Note Viewer

See above.

Disclaimer: the miscalculations weren't just Joaquin's fault. I, for one, take responsibility for misenterpreting certain facets of his drawings, and thus contributing to some of the uncertainty and confusion.  

Today we mainly focused the group on the development of the lifter prototype. Joaquin had to leave early, and worked on CADing with Jay. Using the incomplete portion from the previous meeting, we began to attach the side brackets for mounting the 80/20 pillars. Soon, we realized, when drilling, that the quality of the wood we were using as a base for the prototype was very poor (in that it was splintering when we ran the drill through it, and was far too flimsy to start with anyways). Therefore, we discarded the beautiful drawings on the flimsty wood, and found another, sturdier, slab to work with. 

At this point, we outlined the general shape of the robot chasis again (34X28), and began to mark off the sections where the 80/20 would eventually be mounted. While this was taking place, due to the excessive amount of humans we had at our disposal today, we split up the work into three sub-sub-teams: 1. Wood drilling and mounting of the 80/20 pillars, 2. Cutting of the 80/20 pieces for the structure that would go over the pillars, and 3. Piecing together the 80/20 to create the overlying structure. Justin, Maia, and Tiye worked on the first group, while Will, Luie, and Justin helped cutting the metal, with Robert and Martin working on the eventual amalgamation of the beams.

Immediately, group 1 encountered some issues with the hole drilling and bracket mounting. Jack helped them resolve some of these issues, as they generally dealed with the logistical problems that arose with drilling.

Group 2 completed the beams. Nuff said.

Group 3 finished the main center beams for both sides of the top structure, along with 4 corner brackets.

All was looking relatively swell until we reached the point of integrating the different groups' work. Instantaneously, we noted some inconsistencies with the measurements we were initially given. As a result, we were unable to successfully combine the various elements of our contraption. At this point, we had the main middle bar for the top structure, which vaguely resembled a ninja twirling baton. Along with that, we had a few pairs of the so-called "twin towers", dubbed in that way due to their similar appearance, but mostly because of their identical lack of stability. Take into account, however, that the New York buildings required airplanes to take them down, while ours merely required one healthy dose of gravity. We were also left with a handful of pulley supplies that we ran out of time to mount onto the pillars. This really does us no good, but I felt like mentioning them, regardless.

Ultimately, the funky measurments, along with a few inaccuracies when it came to construction, led to our creation of various parts, none of which fit together correctly. We have the general ideas for each element, it's simply a matter of deciding on consistent dimensions, and essentially re-doing the entire thing :) .

Lots.

Oh, right we have to explain. 
 

For the sake of simplicity, allow me to formulate a complicated analogy to depict our current situation (ignore the irony of that sentence):

Our assignment was to create a sandwich. We were given the orders to find some ingredients for this sandwich, and split up in order to maximize our efficiency. One third of the group was given turkey, another was given tofu, and another was given grape jam (Joaquin was in charge of the bread). Each respective group found some relatively high quality ingredients. There was some nice, lean turkey, some flavorless, white tofu, and some Smuckers jelly. All of the ingredients tasted wonderfully on their own, but when put together, made arguably the nastiest sandwich known to mankind. On top of all of that, Joaquin provided the group with an abnormally large top slice of bread, but an oddly tiny bottom slice.

Essentially, we all need to PLAN OUT EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE DOING BEFOREHAND, BEFORE WE TRY TO MAKE ANY SANDWICHES/ROBOTS. Cuz otherwise we get grape jam covered tofu, and that just doesn't taste good at all.

In all seriousness, we need to ensure that we are consistent with everyone, before starrting on any future projects. This experience can serve as one we can all learn from. If we had all sat down for 10 minutes, prior to construction, all of the issues we encountered would likely have been resolved. Practically every mistake from today could be traced back to miscommunication.

Additionally, materials were running a little short towards the end of the construction, as we struggled to find our last 2 corner brackets.

Oh, and the drilling team had some trouble ensuring that the pillars stood up straight (for more than three seconds). Fortunately They figured this out by the end of the meeting, to some extent.

It's likely that we'll have to start from scratch again. This time, we'll make sure everyone knows what we're doing. The prototype needs to be completed on Saturday to remain somewhat on schedule.

A little behind at this point. Hopefully we can catch up tomorrow. 3 hours should suffice for completion.