Team Eleven/Journal

Day 1 Jan 7

It's the first day of wonderful and beautiful IAP and with it came the kick off of Maslab. Team ll is comprised of two froshlings, Yanni and Valentina, and their upstairs neighbor and Junior member, Charles. For most of the team it was their first full day back home, and it began with a long and convoluted walk exclusively indoors to the meeting room (seeing as one of the members was recovering from a cold and didn't want to be outside). During the meeting, the competition task was explained and the merrily colored tubs were handed out.

After civilly discussing who would keep what of the materials at the end of the competition, we began work on the peg bot. We set up the arduino code to receive command codes from the computer. The command system is setup so that the computer can send a code and parameters over serial to the robot. The supported commands added today were set forward and backwards speed. The magnitude of those speeds however nearly broke the peg bot when it just barely flew off the table... note to team, do not test on table. Luckily however, it was just "nearly" and "barley" so no harm done and our check off went smoothly except for the part where the pegbot hit the wall... looks like checkoff two still needs work. Aside from that the only problems we encountered was a bit of weirdness with our motors but that could be seen to tomorrow.

By the time we finished I was starving. Deciding we'd done good, we headed off for some delicious ramen across the bridge.

Day 2 Jan 8

Deciding that yesterday's route to the meeting room was just unnecessarily loopy (not to mention impossible to follow on my own) we just braved the chilly outdoors. The lecture though a bit delayed gave us some things to think about or rather, gave the coders something to think about. Later, we finally made it back to our nice little table in the lab.

We experimented with the IR sensor, but could not get it to work reliably outside of a 3in range between 3 and 6 inches. Putting that off til tomorrow, we decided to go for bump sensors as our method of wall avoidance. A debounce class was added for digital reads. New commands were now supported by the arduino code, the ability to get limit switch info and to set the speed of the left and right motor separately. And with the temporary limit switches added to the front of the pegbot checkoff 2 was passed.

Oh, I got Edgerton training! Which is good considering I'm Mech E and will mostly be working on the construction stuff (if you can tell, I didn't write the coding bits, Charles did). Soon I will be able to begin working on the real deal robot (not that I don't love our dear little pegbot).

Day 3 Jan 9

Today we mostly worked on preparing the deliverables for the checkoff. Most importantly, we decided what design we want to go with and have a scale detailed drawing of it. We also made some progress with the vision code. Some proto code was written that we used to find balls in the sample image. The arduino code was also edited to move motor control into a class to reduce repeated code.

Day 4 Jan 10

Day 5 Jan 11

As for today, we made headway on the checkoff we missed yesterday and the one actually due today, but mainly we focused more on the work that needs to be done on our final design. Especially after yesterday's disappointments, we need to pull ourselves together. At the moment we are trying to make heads or tails on the encoder as well as other features of the bot's programming. Funny story about the encoders, the part that took the longest was my meandering throughout the buildings trying to find a printer for the pattern. Protip for freshmen: learn, love, live the MIT map.

We also worked on the computer vision, specifically the blob tracking. One of our computers crashed unexpectedly at one point which was quite sad, but no fear it came back to life! Moreover, we successfully passed our checkoff where the pegbot recognizes the ball and moves towards it... or in our case rams into it at full speed after contemplating it thoroughly. It was quite adorable, except for when it tried ramming into the metal leg of my chair. If this bot has a death wish it better keep it on hold until at least Monday.

Day 6 Jan 12

For the most part, Saturday was dedicated to catching up on sleep and working out the code for the robot. Aside from that, the biggest gain made was the laser cutting of the acrylic pieces and revising of the physical plans. Learning Solid Works: Personal achievement unlocked!

Day 7 Jan 13

Sunday was again a day for rest, I myself woke up at 2 in the afternoon. Apart from that coding was the main focus. The tracking and calibration of the balls was worked on in preparation for tomorrow's mock competition.

Day 8 Jan 14

After working many hours over the weekend, we had what could be called a relatively successful run in mock one. We managed to track and displace three balls. Our robot would have kept going, but the right bumper fell off, so it didn't know to backup when it hit a wall. We had trouble with the motors working consistently. This may have been because the battery was dead. We tried switching to the other battery, which was supposed to be fully charged, but it didn't work at all... so it probably wasn't the battery. Nevertheless, we can lay pegbot to rest and move onto our final robot which will (fingers crossed) no longer have the motor issues of pegbot which will give a better representation of the coding being done.

On another note, Yanni and I went to Edgerton but as the saying goes, the early MIT student gets the work bench and thus we had to turn back. Fortunately, Yanni has access to the CSAIL shop and we made some progress. Soon our plans will be materialized!

Day 9 Jan 15

Today's focuses were gathering materials and progressing with construction. The last of our laser cutting was completed in the morning. Using SolidWorks we figured out our necessary belt length. And on a drive that would satisfy any Too Fast Too Furious fan, we made our way to Home Depot to get the rest of our materials. We sped onward to RadioShack only to find that there were no limit switches (ours broke right before yesterday's mock competition). With only 4 minutes before Charles' time on the zipcar ran out, we sprinted accross Sears to the car and back to campus. We made it just in time.

Recovering from the adrenaline rush, Yanni and Charles procured the limit switches elsewhere and I began working with the newly cut acrylic pieces. A great deal of work lies ahead of us but that's no problem... what is a problem however is the fact that we have yet to decide a name. I'm having an identity crisis!

Day 10 Jan 16

Today a lot of progress was made. A decent amount of the robot has been assembled, and the code is progressing nicely. I'm still trying to figure out how to get a reasonable tracking of angular position. There is a way to use the gyroscope and the magnetometer to correct each other, but the math for it is very complex and beyond me.

As for the construction side of things, most of the afternoon and evening was spent at Edgerton preparing the roller. We had to come up with solutions for creating collars for the rubber-band roller ends. Unable to find any spare aluminum round stock we settled for just using some soft plastic and drilling straight through the roller axle. Apart from that, the rest was assembling the basic frame of the robot, which means all that is left to do for the Friday mock is mount the motors and electronics which seem to be working rather well on the old peg base...hopefully the electronics will take well to its new home.

Protip: plastic shavings from machining (not the deceptively-pretty-and-shiny-but-totally-a-world-of-pain-if-you-touch-them metal shavings) make great materials for art projects. Currently, I am making a jellyfish out of some of today's scraps.

Day 11 Jan 17

It is crunch time. Tomorrow is the mock and aside from our basic frame, we didn't have much in terms of construction. However we were in luck, a confusion in the checkoff schedule allowed us to have our meeting with Darthur earlier than expected which came as an advantage. Thanks to our discussion, we A. learned that our current plan for attaching the motors was just not good (no more than 3 points of contact, ya hear?!) B. received via Darthur's magical cabinet of good things perfect mounts for our motors which saved us a lot of time because we no longer had to machine pillow blocks and C... there's no C. but I feel as though lists should at least have three components.

Anyhow, we worked late into the night attaching all the necessary panels and, to my relief, finally got over the "fear" of cracking the acrylic by not using a laser cutter or mill to work the material. Protip: yes, acrylic cracks but you can still use hand-drills and handsaws.

Day 12 Jan 18

Last night I went to sleep at 5 AM, couldn't sleep much because it was 19 degrees outside and my radiator is broken, but nevertheless, Team Eleven is super pumped for the second mock today... that's what a good "Eye of the Tiger" montage can do for you in the morning. Luckily, we managed to essentially capture 3 balls and approach the yellow wall as hoped. The only job left to do now is to get the rollers up and running but that can only happen once our belts show up in the mail.

Day 13 Jan 19

No belts. It is a sad truth but at the very least we water jetted the collection bins, no if we could only make it so the balls didn't jam...

Day 14 Jan 20

Missing Charles, as he was off in DC for the inauguration, Yanni and I tried fixing the bottom collection bin. It seemed that the hump designed to keep the balls from rolling back out was also preventing them from rolling all the way to the back. deciding that maybe playing with the current lengths of the bin might solve the problem, we made plans to re-cut the following day.

Day 15 Jan 21

Cutting out a slightly modified bin and realizing the first one worked better was coupled with the great news that our belt had arrived but in insufficient length and quantity. It's safe to say we had a case of the Mondays.

Day 16 Jan 22

Today was very eventful. I helped Yanni buy suitable ensemble for tomorrow's sponsor dinner and if I don't say so myself, the outfit I chose looked quite dashing. After that very productive morning, our team brainstormed the collection issues our robot seemed to be having. We managed to get the plated to fit into the bottom from but upon drilling the necessary holes, it seemed to have become deformed causing the balls to become stuck. Luckily, we thought of a solution but it would require cutting acrylic, something we would not have access to until tomorrow. Aside from these unfortunate mishaps, a solution was obtained for the encoders and currently they are good to go; all that needs to be done before the Mock is reattach the electronics. We've almost got it!

Day 17 Jan 23

Is it possible to have a case of the Wednesdays? It's not to say that our team did nothing productive today but it sure started out that way. Heading over to 26-100 for the Mock, we were all rather sleep deprived and once there realized that the looseness of our left wheel was a bigger problem than originally believed. In other words it fell right off and there just wasn't time to fix it...so much for the Mock. Taking the robot back to our dorm to fix the wheel and other issues, we ran out of time before the sponsor dinner and had to go without our robot (although we did bring our camera and net-book to demonstrate our computer vision). Lucky for us we didn't really need to bring our robot so things were working out. Not only that but there was orange juice for refreshments and I absolutely love orange juice. Could it be? Were things beginning to look up for nameless team 11? Absolutely... sort of.

We did manage to get quite a bit done after the sponsor dinner including attaching the roller motor for collecting balls. We decided to go for a gear to gear attachment and it seems to work rather well. All that's left now to wait for the glue to dry over night on some bearings and tomorrow we get down to business... do defeat the Huns. Or maybe just to finish our robot but who knows? Anything could happen at Maslab!

Day 18 Jan 24

Today was a late night for Team 11. Yanni and I went to CSAIL to use the shop thanks to the kind heart of one of our hall mates with card access that let us in. Though convenient in location (Stata's proximity to East Campus beautiful considering the biting cold and our tendency to forget necessary things back in our dorm)I don't have training at Stata unlike Yanni. Luckily however, I brought a hand drill with me and worked on the basic construction while Yanni figured out how to fix the loose wheel and gear shaft of the front roller. Spending several hours there, troubleshooting the mechanics of the design and failing a couple times in our attempts, we eventually managed to make enough progress to go home. When we finally left, our robot was... in a state of disembowelment and would stay that way until after we got some sleep because exhaustion was taking over.

Day 19 Jan 25

So it turns out our robot would spend yet another day disembolwed.

Day 20 Jan 26

And... another day.

Day 21 Jan 27

But not today! Today our robot was put back together with only one thing left to do which was mount the electronics. We've made good progress and things look good. The only missing part right now is a lift system for our robot but after all our internet order related mishaps, we may or rather must come up with another solution, and probably one that is rather MacGyvered. But until tomorrow!

Day 22 Jan 28

With another weekend over, another Monday begins, but at least this one was less terrible. We actually spent several hours at the CSAIL shop machining pulleys to replace the plastic gears we had been using to drive our front roller. We had been experiencing issues with the gears as result of inaccuracies in the holes we drilled and just general meshing issues of the teeth. Hopefully, the drive will run smoother with these new pulleys, but only tomorrow will tell at the Seeding Competition.

Day 23 Jan 29

So it's the day of Seeding and things are not optimal. We were running a bit late in the morning and that ended up messing us up. After forfeiting the first match for not having our electronics set up properly, we lost our second match because our robot was not communicating properly with the computer. As it turned out, our baud rate was not compatible with the new OS update but at least after fixing that there is hope that our code has no other issues.

Mechanically however we experienced a few more frustrations. The ball lift system was having issues meeting all our requirements. By the end of the night, I managed to put our lift frame together with the pulleys with very little resistance of the rollers. Its actual functionality however is a bit questionable. A change in strategy seems to be what our team needs.

On the bright side, we are no longer experiencing an identity crisis. Our team, Team Stevie the Cat, and our robot the Stevie Wagon is receiving inspiration and strength from the honorable cat, Stevie. In the name of cat power, we intend our robot to crush the competition which is ironically very reminiscent of a Labrador Retriever.

Day 24 Jan 30

No more duct tape! To Yanni's joy and relief, we have eliminated duct tape attachments from our robot by way of clever tricks and Velcro (the more legitimate adhesive. Aside from that, our encoders were set up properly and our encoder wheel that had kept slipping was fixed using methods that certainly made our lungs sad but our robot happy so at least tonight we can rest easy!