Day 10 (1/15/2018)

Introduction

Today a lot of finishing up prototypes was done. On Tuesday at the team meeting we will vote on the best prototypes, so all prototypes have to be done before the meeting if you want them to be considered. After the prototypes are voted for, then we will start to make them out of the final materials. Also there may be modifications that have to be done to those designs before the final version is made.

Active Intake Forklift Integration

Due to us wanting to include Project Butterfly into our final robot, we are now starting to push weight. We can no longer have a separate system for the active intake and the forklift. The active intake we prototyped earlier was way to wide, heavy, and complex to fit onto the forklift. On top of other limitations such as not holding the block very well, it cannot handle sideways blocks whatsoever. After further game analysis, we concluded that picking up sideways containers is something we will want to be able to do, especially since it could affect the outcome of the match, or travel distance to get the next tote. In addition, nobody has even started prototyping something like this to fit on a forklift. Due to these limitations, we have decided to try and make a lighter active intake that is completely integrated into our forklift. This will save us the weight of an entire new system, pneumatic cylinders and components, and give us the opportunity to pick up sideways bins. If it works as plan, we will be given the option of dropping or shooting the block out of the forklift for scoring. We will hopefully be finishing this prototype before the meeting today.

Drive Train

The modifications to the spacers and shafts were finished today. This allowed for the gearbox assembly to be started. The gearboxes are mostly finished except the team is missing some pneumatic fittings and some bolts to attach the gearboxes.