It Begins

We tuned into the livestream together. Then, we got to work. There were some pre-season projects we still had to finish up.

After watching the kickoff, we came to the following conclusions for our objectives/ priorities for the game this season.

• Defense will be huge
• Climbing is valuable and a wonderful challenge that we feel ready for
• Scoring in auto will be paramount too

  Priorities

  1. We will begin with our drivetrain and electrics (Tank drive using the kitbot)
  2. Then move to our climber (beginning with a simple climber and then moving rungs as a stretch goal)
  3. Once we have a solid simple climber, we will add the intake v shooter

We used Monday.com to lay out our needs and plan. Our first goal was to have a working benchtop test and drivebase by the end of our meeting January 14th. We also want a simple reliable climber and functional prototype of our intake and delivery system by January 21st

Then, we began… We split our efforts and accomplished a lot.

• Set Up PS4 controllers (Ds4Win was necessary to have them working). We set them as Xbox controllers and then use the PS4 WPILib Class
• Prepared plenty of robot poison
• Worked on our rolling Pit Setup
• Got board of the wood prototype, so we made it plastic
• Mecanum cost more time than it was worth last season, so this year we began making our kit drive once the KOP arrived
• Started a new logo

1/11/21

We continued to work on our first step goals…

1. Finish necesssary pre-season projects
2. Get the kitbot drivetrain built and moving
3. Get the motors running (benchtop test)
4. Get driving as soon as possible to prepare for defense

We continued making incredible progress

• One of our more haphazardous shelves broke, but we fixed it

• The simulator is running :)

• Electrics/ Programming got the motors running :) How Moving!!!

• The entire team discusses in detail how the robot should enter carcinization to gain a defensive advantage.

• We begin shoreing up our cart: We need to move in and out of our space each night. This cart and the benches give us more mobility.

• The art department is creating some exceptional imagery for our shirts and banners this year

• Sometimes, we need to bring out our inner mechanics (Mentor note: This was safer than it looks. The bench was sturdy, and there was little danger that anything would topple.)

Excellent wiring job. We found Ferrules were necessary for the 18 guage silicone wire we are using with the new PDH. It could easily create an arc between the two poles without them. This is only on the low-current circuits. The main circuits are incredible.