DEWBOT VII

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Revision as of 01:01, 3 May 2010 by Gdeaver (talk | contribs) (Drive Train)

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This is the start of DEWBOT VII.

First up is is our goals and objectives for 2010-2011 and the initial planning on how we are going to get there.

Goals

  1. Win 1 regional event
  2. Attend Championship event in St. Louis in April 2011.

Objectives To reach our goal we have a number of objectives that we need to achieve. Within those objectives will be a number of steps that we need to do. Objectives are grouped in major categories that match up with our sub-teams.

Drive Train

DewbotVI

  1. DewbotVI was the result of a summer and fall design project that resulted in our first Swerve drive robot. The pivot drive was an intense project and in the end successful. However the current design has much room for refinement. Now that we have gone down the swerve path, the next iteration should be easier.

DewbotVII

  1. DewbotVII work can begin by a redesign based on our lessons learned. Also, Explore possible designs if we do not have the 4 steering motors next year. Work on encoders speed control for a total drive by wire system.

Mechanical Scoring

Programming

Programming the robot is the second most important thing that we do. You can't program a robot that does not work mechanically, but even a small amount of programming will improve the robot 300%.

The following are our programming objectives:

  1. A System Development Life Cycle - this is the methodolgy that we will use to create the software. There are many methodologies to choose from. We should choose the one that the programming mentor is the most comfortable with and has used. If there is no preferred choice then we should pick a lightweight one like Agile.
  2. System Development Tools - tools we need to develop the software
    1. Programming environment
    2. Software version control
      1. Presently looking at using Mercurial distributed version control and TortoiseHg Client
  3. Language Training

Once we have the robot rules and design. We can start working on the requirements and design.

Programming Tasks

  1. Select SLDC Methodology and do training
  2. Training on version control system

Electrical

Drive / Tactical

Scouting

At alliance selection we need to pick the strongest partners possible.

  • The simplest plan is to pick the next highest team on the qualification rankings.
  • Next is to align with a team that is doing scouting at the event.
  • Use another teams scouting system and use our team scout.
  • Create scouting software and use our team to scout.

Media

While in a perfect world we would end up on top at the end of qualification rounds. In the event we don't we need Plan B. We know that during alliance selection teams use their scouting. We also know from past experience that friends pick friends. Our objective for media team is very simply to have sab-BOT-age known to every other team at the event.

We need a full court media push:

  • Sell the robot at the event
    • Teams that go from Pit to Pit talking about our robot
    • Buttons - portable advertising
    • Handouts - describe what our robot does
  • Sell the sab-BOT-age brand
    • Local media - news articles
    • National media / websites
    • Posts on Chief Delphi
      • Thoughtful, helpful posts
      • Downingtown and sab-BOT-age listed in the signature

Program Management

The objectives listed above are difficult to achieve with our limited resources. We need to be very focused in our managment efforts. The key is plan the work, work the plan.