Endurance

Last week I posted some thoughts on Carpe Diem, the desirability of seizing the day.  This certainly makes life a great deal more interesting but not always easier.  When I need a bit of encouragement during a tough patch I can always find it along the back road of our city park.

You think humans live in a tough world, just think about trees.  Each and every one of your neighbors is trying to get the same light and water that you need to survive.  And survive they do under the most extreme conditions.

Trees growing straight out of a cliff face.  There must be just enough dirt in that crevice for them to hang on.

And not just little trees either.  This sizable specimen is clutching at the rocks as if to say, "Sure I'll go down some day.  But I'm takin' some of you with me".

Further down the road there is a natural spring.  These trees are effectively growing straight up through a glacier.

This last photo does not exactly do this tree justice.  What kind of strain must it be under to grown down, then up again?  My own ups and downs are trivial in comparison.

I guess if mere plant life can stand up to this sort of stress and strain then I should not complain about the vexing but certainly not life and death things I have to wrestle with of late....

FIRST Robotics 5.2 - Crunch Time

I skipped last Friday's post on robots.  It was effectively Make or Break week.  The phrase does not quite fit.  It's actually quite positive when you make something, test it to breakage and remake it better.  But as a time period when things Must Happen for the project to succeed, well last week was it.

Collectively the Monday, Tuesday and Thursday sessions were OK.  Things got made.  Nothing got broken.  By late Thursday the robot in its final form could be seen.   Of course the second set of pneumatics is just loosely positioned and the electronics board is not on.  But basically this is it.  The team has named it HANK.

That little dial on the top.  Lets take a closer look.

This measures how far off level the robot is when it hangs.  We initially anticipated a "nose up" reading of perhaps plus 3 degrees.  Turns out it is nose down at minus 4 or so.  That meant the robot actually started to slide off its initial hang just a little, hence the small wedge.  Our CAD guru says we can pull this off IF we get the angle to a slightly nose down minus 2 degrees.  Here's my idea of high level engineering, and what I think will be the defining picture of the 2022 build season:

Get the robot onto the first bar.  Stack water bottles on the back bumper.  That tells us how much weight we need to bolt on back there.  About 7 pounds of "something" should do it.  I have not been without error in this build season but my fanaticism in pursuit of weight management will now give us this option.

Saturday.  The crucial day of the crucial week.

The wiring is mostly done.  We should be able to drive the competition machine in another session or two.

The hard flippers are being replaced with soft ones.  These are 3D printed and seem like a better option.  They do need to be bigger.  Each one takes a long time to print.  

And we have the blue bumper "over covers" ready.  The bumpers this year are only OK, but that will likely be true of the project in general.

We are still struggling with the geometry of our second climb.  The total weight of the robot is still fine but its center of gravity keeps shifting.  When we put it on the hang bar today and saw it read 9 degrees nose down I almost despaired.  How can it keep doing this?  Well we knew this would be the last system finished and think we might have one more trick up our sleeves.  So the jury is still out on this project.

But not for long.  In three weeks we will have finished our event and our season.  

Not much time left. 

Carpe Diem

Carpe Diem.  Seize the day.  When you get older this ancient saying becomes more important. 

Young people mostly live in the moment.  They have much less to look back on, and at the same time lack the life experience to really see into the future.

And the Old?  I guess it varies among my fellow members of Geezer Nation.  Some are sadly still trying to live in past glory times or have a present that looks grim for reasons real or imagined.  But I'm OK with how things have gone for six and a half decades.  I see my past as an ever lengthening archive.  And while I have no aversion to momentary Fun I am more interested in adding interesting chapters that I can look back on fondly when I hit a level of age/infirmity that will keep me on a short leash.

I recently booked tickets for a journey to Vindolanda.  I'd been excavating at the Roman Fort site there for over a decade when Covid slammed the door.  For two long years.  Things are still a bit dodgy over there but I'm just gonna go for it.  In fact, I'm going for four weeks instead of two.  Will there still be masks and travel inconveniences and fears?  Sure.  But Carpe Diem, who knows how many more years I'll be able to walk up and down hills two miles to and from, with a long day of wielding tools ranging from a fine brush to a pick axe.

Robotics is a similar situation.  There is no physical work involved.  I and the other coaches keep hands off tools and apart from hauling supplies in and out once in a while its all the student's project.  But it does create other strains.  For weeks leading up to Build Season then worse after Kick Off, I worry and fret.  Will this darn project even be possible?  So far it has always worked, albeit some years better than others.  But what is it about my personality that can only fully enjoy something of this scale if there is a significant possibility of disastrous, public failure?  Not sure really.  But it is another example of do it while you can.  At least for robotics I am working towards an exit plan where things will go on without me.  I've been in Year Two of the Four Year Stand Down plan for about three years now.

Notes from the Shadowy Underworld

 Unconfirmed sighting of the notorious Badger Trowelsworthy.....

FIRST Robotics Report 5.1 - A Game of Inches

On a whim I looked back at my progress report for the last robot Team 5826 built.  January and February of 2020 as rumors of Covid started to radiate outward from Wuhan China.  Interestingly one of our coaches actually had to take a business trip to Taiwan at this point in time.

My posts have a similar sort of Quiet Desperation to them.  Major mechanisms did not work properly.  We were overweight and yet needed to add additional structural supports.  We were building something peculiar that would be unlike anything else in the competitive field.  In various fashion the problems we face in Build Season are always the same.  Oh, some years we also have most of the software kids disappear on a Band Trip for a week.  

But a few things are different.  We compete one week earlier.  That's not good.  But at least the challenges all teams face are equal.  The Duluth tournament features lots of small town teams.  Everyone is operating on the same calendar, has been hit by Covid, and by the failure of the usual system of passing off expertise from graduating seniors to wide eyed newbies.  Our policy of calling up talented 8th graders when we find them has had few glitches.....and has given us a core group of now sophomore leaders.

Saturday.

You start out by checking the numbers that would be really bad if they were wrong.  Max allowable height is under by a half inch.  We are allowed a perimeter of 120 inches.  And we have:

At least on weight we are looking good.  A max allowed of 125 and we are just under 90 with all the stuff on board.  That number will become important in a bit....

One of our last needed components is in hand.  A spring loaded bar catching hook.  Nice design by our CAD team.

We have started to clear out junk we now know we won't need.  There's a lot of it.  Some things are in the uncertain category and only going as far as my car.  There is a lot of rattling going on in the back when I drive down the highway.

Here's a nice housekeeping touch.  

Ah yes you wonder.  But does the robot work?  Well that's complicated.  The center of gravity is not exactly where we thought it would be so the angle of the various hooks and gizmos needs to be changed.  Right now we are a half inch off on the more difficult hook grab. We might actually have to add ballast to the back of the robot.  This is not without precedent, we had to do this in Year One.  That's one area where being underweight helps a lot.

One of the kids has been lobbying for a hefty 2000 cc air tank.  This plus a couple of smaller ones will give us plenty of lift.  I told him sure, if we can make weight.  Now it appears I have to let him go for it.  I really hope we don't have to bring back the monster 5000 cc tank from 2020, that was ridiculous.  But heavy, so there's that....

I won't lie this season has been tough on me.  I showed up early to get things organized.  The area we work in is used by an architecture/building class during the school day.  There are all these neat little house models done in CAD and laser cut.  I looked at them and had visions of Mecha-Robo-Godzilla stomping them all flat.

FIRST Robotics Report 4.2 - The Von Frankenstein Moment

The robot is starting to come together.  Weekday sessions are always a bit less productive than our long Saturday sessions.

Monday's unhappy surprise: the maximum allowable pneumatic pressure is 60 psi not 65.  Again, the kids should learn not to trust my facts!  This means we have less margin of error regards weight and really should bring the robot in at 100, maybe 105.  We think we can.  Oh, then you have to add a 12.5 pound battery and about 9 pounds of protective bumper.  Total weight:  126.5.  Calculated lift ability:  147 pounds.  So this should work.  

We also tested the pneumatic ball "spanker".  It is fun and has sufficient range.

Tuesday started slow.  Assorted fussing about with the wrong rivets, and additional time spent unproductively on considering alternatives to our "pinball flipper" ball acquisition system.  But eventually we got things assembled sufficiently to power up the pneumatics and attempt the first and most critical of our two climbs.  As I said, it should work....

And it does.

It's always exciting when a robot first comes to life and works.  I call it the Von Frankenstein moment.  I must admit I always say, sometimes aloud sometimes under my breath, "It's Alive!"

There is more good news as well.  The first lift is pretty much level, so when as a test we had kids pull towards the second bar - which our next pneumatic system will do - it was as my grandkids say "Easy Peasy, Stinky Cheesy".  Actual engineering meets empiric testing.

Thursday  We turned over the calendar.  Now it is February.  That seems to put more time pressure on.  In fact we will be competing four weeks from when today's update posts.  I worry about several big things.  Big Things are best tackled on Saturdays so we filled in with some Medium Things.

Battery holder secured.

There will be intake grabber arms attached to these little stubs.  Pinball flippers I call them.  Ready to mount and not too far from being under software control.  I mean, in the movies nothing bad every happens with robot arms, right?

It's not all about the robot.  Here's meal time.  A young lady who has stepped up as Team Captain encourages the troops.  One of the adult coaches shovels in spaghetti.

And so it goes.  Hopefully we get another solid Saturday in.  We need a couple of custom parts lasered, some electronics are stuck in the supply chain somewhere, but unless/until we get blizzards and the rest of the team goes down with Covid....we might pull this off.

Lizard Beer

I'm fairly easy going about my politics.  And if I'm enjoying a beer I become even more so.  Over pints I have had many enjoyable chats about the state of the world with those who see it differently.  So please don't take what follows as a partisan screed.

There is a microbrewery over on the other side of the state that is run by people with very outspoken progressive views.  That's fine although I do see them taking a few chances by actually insulting conservatives, many of whom enjoy their beer.  But it is their business to run.  I think they went a bit too far when they started their own PAC and in its name sued school districts around the state that did not "follow CDC guidelines".   It is a free country, they broke no laws, and on some level I respect people who are so passionate about their beliefs that they take actual risks.

As it happens I think they were wrong, and their actions just made a bad situation worse, so I don't think I'll support them by buying their products.  Free country for me also.

But that is beside the point.  The other day I ran across their wares on one of my essential supply runs.  Since I won't be sampling the taste I can only judge a can by its cover.  This is important in the modern beer marketplace.  Have a catchy name and a visually pleasing container and it might set you apart from others on the crowded shelf.  This is a golden age for beer and there are lots of great options.  So what to make of this:

Something struck me as odd right away.  It took me a while to process it.  Let's see....black bulbous eyes.  No visible nose.  Fixed grinning expression.  Where have I seen that before?

Is President Biden a Lizard Person?  I'll admit the odds are small, but it would explain much.

Best of luck to the brewery involved anyway.  The world needs more good beer and more people willing to put their money on the line for what they believe in.  Cheers.  Also Hissssssssss!