Continuing our blog post from last week, we have more to say on the programming aspect of our team. Separate from the robot itself, some members have worked on Autodesk Synthesis in hopes of simulating our robot on a CAD model of the field without having our physical robot up and running. While they were able to generate the field, Synthesis proved to be difficult to work with and we hope to make more advancements soon. Additionally, we have begun work on our scouting app for this season and it will be similar to the one we used last year. In regards to the robot itself, our programmers have tested our color sensor on our rotating indexer (see previous blog posts for more details on this mechanism). The sensor was able to detect yellow and blue through the polycarb used on the mechanism and could determine if each spot was empty or contained a ball. Students were also able to view how many balls were stored and the data could be viewed on a shuffleboard.
Our mechanical teams made progress as well. Machining is complete! This was also thanks to the machinists who did the CAM for all of our CNC parts and the students who worked on our shopbot. Now, all of our parts are organized and have been given to our assembly team. Thanks to our efficiency this week, we have assembled a few of our major mechanisms, such as our indexer. As the next week begins, we hope to have a working robot for our programmers to fully test.
