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We are working on figuring out if the kicker bot is really implementable on the robot, and should begin working on a proof of concept that is fully automatic in the future if the piston catapult doesn't work out. That is really the hardest part of that design, and beginning to build a robot spec. prototype of the kicker is the first step in figuring out if that's possible.

We stabilized the posts that hold up the surgical tubing on our kicker prototype, and cut a taller pedestal for the ball. We got the kicker to shoot in the goal from 10.5ft away 4/4 times, and a couple holding a bar up in the hallway. :D With the pneumatic prototype, we mounted the second piston and fitted new brackets on each end of the piston, ones that were actually meant for the piston. So that's pretty cool. Works a little bit better, but not very significant. We are currently awaiting the high flow solenoids, hopefully will make it quite a bit better due to the higher speed of the actuation. However, due to the vertical compact nature of the prototype itself, the pistons cannot be fitted with the ends as close to the hinge as we would like them to be, but maybe if we put together a new prototype it would be better. We are also putting together a sketch of a new design for the kicker bot, that is build to the current robot specifications that were announced the other day by the drive train subteam.

Trying to make a kicker that is small enough to fit on the current robot specs is our main problem, so far, despite going really slowly, the piston one is working okay.

Finish the robot spec. sketch of the new kicker prototype, and begin building. Continue to wait on HighFlowSolenoids. Possibly start CAD-ing designs.

We are not /really/ behind, although ideally we should have narrowed it down to one prototype that works really well, instead of one that works in a non-ideal setting and one that doesn't actually work yet and will only work in theory.