Our work list included figuring out why the control system of one of our racers was reading no radio signal. I had them make a list of possible things that could go wrong and trouble shoot them. In turn we ruled out low battery in transmitter or receiver, bad PWM connections and a few other maladies. In the end one of the sharp eyed students noticed that we had a frequency 67 crystal in instead of the required 61. This is something my 58 year old eyes had missed, especially as I always write my 7s in the European style to avoid just such embarrassing problems!
Most of the work today was actually on Racer C, which I predict will fight us to the end. A couple of "work in progress shots".
The motor mounting is tricksy, we may have to adjust the tension on the U-bolts a bit. Best case scenario has it test driving next week.
Speaking of test driving, we did a little. Here is Racer B, which surprised us by being quite frisky indeed at 24 volts.
Here are A and B ready for a competitive test drive:
B on the left looks wimpy in comparison but as I predicted it is actually the faster machine, albeit at a price of being much harder to control. Also less study, I note some sag in the front wheels that has me concerned and might call for some shoring up before race day. And of course I did film a few seconds of the machines firing up and running. Very few, It is hard to keep the camera steady when you are in danger of having your foot run over by a machine being operated by someone several years too young to have taken drivers ed!
Just imagine what it will be like with three machines instead of two!
Oh, and here is the zippy little Racer B on its own:
Race day ought to be fun. I will have to mount a camera on one or more of the machines.....
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