We continue to fight the scale, with the amount of weight available to fix small problems as they arise being very minimal.
We find that we need a bit of frame strengthening. In it's initial version it slipped a bearing loose when the robot went into a vigorous turn. Rather like a horse throwing a shoe. But on the positive side the main function of this machine, the beam grabbing/leveling trick, seems to work surprisingly well. Our best driver was able to nail it on his first two attempts.
We are also well along in our efforts to automate ball intake and shooting. At least we are far enough to turn it over to software for tweaking. Here's a few photos. A bit mixed up and random because that's how I'm feeling these days.
This is probably final assembly. We had plans to powder coat it but it looks as if we won't be able to spare the extra take down/reassembly time. Or the 6 ounces or so it would add in weight!
Here's the little beam break sensor that registers when we have a ball in the conveyor system. Much like your garage door opener. This allows us to pulse the conveyor system just enough to move a ball into position without crowding.
This was supposed to be a great picture. The robot grabs the bar and auto levels it. You put a cell phone up with an angle sensor and Yes! It reads ZERO! But you can't see it on the screen because I'm at the wrong angle. Trust me on this one.
And we kept slogging along. By end of work Saturday we had the ball pickup and conveyor functional although it threw a belt periodically. The shooter needs a new part. The frame now holds solid and the climber still climbs, although we need to tweak a few things. And other things are going on. We have our scouting system started and have the pit set up for a complete remodeling. I'll have pictures in a few days.
Two weeks and change to competition it now is possible to see interesting possibilities ahead.
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