FTC 7314 Engineering Notebook 2015-10-26

Competition Season Meeting

Meeting Date	Meeting Time	Location	Attendees
26-October-2015	6:00-9:00 PM	TCHS Brandywine	Trevor, Josh, Daniel, Braden, Seth, Akhila, Amal, Bennett, Matt, Trent, Myles, Justin, Wade

Objectives / Systems

Hypotheses, tests, observations, conclusions, plans

Chassis Fabrication

Trevor, Josh, Matt, and mentor Keith worked to finish the chassis which was begun on Wednesday. In the making of this chassis we also started the extension.
Matt helped Keith refill the spool on the spool gun. Matt also helped in the welding of the chassis and got to see some welding in action. Matt hopes to be able to join the welding team in the future.
Trent worked with mentor Clem to paint the chassis parts after they had been welded. Care was taken to clean and dry the parts prior to painting.

Tasks	Reflections
Axle Preparation	Braden worked hard to find the best method to sand the axles in order to fit the bearings. This took a long time for Braden to figure out. Besides working with Braden on sanding, Bennett Cut the polypropylene floor panel and drilled the bolt holes. Braden taught Daniel how to use the lathe. Daniel plans to use this knowledge in order to benefit the team in the future.
Driving Practice	Myles worked on his driving using a smaller robot made by Daniel. Seth helped with the practice, and anywhere else he could.
Programming	Today, the programming team resumed work with the color sensors. This will be absolutely integral to the autonomous, as quite a big part of it is tracking the white line and and box surrounding the beacon. This box is key to even getting near scoring climbers and pushing the button, which makes color sensors all the more in demand. Based on previous tests, Akhila knew that the Modern Robotics sensor was really short range, so the programming team just decided to use the HiTechnic kind. These aren't much better, but they will work well. Ideally, they will be able to use the camera, but that will be really tough to code and configure. Placement for these sensors on the robot would be on the right or the left, and possibly in the middle. Fortunately, Akhila had already configured the color sensor, so all they had to do was incorporate it into the step. They had a little trouble figuring out how to code the steps to include the sensor, because this was still relatively new to all of them. Once they finally got the code working, there was no problem reading red and blue, which is fortunate because those are the two most important colors. However, there were some issues regarding the white. This will be a huge issue because the white line is the key to getting on track to score and push the button. This issue will be resolved immediately next week. Justin listened to the programming part of our operation. Justin also helped in the workshop. Amal was helping to program the color sensor. Amal also listened and watch Akhila program on her laptop. Today they tried to get the color sensors working. They encountered some problems but they worked out most of the kinks. Wade feels that he was less productive today than at the last meeting.
Worm gear assembly	Trent and Braden worked with Clem to build the first worm gear assembly. This assembly, with a 4:1 reduction and a Tetrix motor, will be used to elevate and depress the forward drive-train extension.
finish welding chassis	Trevor, Josh, and mentor Keith worked to finish the chassis fabrication which was begun on Wednesday. In the making of this chassis they also started the extension.