Neither Last nor Least

1. Overall Strategy

At first the team was ready to score balls in the pyramid. One interesting thing to note: balls thrown over the perimeter of the field does not count as negative points. It would be unfortunate, however. In the end, throwing the balls over any wall would have been advantageous.

2. mechanical design and sensors -

Ball Possession: Essential Components

Last year, the rubber band roller, though not common amongst the teams, showed quick and easy success. We made a completely functional one for our Peggy (pegbot), and won Mock 1 by being excellent at collecting balls.

RUBBER BAND ROLLER - We decided to move ahead with CAD'ing the wheels for laser cutting out of acrylic. The staff had a helpful SLDWRKS file that we altered slightly (made the ridges deeper to be able to use thicker rubber bands). To keep pressure on the wheels to oppose the force of the rubber bands, we used a keyed rod to go through the centerholes, and attached shaft collars to the rubber band wheels that contained set screws.

RAMP - We also had a ramp along the bottom layer of our robot, to direct balls into the mouth of the helix. That is, the ramp had pieces of cardboard that acted as walls. It started at the bottom of the rubber band roller and angled upwards in a semicircle arc until the maximum height that balls could go up. It then slanted downwards slowly to give the ball some momentum to end up in the perfect pick-up spot for the helix.

ROBOT DESIGN - All of our robot prototypes had very low robot bases, only .25" off the ground or so. This way, we did not need the ramp to collect balls (note: not bring them to the hopper, just collect them), and this somehow won us

Upward Motion

We had a conveyor/pulley belt idea at first. Here are some sketches:[[File:]]

However, after our with-the-staff meeting, we decided to use the Archimedes screw as our ball-lifting mechanism. Attach CADs?

3. software design - H,D

4. overall performance - all

5. conclusions/suggestions for future teams - all! we can separate this by person

R: Organize your electronics FROM THE START. This is compulsory. Weak connections caused our robot to not really be able to run our very first match (motor wires not in controller all the way).