Authors: Andrew Georgioff, Ritik Mishra
Comp Bot Spacers
Today, we decided that waiting for two mentors to be in the room at the same time would delay our schedule too much. So, we decided to close the room for a little bit so that a crew could go up to the shop and cut comp bot drivetrain spacers, among other necessary work. The Digital Readout (DRO) on the lathe (a display that tells you where your tool is relative to your workpiece) said that all of the spacers were within 0.005” of the intended dimension, which is good enough.
When we actually tried to assemble the comp bot drivetrain. We ran into a big issue: the spacers were not within 0.005” of the target dimension. They were off by way more than 0.005” — as much as 0.050” – on the order of 1/16 inches. Additionally, it seemed as if the cut list (i.e the list telling the lathe operator what size to cut spacers to) was wrong in the beginning.
To solve this problem, we ended up having to cut spacers with the horizontal bandsaw (which does not make edges that are exactly square, like the lathe is supposed to), and then finish them off on the belt sander. This worked well enough, and much better than the lathe spacers.
At the end of the day, the gearboxes were installed onto the robot and it was ready to have chain installed.
Above: A pic from before the end of the day, after non-lathe spacers were made, but before the second gearbox was installed.
Demo Preparations
Preparation was made for our demo at homes by ash tomorrow morning. We are planning on bringing our 2016 robot, midnight. Minor fixes were made such as cleaning dust off, swapping a bad joystick, and some small code fixes.
Above: Our 2016 robot, Midnight, holding a boulder (10-inch diameter dodgeballs)
Programming
One of our members started working on an iOS version of our scout scanner app. This app takes QR codes generated by our scouting tablets after each match and uploads them to a central file with many different metrics being recorded.
Electronics Plate
We started drilling holes (by hand, no CNC needed) in a piece of HDPE to act as our electronics plate. We ran out of time before the room closed.
Quote of the day:
Ritik: what is qotd for today
Andrew: i got no idea tbh