Team Six/Journal
Contents |
Day 1: 1/9/12
Hello, world! There exists a wiki.
In the beginning Redshift created some design ideas and the Pegbot. Now the Pegbot was pretty square and also didn't drive straight, darkness was over the Pegbot because it didn't have sensors (although the camera showed promise).
Quotes
Bianca: Can you talk and solder at the same time?
Will: Yes, but I might burn myself.
Tej: Do we really need to test this again?
Will: It will make me feel really good.
Day 2: 1/10/12
Split into two groups--Bianca and Will on mechanics, Tej and Ryan on software.
Bianca and Will: Went to Stata loading dock; got lots of rollers, gears, axles from printers. Mocked up a shooter mechanism. Shooter will have two wheels (same as drive wheels) driven at 300-400rpm by a geared up drive motor (as it stands now). Came up with initial design for robot as a whole. Will will CAD up shooter model and possibly robot too.
Tej and Ryan: Worked on mocking up overall software organization. Worked on getting Checkpoint 2 ready--inconsistent sensor readings. Problems: analog/digital pins different; problems with arduino.py?; lagging, etc. You should update with more details.
Day 3: 1/11/12
Split into two groups again, same as before--Bianca and Will on mechanics, Tej and Ryan on software.
Bianca and Will: Tested a roller mechanism using rubber bands and printer parts. Discovered that it was not feasible. Looked at FRC Aim High ('06) robots, and decided on a ferris wheel design. Cue lots of discussing design. Went to a bike shop/MITERS/hardware store looking for an appropriately sized wheel, no luck. (Did find sliders.) Decided that Will would make a wheel in Edgerton tomorrow after training. Mocked up robot in cardboard (Yay Charles!) and started sketching designs. Tomorrow: CAD, and hopefully a Woodbot (Yay Rudolph!) by the end of the day.
Tej and Ryan: Should update the wiki.
Naming scheme
Blarg: Process/module/thingamajig
Charles: Cardbot (Cardboard robot mockup)
Ferrous: The Ferris wheel in our new design
GLADOS: Eee PC
HAL: Camera
Hubble/Hubbaly/Hubbaly Hubbaly: Acrylibot (Final robot)
Rudolph: Woodbot (Wood robot mockup)
Quotes
Bianca: It looks like a gravestone with a hat.
Will: Let's call it a blarg.
Tej: I know Tej said something but I don't remember what it was. Grr.... Someone else updating the wiki should fix this.
Day 4: 1/10/12
Today, we taught it obstacle avoidance and blogging [1].
Kept working in split up groups. Bianca and Will worked on CADding; Bianca mocked up the shooter in SolidWorks, Will worked on the acrylic portions of the chassis in QCAD. Today/tomorrow, Bianca will take those files and convert them to SolidWorks files. Will also went to Edgerton training and made a draft ferris!
While the ferris itself seems to be within acceptable deviation, the shaft-collar / mounting things are more difficult. The first draft ferris mount does not make the ferris perpendicular to the shaft. Will designed a second draft mount that should alleviate these problems, mostly because it has four set screws.
At Edgerton, Will also learned that the shafts collected from printers may not be useful, as they may be chrome plated and therefore too hard to cut with a normal band saw. Will shall test these at Edgerton tomorrow.
Tej and Ryan continued coding. And should probably update the wiki at some point.
Long and short of things: mechanical design is coming along and we'll hopefully have Charles done over this weekend. We have huge laggy issues with the software; Tej and Ryan are doing testing to determine where this issue might be and correct it.
Addition to the glossary:
Margaret: Pegbot (robot made with the pegboard)
Day 5: 1/11/12
Bianca had mystery hunt/moving dorms to do, so she wasn't in lab very much. Will Finished CADing the parts for Woodbot (There are 13 parts, 8 unique parts). QCAD's method of moving parts is weird, so it has proved impossible to make a sheet so far. Will wasn't able to get access to a laser cutter after checking with Edgerton, CSAIL, and the Hobby shop, so it was decided that a bandsaw would have to do. As part of getting supplies for the woodbot, Will spotted a large Lab machine in the trash pile.
The rest of the day was spent disassembling it for parts. Will also injured his right thumb in the process. Between the parts from the machine and parts brought by Bianca's parents, we look to be in a pretty good spot.
Tomorrow, the MechE side of things will attempt to get the parts cut and start assembly.
On the software side, Tej and Ryan made great forward progress. The EEE PC and Arduino can now be interfaced with no visible delay. As of the time of writing, Tej was working on making sure that all sensor ports and motors were dynamically declared when the Arduino is run, as this will allow us to focus completely on the Python code.
Quotes:
Tej: So,... there's something wrong with our code. Ryan: Whoa.
