6/16/2025 – Ally L
This Monday was Talon’s first summer open room. So far this summer in Eden Prairie, the weather has been drizzly and cool. However, when we opened the doors of the robotics room on the 16th, the sun was shining and warm! So, Talon soon began outdoor shenanigans in full summer style.
T-Shirt Cannon!
The first project of open room was the T-shirt cannon. Talon has had a T-shirt cannon for many years, which we use to demonstrate at a variety of events, such as the homecoming football game and the 100-Year Parade this year. This year, we worked to build a new T-shirt cannon, as our usual cannon is over five years old. It was uncomfortable to wear, as the mechanism was roughly strapped to two old backpack straps. In addition, it occasionally broke, due to its age. So, some team members have been working on building a new cannon. The new T-shirt cannon looks much more organized and neat and is designed to be easy to carry.
At the start of open room, we installed one last new part on the cannon, and then tested it out in the nice weather. We wrapped and taped a T-shirt to fit inside the cannon, and then tried launching it across the grassy hill by our room. It worked great. To quote one of our Engineering Captains
“It was awesome! We launched a steel rod like 70 feet!”
So we can trust that this cannon will do great at sending our T-shirts to crowds!
Chairbot!
After the shenanigans with the T-shirt cannon, we stayed outside in the sun to work with our next fun project, Chairbot. When we disassembled our 2016 season robot, Midnight, we kept the drivetrain assembled and operational. From there, we attached a short folding lawn chair to the top of the robot, added small footrests to the front, and controlled it with an RC car controller. Chairbot was so much fun last offseason, even attending one of our outreach events.
On Monday, we drove Chairbot and its passengers (wearing a bicycle helmet, as Chairbot’s top speed is similar to a bicycle) around the grass, parking lot, and sidewalks near our robotics room. Our incoming freshmen, who were able to attend open room for the first time on Monday, had a great time.
Sadly, we had to stop driving Chairbot around when the rain and storms arrived. While we have tried to waterproof Chairbot, the thunder and lightning seemed to be a good sign to head inside.
Cronus!
Inside the robotics room, we worked on a lot of troubleshooting. Firstly, during the STEM Open House on Saturday, our demo robot Cronus from the 2024 season was not working well. Cronus is an amazing robot to show off to younger kids, because it launches colorful foam rings, which makes it a lot less scary and very safe for children to play with compared to some of our other robots. In addition, the foam rings are hard to break and don’t roll away, making them extremely convenient for demos.
But, Cronus doesn’t have the same space-grade electrical as our 2025 robot, Lefty. Specifically, the CAN loops, which are made of wires connected to each of the moving parts of the robot telling them what to do, regularly stop working, and so we can’t tell the robot what it should be doing. Instead, Cronus just sits there! So, during open room, we checked all of the CAN wiring, and then began working with programming to see if we could fix it. After some dedicated work, we were able to get Cronus up and running!
Drift-sco!
However, before we can send the code we write to Drift-sco, we will need to get its control system working. A roboRIO is like the robot’s brain: it stores all of the code, so that the robot knows how to move and can be controlled by the driver! But, when we turned on Drift-sco on Monday, the roboRIO didn’t turn on with the rest of the robot. We began to test what could be wrong. Trying different RIOs didn’t work – it wasn’t that. We tested and replaced different wires and connections going to the RIO, and it still didn’t work! We kept trying until open room ended. Next open room, we’ll keep working to fix Drift-sco.
The last robot we worked on troubleshooting during open room was our most recent season’s robot, Lefty. Lefty is an extremely reliable robot, with no electrical failures during competitions: a record for us! So, when the robot wasn’t working, it didn’t take very long to find out that it was a software issue. Something was wrong in either the laptops we were using to send code, our connection to the robot, or the software on the RIO. The programmers began to throw everything they had at the problem. To quote one of our Engineering Deputies,
“I tried the same thing 27 times and then it finally worked.”
Another deputy, when asked for a quote, just said,
“CD isn’t real, it can’t hurt you,” and “Just screaming.”
As we were beginning to clean up the open room for the day, Lefty finally worked! Great job to our programmers for all of their hard work.
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