metal with the mill.

Meanwhile, Cory created wheels on the CNC.

Driver Practice

Abhi and Chris (this year’s primary driver and operator) had a bit of practice time today.  They drove around the field, picked up frisbees, indexed them into the shooter, and shot them.  Currently, there is still an issue with multiple frisbees stacking in the back of the conveyor, even with the horizonal cross bar.

Robot Updates

The team attempted to replace the conveyor CIM motor with a VEXpro planetary gearbox (4:1) to reduce the robot’s overall weight.  However, during extensive driver practice, the gearbox started emitting smoke.  Students promptly removed the planetary gearbox and replaced it back with the CIM motor.

Elsewhere, the robot was re-weighed on the digital scale with all the changes so far.  However, the robot is still around 7 pounds overweight (counting the hanger, hooks, and polycarbonate side plates).

Programming

The programmers re-assigned and re-mapped certain buttons on the operator’s side of the control board.  The right four buttons are now going to be shooter speed & angle presets (back/front of pyramid, full/low speed).  The two buttons to the left of those will be the shoot button and the manual shooter angle button.  In addition, the programmers cleaned up the code and made it comply with the style guide.

Action Items

• Fix intake

Lab closing time for the night was super late.