FTC 7314 Engineering Notebook 2014-11-23

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Competition Season Meeting

Meeting Date Meeting Time Location Attendees
Sunday, November 23, 2014 Nick, Akhila, Laura, CJ, Brad, Braden, Josh, Trevor TCHS Brandywine Josh, Braden, Laura, Nick, CJ, Trevor, Brad


Tasks Reflections
Mechanical Work
  • Trevor cut PVC with the bandsaw and dremel tool. Trevor also used the belt sander on PVC and an axle.
Electrical Work
  • Mentor Julie, Laura, and Akhila worked on figuring out a realistic electrical configuration, thinking that the robot should built around this.
  • Akhila then made a schematic in LabVIEW, as well as a schematic in Paint to create a visual of how everything would be wired.
  • Laura will add the electronics to the CAD.
Linear Slide and Shooter
  • Braden was able to get parts of the linear slide cut and parts of the linear slide on the robot
  • Josh developed millophobia as he had to mill all of the pieces to 2.5 inches
Autonomous Work
  • Nick and Laura worked on the autonomous program they started a few meetings ago.
  • They decided, as they discussed before, to start with the robot flush to the wall, instead of an angle, so it would be more reliable. No one can expect the robot to be set up at the same angle every time. Now, it starts with the robot all the way to the right of the parking zone, moves forwards and turns to the angle we started at before.
  • They ran into some big issues with the NXT freezing after seeing the IR beacons. With the use of sound blocks, they were able to locate the issue. Nick and Laura added different noises to different parts of the program, and determined it froze when the encoder values were read. They then tried a test program where all it did was read the encoder values, and it worked. They could use that value in a comparison without a freeze. However, if they wrote those values to an indicator, it instantly froze. The combination of encoders and indicators is causing the NXT to freeze, but, due to lack of time, they decided to move on.
  • They had to take the code out of a sub VI so we would not need to use an indicator. Hopefully, the problem can be fixed at a later date.
  • The parking zone autonomous now goes until it sees an IR sensor, and this works for all positions.
  • CJ with the help of Mentor Julie created a autonomous program that would go along with Nick and Laura's program. The program in theory can now drive until it comes into contact with the IR, then stops within an approximate time period.
Outreach Notebook Section
  • Today, Brad worked on writing the outreach section of the engineering notebook. He added the Kids Fest from before kickoff, and the tournament from yesterday that we all volunteered at.

Action and idea Journal



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