Mechanical:

For the first part of the week we could not physically work on our robot because the parts we needed were ordered, and did not arrive until Thursday the 22nd, so we sent most of out week troubleshooting prototypes, finalizing our designs, and CADing our ideas. We finalized our design for our tote lifting mechanism, and incorporated it into our CAD designs. As of Thursday all parts for the chassis have arrived, and we anticipate we will have a driving, full size robot base by the end of Monday the 25th. The parts for our lifter mechanisms are en route and scheduled to arrive by 1/28. We began finalizing designs of a kicker mechanism to push out the totes from our robot. After going through many designs, we concluded that the best design is one that pushes a stack out of the robot by pushing in the middle of the fourth tote in the stack, with a stabilizer at the top for the can, so that it doesn’t fall off in the processes. This was designed to functions best when our robot is angled on the scoring platform, as that is when the stack would experience the least motion being pushed out, and as it would allow our robot to align itself consistently. We are in the process of putting a design into the CAD.

Outreach:

This week was a busy week for the team in terms of outreach, we participated in two events as well as continuing our month long fundraiser. This week, we presented on STEM, and FIRST, as well as demoing our 2014 robot at Franklin elementary school, and at Newton North’s High School’s Just Think Expo. Both events were successful, between them we presented to lots people, and were able to spread the ideas and importance of STEM to all age groups from second grader to senior citizen. In addition every day for the entire month of January the team has been staffing a table at our sponsor, Whole Foods Market at four corners, at which we are presenting about the team, and about STEM, and asking customers to buy special coupons at checkout, the money from which goes towards supporting LigerBots.

Electrical and Programming:

This week the electrical group integrated more motor controllers, solenoids, and pneumatics, onto our test chassis, as well as cleaning up wire routing, and adding better wire connectors. In addition electrical began to CAD the final positions of the electronic components on our final robot. Programming was able to flash the RoboRIO with the new C++ code, and were able to get both test chassis to drive, fore pistons, and get sensor inputs.

Field Elements:

On Monday the 19th the step, the last of our field elements was completed. Now that we have a complete set of field elements the field element group has disbanded and joined other groups.