Mechanical & CAD:

On Sunday January 4th, the day after the after kickoff, the whole team got together to decide on game strategy, and decided that this year we would try to go for making the highest stacks of totes we could, and would intake primarily from the feeder stations, but would build in the ability to pick up of the ground. The next day on Monday the 4th the entire team deliberated again over chassis shape, and general solutions to the challenge, and concluded that we would be using a C-shaped chassis, and creating a mechanism to build a stack of totes by picking up a recycling bin game piece, lift it the height of a tote, place a tote below it, and continue until we had a stack of six. This way we could build an entire stack inside our robot which we could support internally limiting our risk of losing a stack. Over the next couple of days the mechanical group sat down and discussed possible solutions as well as drafting ideas for mechanisms. They then proceed to start building prototypes. All prototypes of designs are being ‘CADded’ in real time by our CAD group. Images and descriptions of said prototypes will be posted on Monday.

Business and Outreach:

Even though we are in the height of build season LigerBots’ presence in the community is as evident as ever! This month we are having a fundraiser in partnership with our sponsor Whole Foods, in which Whole Foods will provide the option to shoppers to donate money to the team. We will have a table set up at Whole Foods, manned by team members every day for the entire month. We will also be attending some of our local elementary schools to spread FIRST and STEM to the students of those schools. But, that is not all on Sunday February 8th we will be running the Providence Bruins half time show at which we will, demonstrate our 2014 robot, give out team tee-shirts, and talk about STEM and FIRST.

Electrical, Programming, and Kit-bot:

On Saturday January 10th the Electrical & Pneumatic group join forces with the Kit-bot group to create a system for the Electronics group to test code on, below is a picture of our test chassis, complete with the new roboRIO, talons, and pneumatic systems, and four cim drive train! This chassis will be continually updated so that its hardware matches that that will eventually be on our final robot.

Field Elements Group:

As of Friday our Field Elements group finished our feeder station, and we are now ready test prototypes for intake of noodles and totes.