FIRST Robotics League: Channel Cats



Links to other FIRST team sites: www.ravenrobotics.com www.team228.org Other helpful links: www.usfirst.org http://www.stlouisfirst.org/
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	FIRST We are a FIRST high school robotics team. Our team consists of the schools from the St. Charles district, a few home schooled students, and students from Washington, Missouri. Each year we participate in a competition which promotes science and technology through the building and programming of robots and other aspects involved with such an imaginative and fun event. We meet at the River City Robot Head Quarters in O'Fallon throughout the year. During these meetings, we strive to improve our knowledge on both the information necessary for building, to create a stable, worthy robot of the FIRST organization, and to learn new ideas and to make new friends. (This is our Team) UPDATES The robot is nearly completed inlcuding the orange paint job and channnel cat portrait. We weighed the robot yesterday and it appeared that it should go on a diet. We now have the robot in pieces and wil be reassembling it today starting at 9am. We will then re-weigh and begin driver practice and tryouts for the driver and pneumatics/ball handler. We will also begin making a list of manufactured spares needed and begin the making of the spares. The robot will be put inthe crate and prepared for shipment. Shipment is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. We will plan on closing today's meeting by 4pm. On Tuesday evening 7pm to 9pm we can continue the making of any required spares before the "tools down" deadline of Tuesday at midnight. If we need tomake any additional spares or develop and additional software, we are allowed one 5 hour period before Friday night. We could do that on Wed, Thurs or Fri of this week. Let's plan on taking Wed off and meeting on Thursday evening. After this week we have a week and a half before the competition. Among the tasks to be completed before 9 March are: Pit completion and plan to assemble it at the Family Arena on a non- interferance basis. Prepare scouting plans and required forms. Formulate some strategies we can suggest to our alliance partners. Assemble and pack all spares and tools. Complete giveaways. Prepare plans on how we want to operate in the pits i.e. the loan of tools or materials, the security of our computers and tools, safety, etc. Determine who will have what roles at the competition. Competition field drawings for auto mode planning and strategiy discussions. Consent forms. Chairman award interviewees practice. Animation voting. Let's plan on meeting on Tuesday from 7-9, Thursday 7-9 this week and Monday 27 Feb 7-9, Wed 1 Mar 7-9, Friday 3 Mar 7-9, Monday 6 Mar 7-9 and Wed 8 Mar 7-9 (Packing day). If we have completed all we need to do before then we will not meet. Meeting Minutes for 2/02/06: The robot and animation are both coming together slowly. the animation paperwork is ude on Feb 6 and the animation is due on Feb 12. The robot ship date is Feb 21. We have ... * Mounted all six wheels ansd the pneumatic cylinders for the wheel squat system * The main drive wheels have benn moved back to their "final" location" and have all the required pieces installed. * The pneumatic system parts have been temporaily mounted pending the completion of the ball handler mechanism * The shelving system for the electronics has been fabricated and the population with electronic parts has begun. * The software has been completed pending testing * The ball hander mechanism has been designed based on the prototype and arrangements have been made for fabrication of the final parts. The load on the motor in the prototype is very high so we are going with ball bearings instead of the bushings. The initial shipment of 6 bearings is here and the remaining 4 bearings are due in today. * The table cover for the pits and the pit tent frame have been completed. We need to ... Get all parts installed by the end of this week so we can start the test, break, rebuid process for two weeks. I have not heard any more about a scrimmage at Gateway Tech next weekend. We can roll out the crate this weekend and get that put back together and generally clean up the place in anticipation of our open house next week. Hopefully we can start driving the robot on Friday night. Meeting Minutes for 1/27/06: We continue to make progress. * The hubs on the main drive wheels are installed and mounting on the chassis is in progress. * The mounting and pneumatic etration systems for the four wheels on the corners is in its final stages of design. * The ball gatherer operational prototype is about half done. * The new stick shaping functions have been programmed. * All the components of the pneumatic systems have been successfully leak tested. * The nylon cover material for the bumpers has arrived. Next on the list -- * We still need to think about all the control modes and program them * Complete the wheel installation * Complete the ball gatherer protoype test, modigy the design as required and build the final design * Install all the electrical, control and pneumatics system components. * Design and build the ball holding bin * Build and install the bumpers * Install any shields or sponsor boards and add the sponsor decals. Meeting Minutes for 1/23/06-1/24/06: * Assembled the chassis * Decided to go with a level chassis rahter than a angled chassis configuration. * Received the 3 free pneumatic cylinders * Obtained most of the material to assemble to the ball gatherer and have begun the assembly of the rollers. * Mounted the wheel drive motors on the chassis. * Began the assembly of the breadboard version of the pneumatics system. * Fully integrated the old and new gyros into the new software and found several nagging bugs * Removed the existing fitting on the large CIM motors in preparartion for their use with the ball gatherer. * The animation figures have been completed and integration of the entire animation has begun. * Samples of the giveaways have bveen assembled * The shirt design is in progress * The team was interviewed by Shelly from the O'Fallon Community News * The team was filmed and interviewed by the O'Fallon Cable station. Meeting Minutes for 1/16/06-1/20/06: In the last few days we have: * Completed the generic operator interface. * Have the 2006 robot electronics and OI operating. * Have the basic design of the ball gatherer in hand and we are now gathering the required parts * Have the platform and end goal game pieces completed and a piece of diamond for the ramp has been donated. * Analysis of the omniwheel retraction system has been completed and the required pneumatic actuators and omniwheels have been ordered * The old gyro we had along with the new kit gyro are both operational with our new software. * The RC and OI interfaces are being documented * The Autodesk licenses for stand alone computers are squared away. * The bumper covering has been ordered and we are looking for the noodles * The animation storyboard has been completed and a significant portion of the animation has been completed * An experiment was conducted to determine which are the stickyest tires we had and a plan to mount them on the robot has been completed. The required parts are on order. * The drive motor transmissions have been assempled and two CIM motors attached to each * A rough cut at the estimated robot weight has been compiled We now are expecting to perform the follwing tasks shortly-- * Finalize the chassis configuration and layout all components * Build an operational ball gatherer prototype. * Compile a list of control modes for use in the software development * Finalize the ball basket design * Build the chassis and mount the wheels, drive motors, electronics and pneumatics Meeting Minutes for 1/10/06-1/12/06: Drive Train – decided to go with a two-wheel drive system with drive wheels in the middle of the robot and omniwheels at the corners. The omniwheels will be pivoted up (via pneumatics) like a landing gear, when climbing up the ramp and maybe during the transfer of balls to the end goals. The chassis will be elevated to a height of 7 or 8 inches to accommodate the ramp climbing and to give clearance for the balls to enter our ball gathering mechanism. Ball Gatherer - After much discussion there seems to be a ball gathering device preliminary design using a set of two to four rollers. A mockup is being built and tested. Some Autodesk Inventor work is being done to support this activity as well. Some preliminary sketches of the robot frame and other mechanisms are being prepared. Work continues on the generic operator interface. The robot electronics breadboard has been assembled and is ready for software. Work on the cleanup of the 2005 experimental software continues and work on loading the new (2006) development environment and loader on another laptop is coming along. Field Pieces - Materials have been assembled for an end goal and a portion of the platform game pieces. We now have 6 game balls and another dozen on order. The animation storyboard seems to have come together and work is being done on the various parts of the animation. On other fronts – We hope to visit Craftsmen Industries a week from Saturday for a tour and a chance to give management a presentation. Other presentations are in the works. There is a flurry of activity in the brochure making department and web site update areas. We dropped our registration for the Nationals this week due to the lack of funding. Plans are being prepared for our team to be featured on the local O’Fallon TV channel. They plan to do a beginning to end story. The cameras are flashing everywhere. FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. The goal behind this wonderful creation is to help kids understand the different aspects of math, science, technology and many other related subjects. FIRST presents this idea by giving kids a chance to learn and use what they learn in healthy and positive competition. It is a world wide organization with teams from many countries in most continents. If you wish to learn more about FIRST please go to www.usfirst.org. ©2002-2006 FIRST Robotics Team: RCR 1094 Channel Cats; webmaster Robin Havermann