FTC 7314 Engineering Notebook 2015-11-28

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Competition Season Meeting

Meeting Date Meeting Time Location Attendees
11/28/2015 12:00-5:00 TCHS Brandywine Amal, Trevor, Josh, Akhila, Braiden, Daniel, Bennett, Matt


Objectives / Systems Hypotheses, tests, observations, conclusions, plans
Programming
  • The programming team added support for controlling the front climbing arm as well as changed the existing code to operate with the final robot hardware.


Tasks Reflections
Programming
  • The programming team started off the meeting with setting up Akhila's computer for the wireless deploying on to the robot. Mr. Abersold helped her set it up, and it is officially up and running!
  • Taking the closeness of the competition into account, Akhila decided to work on setting up the code for teleop. When this was done last time, only the joysticks were coded, and seeing as the robot can do more than just drive, more controls needed to be added. She started with the front arm extension. Initially, she was going to use the triggers as the controls for this, but as the triggers are floats, scaling would need to be utilized. Deciding on 30% raised for the resting position, she set the range of values as .3 to 1, and .3 to 0. This didn't work as well as she'd hoped. Upon closer inspection of the code, she found that the range of values for the trigger was actually -1 to 1, instead of 0-1 as she'd thought. She then just gave up on scaling and the arrays, and coded the arm controls to the bumpers. Those are just straight buttons, and much simpler to code!
  • After that was done, it was time for autonomous. This was a bit of an issue, considering that both mechanical and programming teams both needed the robot in equal amounts! Even after finally getting to test, it wasn't all good stuff. The robot ended the autonomous routine with a funny turn after the go straight step. After testing a few times it was clear that the strange turn was something consistent.
  • Slightly discouraged, Akhila and Mr. Abersold checked the logs, and saw that the left motor was achieving zero, while the right motor was not. Each time they tested, the right motor was even more off than the last. It was very frustrating.
  • In another attempt to figure this out, Akhila added log statements for power of the motor, but didn't get a chance to test them. Next week, she will do this, and also write other programs to cater to the blue side and the inside starting point.
Robot polishing
  • Josh spent the meeting practicing climbing, as well as changing the level of divots in the new wheels. He found that the divots made little difference. This proved to be an issue as wheels are necessary, yet hamper the team's ability to climb properly.
  • Justin spent a majority of the meeting planning the divots and creating the initial cuts. He also attempted to climb up the mountain, to no avail. Justin is thinking of ways to make the make the climb a possibility, while still not having to remove wheels.

Action and idea Journal



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