Week two was another successful week with progress across all of the team. 

Our prototyping groups continued researching and testing different designs. We are prototyping a variety of designs that can be used to pick up the game pieces of the 2023 FRC Game Charged Up. Our groups consist of a 971 Arm, Extending wheels, Layered Intake with Fixed Bar, screw extender and elevator (Four Bar Arm), Ri3D Grabber, and a Rotate and Extend arm. Extending wheels is a design incorporating an orienter and linear slider and implements wheels to intake the object. The Layered Intake with Fixed Bar uses a bar to reorient the cone in a position that intakes the object with wheels in a layered design. The Ri3D Grabber is able to pick up fallen and vertical cones and cubes in certain angles and uses pneumatics to clasp onto the game piece. Meanwhile, the 971 Arm, Four Bar Arm, and Rotate and Extend arm are still in the progress of CADing. This week, the prototyping groups will present their design to the team so that we can decide the best way for our robot to hold and carry the game pieces. We are planning to determine different combinations of these prototypes and decide which designs work best with others.

Moving over to the mechanical section of our team, there has been a lot of progress CADing and machining our robot’s swerve drivetrain. 

There is also preparation going on to assemble the drivetrain, once it is finalized. Our electrical team has wired up the control systems and is finalizing the robot’s bellypan. They are taking into careful consideration the weight distribution of bellypan. They have also designed mounts to hold equipment for pneumatics and vision.

Our programming team has been working hard on a variety of items. The programming team has programmed a functional swerve drive robot. They are working on adding logging and displaying data from the robot, making it easier to debug. This year, we will be using vision again and taking advantage of the new April Tags that are placed on the Charged Up Game Field. The Scouting App team has been making the scouting app for this year’s game. They are being innovative and redesigning the user interface of the scouting app to make it more user friendly. But at the same time, the scouting app is being designed to collect crucial data. 

All in all, Week 2 has been another productive week! We completed the week with a Design Review where the team goes over our progress for the week and discusses the design of our robot. Even though we lost a few days due to power outages and storms, we are back on track.