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Probably should have started doing this day one... oops I guess I have a lot of catching up to do. I will continue this tomorrow with all the new time I have now that build season is over :/ .

Quite a bit of the material could very well be adapted from the many team and captains messenger group chat updates that I sent out, hopefully I can get through as many problems as possible.

PS. I started this at 2:30am, and I'm going to sleep now (4:00am) so if something is missing, I'm sorry.

If I had written a bit less, it would be 2^11 words in this note, but I'm too tired to achieve that perfection. 

THE COMP BOT!!!!!

After an astoundingly short four days of building, we were able to finish everything (but code) and the shooter wheel (30 second fix) on the competition robot with an as-always too close time of about a half hour before bag. The good news is that we were able to hand over the robot for testing, even if we did it wayyyyyyyyyy (about two weeks) too late and only really had a few minutes of testing before we had to take it all apart again. 

• We received new inventory, including shorter rivets, more rubber and polycord, steel shafts, replacement ball joints, and springs.
  • We also got the waterjetted climber spokes
• Climber spokes were assembled and mounted to both robots, neither were tested though. 
• Jan attached the aforementioned springs to the practice bot drivetrain, replacing the ones I put on the previous night. After attaching, which was thoroughly painful thanks to hard to access bolts (buy a longgggg 3/32 l shaped hex key pls), the drivetrain was tested and the added springs seem to resolve the issue of the slipping strafe wheel. Test on flatter surface ASAP.
  • After testing on practice, they were put on the comp bot as fast as possible
• Ball joints were put on the comp bot pistons in place of the jank custom hex ones. 
• All the feeder rollers and shafts were put in, along with all the belts, into the competition robot. 
  • The driven axle closer to the front of the robot is painful to move without taking off the gear claws, the driven axles also require aligning hex bearings, which is rather difficult
  • The bottom back axle is hard to move because there is no room to slide out the shaft
• Agitator shafts were put in all the way at the cost of Mateus's arm strength.
  • I think the team should donate him a prosthetic to replace his now missing arm. 
• The shooter wheel was moved to the practice robot
  • Replace with two new ones when those come in.
• Back rails were mounted to competition robot
• Camera and LED ring were mounted as well
  • It really does blind you
• Touchpads went on both robots
• Daemon light was mounted to the competition robot
• Rope mounted to the ceiling to give the climber room to lift the robot all the way up
• Electrical worked on setting up the mapping for the testing controls
  • Joysticks for driving
  • Left trigger to toggle h drive or tanks
  • Left bumper to toggle drive gearbox speed
  • Right trigger to shoot (doesn't yet)
  • Right bumper to toggle feeding
  • Dpad up and down to climb up and to unwind 
    • Doesn't stop climbing
    • Don't reverse climber with the ratcheting wrenches down
  • Y to extend the lexan plate (lovingly mounted to the Guillotine) to feed from hopper from front of the robot
  • B to open up the gear funnel
    • Some solenoid conflict? Wrong initial states and B and Y actions aren't independent? 
    • Idk I'm not electrical
  • A to eject the gear
    • Drops the feeder bar, opens the gear claws, and ejects the gear all at the same time
    • Works really well
• The practice bot was driven around a little
  • Some problems with the top actuating lexan plate catching on the one below it
  • Code is messed up
  • Drivetrain is pretty much flawless
    • Until a shaft collar falls out and gives you a heart attack

After wrapping up the competition robot construction, effectively making it finished bar some lexan, the shooter wheel, and some cameras, at 10:30 the robot was given over to electrical for a bit of testing

• Replaced the router power cable with the correct one so that we could connect to the robot
• Instantly ran into the same PCM problem we had on the practice bot
  • Known problem was quickly resolved
  • Two PCMs have the same ID, so there is no way for the code to know which is which when it sends an actuation signal for the solenoid
• Robot drives
  • Didn't test strafing 
• Robot feeds
  • Fixed feeder roller motors directions
• Didn't test climbing, agitator, and shooter for a combination of mechanical and electrical reasons
  • a.k.a. we didn't finish mechanically in time for code to finish in time for bag day
• Managed to trip a breaker or blow a fuse or something like that
  • Read electrical notes
  • Be very worried about power draw

After a way too short testing session that only worked out a few of the most obvious kinks, I hope that the practice bot is close enough to the real one for it to work fine at comp.

Robot prepared for bagging:

• All tensioned shafts removed to let the belts hang loose and not damage themselves over the three weeks
• All moving parts ziptied down to prevent damage to themselves
• Raspberry pi removed from the robot
• Shooter parts bar the wheels all put in a big and zipties to the shooter
• Everything double checked, then put in a bag and ziptied
• Yay no more excuse to not sleep!

It was Bag Day. Ughhhh last day of (my) last season. I'll miss this. 

I miss Alexan and Isaac and their notes and their writing of the code. Pls come back from Mississippi, write some software to build houses for you or something, we need auto code. 

• We did not work very efficiently, shop was a bit of a mess and whatnot. To be expected under the circumstances, but should still be accounted for in the future. 
• Couldn't test all robot mechanisms with code as desired on either robot, combination of not working code and not enough time with robot.
• Way too many people in the shop area sitting on their phones on chairs (chairs in the shop area!!!! its not a lounge!) and getting in the way of other people. Please take your break outside the shop/build area.
• The new climber spokes turned out to be hard to slide onto the 1/8" rods. One set was widened and the other was done with pain, so the comp bot (the one that was widened) has bends on the end of the rods to keep it from sliding.
  • If they don't work out, velcro roller is a proved working conceptual design as showcased by other teams.
• Shop is a mess, finding tools necessary has gotten increasingly difficult.
• Only have 29 balls in the shop, testing full ball capacity is difficult.
  • Ostensibly should fit in 60, really want to be able to test this number. 
• Robot only weighs 110 pounds, and the left side is 10 pounds more than the right, so it lists very seriously.
  • Fix in code if there is no mechanical solution.
  • Do not want to sacrifice driving capabilities.
• Robot frame is pretty small and leaves little room for maneuvering hands and hex keys to repair.
• We started running out of parts, like shaft collars and spacers and bearings, but managed to scrape by.
• Not everyone knows what is going on with the robots, and bag day has not generally been a great time for learning.
  • Work on getting all questions answered for anyone who might have one.
  • Documentation will help answer questions in the future. 
• Many shaft collars used were never tightened and fall out at very inopportune moments.
• I might have to start doing homework now.

We can fix all wrong with the practice bot, a.k.a., not very much. 

• Mateus and I cut new steel shafts for the feeder rollers that were flexing a lot, but they need to be machined a tad. Basically, a hole needs to be drilled in the ends of the shaft to allow a ziptie to go through the shaft on the ends and act as a shaft collar. This should also be done to the aluminum shafts already mounted on the practice bot. 
• The camera mounting brackets need to be flattened along the bottom edge and re-bent on the brake press so that the camera actually fits inside, then do that for all the brackets, then mount all the cameras that we want to the practice robot. 
• We need to fiddle with the spring tensioners on the drivetrain. Right now both the comp and practice bot have springs on zipties about half tightened, so there's room to add some more down force if we want it, which requires more testing on a flatter carpet.
• Put in new shooter wheels when those come in.
• Test to see if the agitator works .
  • There is a possiblitiy that the vertical rollers on the agitator, which don't provide ball compression, won't actually work as desired. If so, the shaft size needs to be increased and new hubs need to be printed for them. 
• Figure out if it is possible to raise maximum system pressure from 110 to 120.
  • Probably a faulty guage, but we can't modify the factory settings.
• Continue making notes of documentation so that we can keep good track of what we have/have not done and our future plans. 
• Do rigorous testing of the robot mechanisms.
  • How fast can we feed?
    • Are there dead spots?
    • Can we feed a lot of balls without slowing down?
    • Is it fast enough?
  • Can we shoot?
    • How many balls per second?
    • How much power do we have?
    • Side to side consistency?
    • Accuracy?
    • Does the agitator work?
  • Can we climb?
    • Can we catch the rope?
    • Does the rope coil around without breaking the spokes?
    • How fast do we climb?
    • How long does it take to line up the rope?
  • Can we drive?
    • Can we go straight?
    • Can we strafe straight?
    • How much can we push?
    • How much can we get pushed?
  • Can we perform the entire gear or ball cycle?

We can also do other things to prepare for competition:

• Film a reveal video (pls and thank you, not waiting until after champs to do this this year).
  • Collect all media taken by all members of the team, would also be useful to use that to update website content.
• Take the robot to some place with higher ceilings so that we can actually test shooter (Ask Joe Muskin for ideas? ARC?).
  • Currently code doesn't run the shooter or agitator, but should. Figure out which subsytem is the bottleneck and solve the problem. 
• Actually test the climber .
  • Need to fix the climber code, currently it starts running but doesn't stop until disabled and code redeployed.
  • Make sure to not run the climber backwards with the ratcheting wrenches down, at risk of burning out the climber motors.
• Break in the robot a little (or a lot), check for what is prone to not work and how to fix (the whole point of testing)
• Make the bumpers.
  • Cut slots in the bottom of the back and side plates for various things that stick out of the frame.
  • Assemble bumpers to door hinges.
  • CNC out pockets for the door hinges in the plywood bumper frame, then build two bumper sets for red and blue. 
• Work on desigining pit for this year.
• Make the sponsor plate that goes on the back polycarbonate.

What needs to get done at CIR:

• Cut all the zipties currently holding all movable components in place.
• Reattach feeder rollers and shafts, don't forget to ziptie the ends of the shafts to work as a shaft collar.
• Reattach agitator rollers and shafts.
• Put in shooter wheels and attach pulley and belt.
• Put in cameras and camera brackets.
• Put in the Raspberry pi and wire over the cameras.
• Replace the two 8-32 nuts attached to the front two pistons that are bolted into the strafe module.
  • They seemed loose when putting them on, probably because they were not new. 
• Attach top lexan.
• Fix back lexan sliders, if deemed necessary (there were some issues with it I think, might have been a fluke).
• Go to all the practice matches!

Eh... Too late to worry about that now. In reality, we were about two weeks behind, but I'd say our last week of build made up for a week of being behind, so the net behindness was only about a single week. Since we actually finished both robots by bag day, I'd say it was our best scheduling yet (which might turn some heads), and gives us all the time until competition to work with a fully functional practice bot, ensuring (hopefully) great code and great drivers. 

We don't have much work (yet) planned to do at comp, so we should be able to fit in a full day of practice matches! Figure out a way to make that happen.