Thursday, January 28. 2010
Oh My! It is snowing! I am surprised with many students are here considering how bad it is! We are very used to snow here, but this was different, this was white-out snow! Since we have been in the school, the maintenance crew has been snow-blowing the entrances!
What we ate for Dinner! Matthieu’s family came and joined us for a delicious meal. They made a chicken stew with carrots and celery served with potatoes. There was a gourmet vegetarian selection with whole wheat pasta, a chickpea, spinach, lemon and pecorino romano. We also had bread and butter, cookies and soda slushies.
There was an Integration meeting before dinner.
Team Leader Larry is expecting full designs completed by the end of the night Saturday.
For the Mechanical team, the beater bar works well when the helix is pointing toward the center. They will need something more sticky to create more friction. They tested the beater bar with the Fisher Price motor. Larry said it was time to stop prototyping the bar until the beater bar is put into Inventor. The main part of the kicker is moving along in Inventor, they are incorporating some of the work from last night and will be prepared to order parts by Saturday. Hanging / lifting mechanism: the tubes are drawn with correct dimentsions the hook needs to be redrawn, maybe in several configurations so the it can go to Harris. They are working on the mounting method and may want an arch for mounting the hanger. Mech 2 is adding a bar on the back for stability, and may be able to work that into the mounting.
Electrical had to some some wiring to use the PWM cables. They are considering using jaguars where victors are currently used, but Larry needs them to start to get a good estimate of the weights. Larry also reminded them that it was time to start the BoM.
The controls sub-team is working on sheet metal piece, which should be ready to send out tonight. Buttons came in last night.
The Programming sub-team started converting to PWM, but still getting CAN bus errors. They will revert to base code tonight and test to see if CAN bus errors go away. They need code to make the robot drive and work the kicker. There will be a sensor for the kicker position – may be able to start coding for that.
Field: The foam is in for the field! If they can’t get to anything else, they will work on cutting the foam for the goals. Need carpet for at least one bump, to test whether the robot can climb the bump – this is a priority!
Team meeting notes:
It’s Thursday! Safety Talk Day! Tonight’s topic is on the hazards of stored energy, including electrical, pneumatic, gravity and the most likely hazard for our robot, our kicker mechanism and the electromagnet release system with the stretchy bands. It is time to start to carefully observe the Robot On / Robot Off protocol.
Larry will be starting to sit down with students to get them registered on the FIRST student database. Parents will need to go online and register as well to approve the student registration.
Larry discussed a concern that some students feel they are not being included in the design process. He reminded the students that they also need to take the initiative to give input and make sure the mentors or other team members take the time to hear and listen.
Crystal has set up a community service event at Intervol for Wednesday, February 10 from 4-6 pm. Intervol is a place that collects surplus medical supplies and the team goes in and helps to sort them. With the earthquake relief going on in Haiti, they have been receiving lots of donations to sort.
The tool test and team tests are available to be taken! I’m waiting to hear who gets the first perfect score. Drive team and pit crew applications should be available on Saturday. There was a lot of interest from the students in applying for these teams.
Seen and heard: Taking the test was a very popular fill-in activity tonight. There was some gloating going on over the test scores, but I won’t give any names, Val. The Inventor stations were full tonight so I’m sure much progress was made on the final design. The control team was trying to figure out which button functions were needed and wanted, the field team was seen lying down on the job, as they helped break in the memory foam for the goals. Loud noises were coming from the shop where parts were being cut, ground and filed.
The Pittsford team did not make it out in this weather! I hope they can reschedule for Saturday or another day soon.
Saturday will be a big day for us! A finished design will be in the books! Larry said to make it so!!
Penfield High School Reminder: The Fantastic Finds sale will be held Saturday in the Cafeteria starting at 9 am. This is the PTSA’s largest fundraiser, a giant “garage” sale. If you are in the area, come and shop and stop in and visit us!
