FIRST Robotics 2020 - Practice, Practice

Our last weekend of work.  The robot heads off to the tournament in Duluth in about 72 hours.  We'd like to be at a state where everything is rock solid reliable.  It's not, and the only way to get there is to keep practicing, find out what does and does not work, and fix what you can.  A few pictures and explanations.

The robot has major mechanisms that are pneumatic.  That is they need compressed air.  Sure we could force the onboard compressor to keep topping off the storage tank.  But for practice purposes why not just run an air hose up from the shop downstairs!  Here we are topping off at the robot filling station.  Our climber actually works quite well but its success is somewhat dependent on the exact equipment we have to climb on and on the variable abilities of our alliance partners.

In the many photos you've seen of our build space you can see big wooden rafters and pillars.  And more to the point, a 110 year old wooden floor.  The tournament is run on a carpeted floor.  So it is time to fulfill a long time fantasy.  Take over the school cafeteria and throw stuff around.  In this case launching those yellow balls into the target.  We got it working pretty well.

Here we have removed the padded bumpers seen in the above shot.  That's because we weigh in without them.  This is the robot just prior to going on the scale.  Can we keep it under 125?  Yes....by about a pound.  

Perhaps there are some things you simply can't prepare for....