Well, the kickoff is over (lots of fun at that and the all-night party before it). The new challenge, Lunacy, is a very interesting one involving special plastic materials for the field and the robots’ wheels in order to simulate the low gravity on the moon. In reality it just reduces our friction, achieving a similar effect. At least this year there won’t be too much in terms of obstacles!
Another exciting thing that follows with the kickoff is the reception of the Kit of Parts! Lots of interesting stuff this year. Most notably, we received 4 of the special wheels we’ll be using, and the new control system based on the National Instruments compactRIO. Fancy! Among other things, this allows us to design the electronics more nicely and program with NI LabVIEW (or the good old C++).
Today, in the progress department, we unpacked and took inventory of our kit, an started setting up the cRIO and the rest of the electronics. (The 5V output on our breaker board seems to not be working, but we’ll sort that out soon.) Best of all, we managed to make a motor move in response to a joystick! It may not seem all that exciting, but it means we’ve got a good start on making the robot.
We should be posting more updates frequently. Stay posted. And good luck to all the teams!
Just a quick update to say that we were not used as backup in the final matches. But wow, those were amazing matches. At the end of one of them, the entire red alliance ended up in a dogpile (robotpile?) on the home stretch. There was some amazing ball-tossing, lap-running, and robot-tipping. Congrats, everyone!
The robot shipped several days ago. We were sad to see it go… parting is such sweet sorrow. We’re planning what to do when we get to the competition and have some more time to work on the bot. There’s hybrid mode code to be tested, motors to be changed out, and so on.
We’re into button production full speed ahead. There are 4 different styles of buttons, but if you want to see them, you’ll have to visit us at the competition. We also have some comics in the works that should appear on our website soon.
As the shipping deadline (2/18) approaches, work on the robot has increased. We are now meeting almost whenever possible (9AM–9PM today) in order to finish construction and programming.
As of writing, many of the electronic components are attached to the robot’s frame. The wheels are currently undergoing some modifications, and clear siding is being cut to fit the frame, in order to keep our precious electronics safe.
The programming team is mainly waiting on the basic chassis to be completed, so that we can actually test our movement code. (Controlling those omniwheels is a bit strange.)
