This week at Ingraham robotics, we’ve been moving further towards construction of the robot. Let’s get into what we’ve been up to as we near this crucial moment in the season.
Feeling the Pressure
The team has been feeling mounting pressure to decide on a drivebase this week. Team lead Charlie has been making sure that everyone is hard at work on prototyping; so far, we’ve made a lot of progress in modelling our leading ideas!
The west coast drive- currently our furthest progressed drive- has been improved this week. By installing new gearboxes, the drive is now faster than ever. This has made it an even more viable model than before. The mecanim drive, meanwhile- although leading in popularity amongst the team- has just been started this week. The build team is using 16:1 motors to make their prototype, and is anticipating having it completed sometime next week.
Collector modules are progressing as well. Build has finished a scissor lift, which is a viable competitor for this year’s collection module. Meanwhile, programming has been working on other options...
Do You Even Lift, Bro?
This week, the programming team has been hard at work programming a robotic arm. Ideally, this will make up the collector for the coming season’s robot. Programming lead Tim spent lots of time working on the arm, and together with the programming team, the arm is now fully set up to work on teleop, meaning the arm can now be remote controlled!
According to Tim, this involved lots of math and calibration, but was worth the effort.
The programming team mounted their test arm to a west coast drive, making another step towards our goal of working prototypes.
Team Spirit
While our hands-on teams have been working on prototyping, the business team has been working on our t-shirt for this season! We’re hopeful that this year’s gear is going to our best yet. We’ll be back with updates on our shirts soon!
In Conclusion
We’re finally settling into the annual routine, but the pressure is still as strong as ever. We’re excited to see which drive will be proven to be the best option, and are working hard at the prototypes which will get us there. We’ll be back next week with further updates on our progress!