Monthly Archives: February 2025

             We started the week by assembling the final subsystems of our robot. We mounted and calibrated the elevator, worked on bumpers, began manufacturing parts for our intake and indexer, and mounted the outtake onto the elevator. Meanwhile, our Software team created code for each subsystem to streamline the final weeks of integration testing before our week 1 competition.              On Wednesday, we began assembling the deep cage climb mechanism. Our manufacturing team quickly made the necessary parts, allowing the assembly to proceed smoothly. Our Software team also continued refining our intake and indexer code, and our Control Systems team attached the energy chain to our elevator.              On Saturday, our hardware team calculated that our robot would be overweight. They immediately brainstormed creative ways to reduce the weight. They decided to switch the Drivetrain rails from 1/8 to 1/16 inch, the Battery belly pan from 1/4 to 1/8 inch with an additional weight reduction grid pattern; the polycarb cover for the control system board was also reduced from 1/8 to 1/16 inch. Manufacturing for these changes began immediately. The upside is the team would now have a beta bot that will be used to test and finetune near-final subsystems, and auto routines, and allow our driver to continue to practice on our practice field while [...]

             With our first competition just around the corner, every second counts. We pushed forward on all fronts during week 5—manufacturing, mechanism assembly, coding, scouting, and more—all while making exciting progress on our robot and beyond.              On Wednesday, we held a critical design review. We discussed minor changes to our mechanism designs to reduce size for better packaging, improve coral lifecycle from intake to outtake, and keep our robot weight below 115 lbs.              Our scouting app team has also made significant progress. They implemented data visualization in the form of charts, which made the analysis process quicker. Additionally, we finished assembling the elevator and tested its voltage to check its efficiency.              Our vision team continued to perfect their integrated vision assist when approaching the reef to score. With the new bumper rule changes, the team has decided to use EVA Foam over traditional solid-core pool noodles. The EVA foam has proved easier to work with, as we were able to order 40 x 80 sheets and cut them down to the required size for baltic birch bumper backings. This year, we are making practice bumpers in addition to our comp bumpers.           [...]

             Over the course of this week, our team has made steady progress toward finalizing our Reefscape competition robot! Our driver, Arman, continues to practice with the Crescendo competition robot, Alphabot, and the Reefscape competition drive train. Arman has been testing out different controllers, he recently settled on the Scuf Reflex FPS controller.              Eric and Max had another productive week working on the scouting app. The UI was finalized, AI features were added, and it is now able to record scoring for Auto, Teleop, and Endgame!              While we are mostly done with the prototyping phase of our build season, our CAD team is working hard to finalize the competition robot CAD and drawing files for handoff to the manufacturing and assembly teams. The Reefscape robot's weight limit of 115 lbs, is proving to be a bit of a challenge, so our design team is looking for creative ways to reduce the weight of our robot and to improve the packaging of the subsystems onto the swerve drivetrain.              As mentioned in last week’s blog post, we decided on a 4-degree angled elevator mounting to simplify the end effector design. The manufacturing team has completed manufacturing all the [...]