Status and Progress

Yesterday:

For the three hours themselves we worked on the arm for the monster and some programming. Quite a bit of machining was accomplished, and we began programming with the encoders!

Apparently Dr. Newman is using the monster for his class, so he needs certain things working by Monday. A few of us stayed behind to finish mounting the arm and the gun. We left some incomplete wiring; specifically we need to mount a new motor controller because we originally mounted a bad jaguar, and the gun needs to be wired up. I think James may have dropped in today to work on the electrical?

What still needs to be done on the monster:

The aforementioned wiring issues need to be fixed
The camera needs to be mounted somewhere and wired up
Everything needs to work

As of now we are not meeting next Saturday. I hope everyone eats more than they should on Thanksgiving!

We Need a Cart

What kind of features would you want in a robot cart? Obviously it has
to hold the robot, preferably in a more stable fashion than last year.
Some possibilities:
-Tool Storage
-Some kind of tie-downs or clamps to hold the robot down
-Battery storage
-Height-we can either have it be low so it's more stable, or at a height
that we can use it as a table to work on the robot (we could also
investigate the possibility of a lift)

Of course there are many more features we can consider. (Including
showoff-y ones like paint jobs and ground effect lighting) Once we have
an idea of what we want out of it, I can draft a design to make it out
of Bosch rail and we can actually build this thing.

CAD Software

I still have not seen about getting some copies of Solidworks, but I have set up the team page on the FIRST AutoDesk page. AutoDesk is the company that makes AutoCAD and AutoDesk Inventor (basically a Solidworks clone). Because AutoDesk sponsors FIRST, anyone who wants can get a free copy of either of these to play with (personally I find Inventor and Solidworks very similar and Inventor is probably more intuitive for a beginner). Inventor files can be transferred to Solidworks and vice versa, so we can mix and match as need be.
To sign up on the site, follow the instructions here: FIRST_step_by_step_v3.doc
If you have any questions or difficulties, email me at esvATcase.edu (replace the AT with an @) If enough people show interest, I will see about teaching a class or two in Inventor (maybe during the week so as not to interfere with Saturday sessions.) some time in early December. Again, if this sounds cool to you email me.

Financial Update

We officially have $6,000 of FIRST credit from Rockwell Automation! This means that Buckeye is paid for and we have an extra $1,000 that we can either save as FIRST credit for a second regional or (possibly) receive as a check.

Yay!

Progress and Status: 11/16/2009

What we accomplished yesterday:

• Sam and John focused on finishing up encoder wiring and refining soldering technique. The last encoder wire is almost finished
• Christine and I attached the cRIO and a relay to the electronics board and finished up all the wiring
• Dong Hwa and Endri worked with a small group of girls to wire up a solenoid valve and run pneumatic tube to actuate a cylinder. Their test setup can move the cylinder in and out by manually applying voltage to the valve.
• I'm not sure what Matt was up to this week
• The programmers were looking into control of the compressor

Notes and Plans

• I found the pressure cutoff switch everyone was looking for and put it (and a few other pneumatic parts I found) into the pneumatics box
• We need to integrate the compressor and tanks onto the robot
• There are a couple of minor wiring changes to the electronics board (regarding 12V supply to the DSC and Pneumatics breakout) that I'm going to sneak in and do this week
• The parts for the arm need to be machined. Matt's taking care of this
• I'm going to try to find out if we can get a few copies of SolidWorks for girls and mentors who are interested

Next Week

• Electrical can finally attach the electronics board to the chassis
• Electrical can connect up all the encoders and turn the drive train over to the programmers
• The programmers can work with the encoders as soon as the robot is ready
  
• We need to find a place on the chassis to attach the compressor and tanks
  
• Mechanical needs to finish machining/assemble the arm

Status and Progress

Results of Meeting on Saturday, November 7:

• Sheila and the electrical fab team have wired up all of the power distribution and PWM wires for the monster.
• Sam and I have finished wiring three of four encoders and have made a cable for the fourth to solder on next week
• Emily and I have been putting together a list of team members and their proficiency levels in various tasks, including individual machine shop skills, programming skills, and fabrication skills
• James, Mr. Allen, and the programmers continued to teach labview skills by programming for Kermit
  
• Matt taught a group of girls about machine shop skills (he can elaborate better than I can)
  
• A design for the arm has been drafted, featuring a pneumatic lift mechanism.

For next week:

• We need to acquire a cRIO for the monster
• Finish wiring the last encoder.
• Track down the pneumatics modules for the cRIO. Are they on Kermit?
• Put together a pneumatics test board to teach about pneumatics and for prototyping.

Ideas for the future:

• I know Matt's been talking about making an electronics caddy to make swapping the cRIO and other common electronics between robots easier. We need to determine what to put in this module besides the cRIO (The more we put on, the harder it is to remove.)
  
• (If we have the parts) Put together an electrical test board to aid in quick prototyping during the season. I'm envisioning a couple victors, a couple jags, power distro, and all of the cables we need mounted to a board. Then we can just plug in Matt's caddy and be able to test an arm, drive train, or whatever else quickly and easily (and safely).
• We should look into building a robot cart for this season (last year's was barely adequate) I think the bosch rail we have would be ideal for this, and it's also a good exercise in design, CAD, and machine shop skills.
  

Saturday, Nov 7

Expected Mentors

• Sheila
• Matt Klein
• Ed
• Andrew Gerst
• Vickie Webster
• James Hale
• John Phillips
• Mike DeLibero
• Kiju's student, Donghwa, will come by to learn about our motor constraints (for arm design)
• (Maybe James Allen?)

James Hale will set up a computer dedicated to FIRST code, and we can do more Kermit programming.
Matt can resume CAD training (or perhaps start teaching some machining?)
Mike/(Toby?) can anticipate gun mounting and power supply and trigger interfacing.
Sheila/John Phillips can work on wiring and electronics setup.

Other goals:

• Start pneumatics work