Week 7

Feb 19 2022:

We played the live stream of the Week 0 NH event in the background of our work session. Our team is impressed with the teams that have been able to complete their designs and builds to participate in the event.

We worked to complete manufacturing our shooter side plates. The contour and light weighting were applied to the part, but not all the holes were completed. The holes were placed in the second plate, then transferred to the first. To do this we created a fixture to our work bench and hand drilled them in place.

Our intake team implemented design changes to create a wall for the extended intake to center the ball. They used inspiration from FRC team 118's puzzle piece style of overlapping plates to create a "floor" for the ball to enter. The center plate is intended to be removed quickly for battery access. The plates were laser cut and manufactured using High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS). The material is durable but easily cut through with the laser for quick manufacturing.

The team also worked to mount the pneumatic components to the rear portion of intake. We use color coding to indicate the high and low pressure side of the system. We will also color code our extend and retract functions of each cylinder. Red tubing has been selected to indicate our HIGH pressure side.

Feb 21 2022:

Extended intake was mounted to the internal intake. The first time the full assembly has been connected together in any format.

Our team has continued to complete drawings and add them to drawing packages. The progress of the drawings have been tracked using our "Parts Drawing Spreadsheet". Colors indicate Not Started, In Progress, or Completed.

The programming team has added a new pigeon 2.0 thanks to a parts trade with FRC team 325 Respawn Robotics, Butler Tech's main campus team run by our former lead Mentor Dave Campbell.

Manufacturing team has produced more parts for the shooter, climb, and intake assemblies.

Feb 22 2022:

The extended intake was tested with pneumatics (air power) connected. We'd like to slow down the speed of the extension of the intake to dampen the load on the cylinder. Motor mounts were implemented on the fly using belts and pulleys. To fit the belt best we customized our pulleys by 3D printing them on our Markforged Mark 2 printer. These pulleys are extremely durable and can be manufactured to match each application. We modified motor mounts to create an ideal tension for the belting.

We then tested and refined the combined intake system. We have found points of interest to address to create continuous contact with the ball throughout the system to achieve our goal of "touch it, own it".

2022 INTAKE EXTENSION.MOV
2022_INTAKE_TEST1.MOV

Feb 23 2022:

We continued to manufacture parts for climb, intake, and the shooter. Programming team worked on their autonomous codes. They also worked on troubleshooting a target / connection error after deploying code. They continued to search internet forums for possible causes, they found an article that links the error to a CTRE software update. While this may be the probable cause, we are still reviewing our code for potential errors.

Feb 24 2022:

Climb completed enough of their assembly to test on our model. Key factors we wanted to test were our ratcheting system, the gear ratio, and the process for climb.

Our controls team has also begun to experiment with other speed controllers due to the code error we were experiencing during our last work session. One of the other leading suspects for the error was that some of the sample code was copied and pasted into the latest code. As we have begun troubleshooting were are working on rebuilding the code from scratch. As more code is added, we will test in small bunches to see when the error arrives again to help us identify the source of the issue. We will also continue to look through forums for additional information.

2022_Climb .mp4

Feb 25 2022:

We continued to machine parts for both our shooter and climb assemblies. Parts were assembled as they were completed. We were able to manufacture some of our more complex parts in our Machine Shop Lab.

We used the ProtoTrak to apply complex tool paths to be done with manual operations. This is a simplified method of creating a CNC program / G code. We worked with Mr. Fox, our manufacturing teacher earlier this year to learn more about the equipment in his lab, and the recommended speeds and feeds to use while manufacturing.