February 13th, 2010: Day #36- Workday
February 13, 2010. Day 36. Saturday. We got so much done today, and we even got to testing the robot!
Lunch today was provided by Ashwyn and Sumathi’s parents. They collaborated to bring us a “Chipotle: Home Style” type of lunch. In layman’s terms, this would be pans of various things that would go into a burrito. Stuff like cheese, rice, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, beans, and the like. It was a very good lunch, and a good alternative to the usual pizza we have.
Public Relations worked on the usual today. This means they worked on the prestigious awards of FIRST. Sumathi and Sheila also worked on getting hotel arrangements ready for the Oklahoma Regional. To quote Sumathi on the subject: “Planning for OK Regional. Thinking about lodging w/ 1993 (team) Waiting reply from them & looking for discounts.” PR also looked at past pictures for hints as to what we can do for our mascot. I think we should put Alex Guinn in the costume, but he thinks otherwise. David spent the day perfecting perfection. He also added to the perfection, by adding a slideshow of pictures via Flash. He got help from Mr. Ritter’s son, Mr. Ritter IV. David also enlisted the help of Spencer, our old Capitan. Ryan Harkins also helped David by checking all of the links on the website, and pointing out the broken ones.
Jeff (and his mini-Giers) worked on getting all of the external components mounted on the robot. This would refer to the kicker and ball magnet. He’s made the decision that he really likes pneumatics. This epiphany came due to the abnormally short amount of time he spent setting it up. He worked with the clutch too. Sean, of the Boeck variety, worked on the finalizing the hanging arm. This would be filing down the edges of his freshly cut metal parts. Coincidentally, the arm that I’ve referred to as the “hanging arm” for a better part of the season actually doesn’t have much to do with the hanging the robot. All it does is gets the hook for the winch up to the bar. Speaking of the winch, Alex Guinn worked on the motor for it. He finalized the design, and then hit a small snag. The problem was the way we made the one way tooth for the gearbox. In testing it out, the tooth got pulverized. Grinding down the edges that were newly created by the beating it took, he put it back together and simply decided he was done with the gearbox for the day.
Sean spent a good portion of the day alone in the Programming room setting up all of his electronics board. This would be mounting everything onto his various traced out spots. I actually saved his electronics board from hitting the ground during lunch when someone accidentally ran into it.
Programming got all of the teleop code written and tested. This means all they have left to program is the autonomous mode. From what I’ve heard from talking to them, they want autonomous mode to drive forward and kick all the balls.
Aaron, David, and Rahul all also drove to someone’s house to record a song they wrote for the background music of the Chairman’s Award. Oddly enough, this took 4 hours to do, and they don’t have a copy of what they did.
While they were off playing guitar, the crew here at school worked on setting up the robot to test all of the functions. The crew here consisted of me, Jeff, Ashwyn, Sean Weaver, and Zach Block. It was mostly Sean working on hooking up the electronics board, with all of the components, up to the chassis of the robot. We’d pitch in every so often, mostly when he asked for help.
In the spare time between helping, I drew out possible designs for our drive station. Ashwyn requested something that “isn’t a block of wood.” I’m guessing he meant something unique, and I have some pretty unique designs drawn out.
We had the privilege of leaving everything we had been working on out for the night, since we don’t have school on Monday, and we’re coming back in then. Can’t believe there’s only 9 days left until ship (for us, bag) day.
Pictures of the day:
