EVHS Robotics FIRST Team 2854: The Prototypes

This is the picture of the fabulous Judge’s Award that we won this year , but had left too early to bask in the glory.

For the youtube video of all the awards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0KjCJUTQBm0#t=511s

We won this at the 2013 Silicon Valley Regionals. The Judge’s Award is an award bestowed upon a team that has demonstrated uniqueness. The actual description is “During the course of the competition, the judging panel may encounter a team whose unique efforts, performance or dynamics merit recognition”. However, during the video, the judges pointed out our limited funds and outstanding performance in the competition despite this fact.

All in all, it was a great honor to be awarded with the Judge’s Award.

-Oliver Yang

Build season day 17:
Today’s meeting was at school, and wasn’t extended, so we didn’t have too much time to work. The shooter and electrical board were worked on further, and the climbing arm was (annoyingly enough) disassembled, so we put that back together today as well. What we had worked on over the weekend was a fairly short prototype as well, so we will continue to lengthen the arm (probably tomorrow). A good number of the people that attended the meeting today were working on the attachments being built off of the chassis, which we also started on the weekend but never finished. Hopefully tomorrow’s short day of school and a longer meeting will give us more time to work!

Build season day 16:
Things are going really well! There was no meeting yesterday because we had done so well Yizhe needed a day to come up with a new plan on what to get done when and for a break. There was no school today (Martin Luther King Jr. Day) so we had quite a bit of time to work. The shooting mechanism was further tested and improved, and now that we have hinges, our climbing arm is starting to come together nicely as well. We also used pvc and 80/20 to build a frame off of our chassis to attach these to it. In the next week we’ll start putting these separate pieces together so that we will have a fully functional robot! I can’t wait to see what Mr. Chubbers will look like when he’s done. Keep it up, cougars!

Build season day 10:
As of today, we can say our shooter is working great. Our accuracy for the frisbees being thrown is pretty good, but we hope to improve that this week. For videos and pictures of our shooting prototype, look on our Facebook page/robotics group. Also, our drive train is fully functional, as all of you can see from the pictures we posted on Facebook. We are currently in the process of building game pieces in order to test our robot-in-progress further (another job for tomorrow). We finally got our camera working as well, and our electrical team is working on figuring out other sensors that could possibly go on the robot. Different designs for the electrical board are also being tested out.

Build season day 7:
Today, we completely finished the drive train and prototyped the shooter (using cardboard). It didn’t seem to work too well, so we tried using a straight path for the frisbee to follow, but our original curved design seemed to work better. We added some lubricant to the metal which seemed to help shoot the frisbee farther. That’s some encouraging progress to end the first week of build season!

Build season day 6:

The past few days, we haven’t posted anything but here’s a quick catch-up: as of today, the chassis was starting to look pretty complete. The frame is complete, with wheels and motors attached. Beautiful! The shooting mechanism is starting to come along, too. We don’t have the wheel that will be the man part of this yet, but we have the base for it, and a temporary curve for the frisbee to follow. Our inventory is almost complete, too. Everything is coming along well, and it’s almost been a week of build season. We’ve got a lot more to complete: the code for the robot, the lifting mechanism, finishing the shooter, and putting it all together, but if we continue to work like this with even more motivation, I’m excited to see the results. Also, we’ve got a facebook page now! Take a look: http://www.facebook.com/EvhsRoboticTeam2854?ref=ts&fref=ts/viewItem/3

Build season day 3:

Today, we got started on building the chassis! Several members of the mech. team sawed away at some 80/20 to build it. Our new dimensions are going to be 27.5×22″ (25″ didn’t end up happening as planned). Since we met in Mr. Miller’s room, many more members came that we haven’t seen since before kick-off: we caught them up and it seems everyone is up to date now. Note to everyone: be careful! Build season gets hectic, but safety always comes first. We’ve started switching members of our team off to be a “safety officer”. To make our goals to practice on, we’ve decided to use cardboard boxes: no need to use wood or metal; cardboard will be easy and fast. Extra sheet metal and wood in the back room will be used to build a prototype for the shooter (that’s the plan for tomorrow’s meeting). Last but not least, we had people working on our inventory. Good job guys! A little bit more needs to be added, like some prices (but that’s another job for tomorrow). Keep it up, everybody, 3 days down, many more to go…

Build season day 2:

Today, we mainly worked on the frisbee-shooting design we had chosen after debating it yesterday: wheel system, aiming for the 2 point goals. A basic sketch was made, and material and other details were decided. Also, the electronics were measured and designs for where and how to place them on the robot were debated. Details on the arena (measurements for goals and other parts of the field) were figured out and sketched.

Build season day 1:

For those of you who didn’t attend kickoff, here’s the game animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itHNW2OFr4Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player

At today’s meeting, we mostly brainstormed and researched ideas on the robot sections: shooting/dumping, pick-up, lifting, and drive train. For shooting, we decided (for now) to try a wheel system aiming at the two point goals, and depending on how that works, we might start aiming at the other goals. Lifting we will continue debating and maybe prototype several designs.

HOMEWORK FOR TONIGHT: Read over the game manual and rules. You don’t need to memorize it, but at least have a clue of what the rules are. http://frc-manual.usfirst.org/viewItem/3
Those of you who have more specific tasks, DO THEM.

Agenda for tomorrow: scheduling, building game pieces, building/ testing shooter design, and figuring out the dimensions of the robot.

Today was the kick-off to the 2013 build season! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itHNW2OFr4Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player < — here’s the link to the animation for the competition this year: Ultimate Ascent! Good luck, everyone, and let the games begin….