Team Three/Journal

Revision as of 16:51, 3 February 2012

Day 1 - 1/09 First day in the lab!! We now know where it is...spent a fair amount of time on the pegbot since none of us really knew what we were doing at first. Staff was very helpful. Vamsi taught the rest of us how to wire a breadboard. Blew 3 fuses because test wires (for reading voltage) were too close together, causing leads to touch. Manufacturing of pegbot was rather simple once we got tools - had to shave off sides to make room for wheels. Came up with a basic design and strategy for robot and split up tasks. Anthony and Rebecca will work on CAD while Vamsi finishes converting the Python library to Java and Katherine helps him code. First checkpoint was successfully completed after working out wiring problems.

Katherine's Quote: "I will do anything for free food"

Day 2 - 1/10 Vamsi and Katherine will work on the code for checkpoint 2, playing with vision but still using bump sensors for walls. Anthony and Rebecca are CADing like crazy to get a draft design done. Making the little parts - motors, servos, battery - is annoying but not difficult. Whole team is debating whether we want to focus on collecting and holding balls or launching them, but a preliminary launching design has been finished in CAD. Still trying to get all the library stuff to Java, but it apparently doesn't like serial communication.

Day 3 - 1/11 Decided that we want to paint red spots on our final robot to confuse the enemy into trying to collect us. Listened to chipmunks. Want to use solenoid for our launcher - will probably steal it from Vamsi's car. Agreed on basic design. Listened to Tron and Matrix music. Took initial pictures for processing. Still converting library. Learned how to use the wiki better (adding files and stuff). Katherine figured out how to find balls! :D

Day 4 - 1/12 Interesting lecture that had nothing to do with the competition. Sent off CAD drawings to Sam for laser cutting. Asked for solenoid. Spent an hour just trying to install the latest versions of Eclipse and Subclipse on all of our computers so we can all access the code. We got our first acrylic plates cut out, but due to time conflicts, Rebecca and Anthony will not be able to start assembly until tomorrow. Katherine and Vamsi stayed late trying to get the camera code to work on the little Asus.

Day 5 - 1/13 Got it once the lab opened (noon). Reinstalled Ubuntu and finally got OpenCV to install. Drilled holes into the base and made our own corner brackets at Edgerton. Watched other robots spin in circles. Still need more acrylic cut and we are waiting for the Solenoid before we can do any other major assembly (should arrive early next week...). Will build rubber band collector by jamming a metal rod into 2 gears and wrapping the rubber bands around them. We just need to find some giant rubber bands(able to stretch 12in).

Katherine's Quote: "I'm an EBay whore!"

Day 6 - 1/14 Prototype robot (Albi) has a foundation. We have spots to put everything, just have to finish soldering things to the MC. Katherine is on a ski trip, so just Vamsi working on the code. But he will take Albi home today to use it for testing since the lab will probably be closed Monday (MLK Day). Rebecca was drilling and assembling while Anthony played with solder. All the wires are color coded and neat. Lab closes early today, since it's a Saturday. It's up to the coders now.

Katherine's Quote: "All of my friends are either Mexican or Jewish..."

Day 7 - 1/15 OFF - got some sleep

Day 8 - 1/16 Worked at Pi Lambda Phi, mainly on code. Decided after 8 hours of working, to use Python like we were supposed to. **Note to future generations!! USE THE CODING LANGUAGE THAT THE TAS TELL YOU TO USE!!** Got help from a course 6 grad (Andrew Sugaya) for the competition tomorrow...

Katherine's Quote: "You're a dirty, filthy Jew!!"

Day 9 - 1/17 First mock contest!! Had to throw together the rubber band collector in the morning. Weren't able to attach it because Anthony misjudged the length of the ramp when CADing the die barriers. Our friendly neighborhood course 6 grad came in to help explain how to use OpenCV and help us figure out how to identify more than one ball (currently, our bot finds ALL the red blobs and averages them together for a location). We ended up getting 4th place, but we are still really disappointed with the performance of Albi 1.0. We only collected 1 ball (bc it got caught underneath) and displaced 3. He really likes circles. The coders looked enviously at every other team's robot and decided that we need an Albi 2.0 with a circular base. Back to the CADing board.

Katherine's Quote: "Wait! Do you hear that? You hear that right?...I'm NOT crazy!"

Day 10 - 1/18 Anthony and Rebecca came in early to dismantle everything and get sensors. Vamsi wants to cut the bump sensors so we can just use the reset button instead of the annoying power button. Albi 1.0 is officially dead. Anthony is CADing 2.0. The solenoid came in - complete disappointment. It barely has any force. We thought the weight of the ball might be more than estimated, but our guess was almost exactly correct. Rebecca's calculations must've been flawed (probably bc she didn't account for the force needed to translate the pin inside of the solenoid and just expected all of the force given to be completely transferred to the ball). In her defense, she had no idea how the thing worked. Now we are stuck trying to decide how to proceed: 1)find a way to work with the solenoid we have 2)order a new, bigger solenoid to play with (would have to be 24V though) or 3)give up on that design and go with a catapult that we haven't even started brainstorming yet. The sophomores are currently deferring to Vamsi's guidance, as they are all sad and confused. Katherine got the AI to identify yellow and will check with Sugaya to make sure her code is right.

Katherine's Quote: "Sweet! I found a website of racial slurs! Apparently a BMW is a Big Mexican Woman..."

Day 11 - 1/19 Anthony is still CADing. Almost done though. Rebecca and Katherine are making and testing a catapult. They went down to Edgerton and learned how to use fancy shop equipment to 'turn' holes and tap threads for a set screw. Vamsi is in New York. Panic is setting in as the next mock contest draws near. Katherine is working on more color coding (Haha! Get it? Color coding!! ...Shut up I'm tired...)

Today's Quote: Anthony - "Hey Rebecca, have you shown Katherine your balls?" Katherine - "Yeah, my hands are too small for them."

Day 12 - 1/20 CADing was done. Ended up doing ANOTHER redesign. Technically minor, but involves reCADing everything for the new dimensions. Katherine was able to finish the color identification stuff. We still haven't decided if we care about the green box. Albi might be a peashooter - collect one ball at a time and shoot them as we get them. We don't really care where they land, so long as it's over the wall. Or we will try to collect a whole bunch in the catapult and chuck them all over. If the other teams do as we expect and just collect and hold balls for the entire round, we won't really stand a chance. Let's just hope they have a properly limited capacity (honestly, I don't see how they'd be able to hold more than ten balls without getting too fat).

Today's Quote: Rebecca - "Hey Vamsi, knock knock." Vamsi - "I don't get it..." Katherine - "It's a knock knock joke! Don't you know what that is?" Vamsi - "Oh, right...who's there?" Rebecca - "Interrupting cow" Vamsi - "...what? I still don't get it..."

Day 13 - 1/21 Katherine was skiing. Rebecca was working. Anthony was CADing. Vamsi was coding. Vamsi got Sam to stay up super late to laser cut and wet jet stuff for us. We must thank her with yummy baked goods.

Day 14 - 1/22 Anthony is assembling at Pi Lam (his frat). Rebecca and Katherine are baking a thank-you cake for Sam. Made it say "Thank you" in red gel (so it looks like a laser :P) and decided to make another box of cake mix because the cake smelled so good. We made cupcakes!! Will bring to lab tomorrow to share with the group. Assembly wasn't done bc we ran out of angle brackets. We also need to drill a hole for a set screw in the catapult thing. Hopefully the code will make up for our poor Albi 2.0?

Day 15 - 1/23 2nd mock contest. Barely got the wiring done in time and they were sticking out everywhere. Didn't have the collector connected yet due to lack of gears. Got to the floor, put Albi down, and nothing happened. Didn't even get to check our code cause he refused to move :/ Apparently Vamsi got a ton of errors on his end. Still not really sure what happened. Took zeros.

Day 16 - 1/24 As we waited for the sponsor dinner, Anthony and Rebecca gave Albi a haircut(made the wires neat). He now looks snazzy. Poor Vamsi and Katehrine have been coding all over the place and are getting desperate since OpenCV doesn't seem to want to work. Lots of bugs to find/fix.

Day 17 - 1/25 Albi 2.0 is completely assembled. Anthony and Rebecca tested it as much as they could without an EEPC and code. Vamsi was at Yale until 5, then came back to the lab to code and test. Katherine waited for him to get there before going into the lab. She got more help from our friendly neighborhood course 6 grad. Another mock contest is tomorrow...we kind of want those free Kinects...

Day 18 - 1/26 Lots of testing before the mock. Things SEEM to be working atm. Got an extra part machined for stability.

Katherine's Quote: (said in a very preppy voice) "I have ZERO losses on League of Legends...I've also never played..."

Day 19 - 1/27 Yesterday's mock contest was very anticlimactic. Our battery was out of charge so we had to take zeros. Frustrations are running high with Albi. Spent the day working at Pi Lam for convenience. Tightened some bolts and discussed new wheels. The ones we have cause Albi to walk like a dinosaur (the spikes are too big). Vamsi also wants to add some height to the catapult to give it a longer moment arm, hopefully increasing our range. It seems as though the current to the catapult motor is being limited by the motor controller, so if the extra length doesn't help, we'll have to add in an H-bridge.

Day 20 - 1/28 Mainly a day of coding. Sent in CADed docs of new wheels and are waiting for a friend of Vamsi to laser cut them for us. Took off old wheels. Anthony was really sick and rested most of the time so couldn't do much. Rebecca was out doing random errands/work. Katherine and Vamsi coded.

Day 21 - 1/29 Did not do much. Vamsi went back and forth between campus and the fraternity house getting parts. He and Katherine coded a lot. Not much for Rebecca and Anthony to do until the evening.

Day 22 - 1/30 Stayed up late taking things apart and getting them to run properly for the seeding tomorrow. Elevated the catapult. Secured the rubber band collector. Used lots of glue and drilled many many holes. Katherine had to leave early for a class. Rebecca and Anthony started MATLAB as well, so weren't able to work on Albi until after 9. Attached all of the bump sensors to new locations. Inhaled lots of lead. Left things to dry at around 2am and went to bed.

Day 23 - 1/31 Seeding today. In the morning, Vamsi tested the catapult and it broke. We had to do some fast emergency repairs and run to 26-100. Ramp didn't work and had to be remade. Rebecca and Anthony had to leave for class/work. Ended up tied for last, not moving any balls bc Albi only wanted to go in circles. Since we are so small, we won the weight tie-breaker and ended up in 8th. Terrified to face team 4...

Day 24 - 2/01 Vamsi was in lab all night with Anthony testing. Turns out the reason Albi was going in circles was because Vamsi was only communicating with one motor when he thought he was talking to both (ended up setting the speed twice on the same motor). Katherine was still in Cali and Rebecca had the flu. Such luck on this team! Got all of the mechanical stuff to work and Anthony turned in at 3am. Vamsi insisted on staying in lab all night to code. Found him asleep the next day (have pics!!).

Day 25 - 2/02 Rebecca and Katherine showed up to the lab to help Vamsi around noon. Katherine brought donuts. Fixed a minor friction issue and worked on debugging movement code. Apparently coding all day and night causes errors to show up more frequently. Everyone loves our little catapult. We are actually a little optimistic about winning the design award and getting free consoles. It's just sad that we have to go up against such a strong team in the first round. No matter how well me do, we are likely to be eliminated immediately. But we will put up a great fight!! If it weren't for all of the random issues at important times (mock contests, seeding) we would be in a better bracket and might have actually gone a few rounds. Oh well. If Albi can find, collect and shoot just one ball over the yellow wall, we will be satisfied. Impounded at 10pm.

Day 26 - 2/03 Day of competition!!!! Results should be obvious to anyone in the future.

WE <3 ALBI