Hello all! We’ve had quite possibly our most productive two days yet, with the robot finally starting to look like it’s supposed to, the code approaching a state where we’re ready to run it with the robot, and the first few award submissions signed, sealed, and finished.
At 6:00 pm last night, the package with our new set of Neo Motors arrived on our doorstep. With the first climb arm nearly fully assembled, the Cargo Cannon attached to the Chassis, and the Chassis itself all but entirely ready to move, these motors mark the removal of one of our last obstacles to a competition-ready robot. Aside from the finishing touches on the current setup, our next major goal will be to connect the climbing rig to the rest of the robot, after which point all we’ll have to do is a bit of fine-tuning.
The Programming Team has reached the trial phase, with the linear actuator (I’m told this is programmer speak for “movement program”) ready to be tested as soon as the robot has all of its attachments in place. Aside from that, we’ve begun to experiment with an ultrasonic distance sensor, which will allow us to have a better idea of the objects around the robot, and potentially give it better capabilities during the autonomous section. Although we may not be able to use it this year, having a working code for this sensor will open up the possibility of easily improving our robot’s autonomous ability in the future. But more importantly, once we can get the linear actuator up and running, the Drive Team will be able to begin practicing.
The Business Team has finished off the Woodie Flowers and Dean’s List awards and has jumped straight into filming for the Chairman’s video. And in all honesty, it’s actually been much more fun than expected, and we’ve been making terrific progress on it thus far. Aside from that, we’ve already made sizeable progress on the Chairman’s Essay, and have completed the executive summaries. Lastly, we plan to place the order for the team shirts in the near future. All in all, we’ve made considerable progress in the last few days and should be fully ready when the time comes for the competition.
And that’s all she wrote! We’re going to a lot of work to do these next three weeks, but we have full confidence we’ll be able to deliver. So stay tuned, because these next few weeks are going to be busy ones.
