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This note is for the past half week or so. I have been working primarily on CAD. (focusing on feeder/shooter). Notes about the prototype and the rest of the shooter subteam should be coming soon from Single.

 I have designed and CADed the folding rails system  and ensured that there is ample structural support backing the rail, because it will be hitting the backstop with decent momentum. I made guider plates to center the ball as it enters the robot from the feeder and moves along into the shooter. I made plates to cover the front mecanums that things can be mounted to (specifically snowblower motors; 2 for the feeder rotation, 1 for the shooter rotation). I tried to move the shooter as far forward as possible to leave electrical/climber with maximal space. This forced me to move the mounting location of the feeder forwards and in turn forced me to shrink the length of the feeder plates to stay within the 15 inch frame perimeter extension. because the feeder is mounted further forwards, we will now have to rotate it 110-120 degrees above horizontal for our intitial robot configuration (to stay within the frame perimeter). To ensure that we could hit a 65 degree angled shot (which we concluded was optimal using the prototype), I made the shooter wheel be able to bend 31 degrees (maybe 33) below horizontal, and this invilved cutting a small hole in the drivetrain for the wheel, so it could drop down below the belly pan by half an inch or so. In addition, the shooter rail is 37 degrees, so our maxmum angle should be at least 68. To be able to target the goal from the batter, the shooter wheel will have to raise above horizontal to shrink the 37 degree natural state. This is a bit worrisome, because it looks like we may be shooting from an angle as low as 15 degrees from the batter, which would cause us to need to raise the shooter wheel 22 degrees above horizontal. Whether the rails attached to the belly pan can successfully feed into the main shooter wheel when it is raised so high is a bit questionable. In the worst case scenario, we may need to back up a couple feet from the batter when taking a low shot, but I personally don't anticipate this being necessary.

Shifting stuff around causes massive chain reactions. The wide range of shooting angles is quite a nightmare. Electical and pneumatics have very little space, so I am trying my best to save as much room as possible. 

At the end of the meeting yesterday, I identified a major structural issue with the shooter, nametly that the rotation of the two shooter arms in relation to one another was only limited by a 1 inch wide plate and a shaft (with 4 couplers/ adapters on it so not strong at all). We need to strengthen the shooter arms' connection to one another to make sure their rotation stays in sync. A slight angle and the wheel will not be perpendicular, causing ridiculous side to side torque which will apply itself directly in the plane that the structure is weakest in . Though I am not certain, my best guess is that the cims would be torqued out of their mounting plates and the arms would be bent 90 degrees or so until the cim has clearance to escape the circular hole on the arm. This would eject the cims and the wheel and the spinning flywheel at high rpm and could injure someone. Of course, the entire shooter would also be totalled. Therefore, though it takes a lot of space, i think this additional plate on the back side of the wheel is very necessary. 

Finish mounting snowblowers, design plate behind shooter wheel to prevent side to side rotation, start mounting electrical, and MAKE SURE THAT THE SHOOTER ISNT RESTING ON BEARINGS BECAUSE IT NEEDS TO BE POWERED BY THAT SHAFT (cuz we arent using darts). 

yh