This article was co-written by Vivian H., Meena R., and Jeremy L.
There’s a saying that sometimes you have to go left to turn right.
And turn left we did!
Last week, we gained a lot of momentum. And then lost it! But don’t worry, we gained it back again.
We tested our hanger prototype on our life-size hangerbars, and unfortunately, it fell. Anderson, the leader of our hanger prototype assembly, said, “The bar snapped like a twig. The gear also cracked.” Nonetheless, we persevered. We went right back to the drawing board, figuring out what we could do to improve our design.
By Sunday, we did a weight test on our newly iterated hanger hooks, and we found hope! To test the hook’s weight capacity, members from our hanger subsystem attached weights onto the hook and evaluated its weight capacity. It was able to hold a little over half of our robot’s weight, which is exactly what we need since we’re going to have two hooks!
Over on our ball path subsystem, we developed our final escalator-style prototype. Although we were moving slowly throughout the week, on Sunday, 2/6, the prototype was finished and tested. The result: progress! The intake took in
the ball smoothly, but there was a gap that caused the ball to potentially free itself from the grasp of our prototype. On the shooter end, the adjustable speed of the two shooter wheels made for a nice arc shot into the lower goal.
This week, we mainly worked in CAD to create the final ball path product. First, we fixed the issue with the ball freeing itself from the intake by adjusting some of our material choices to be more rigid. Now, we are working on integrating the ball path onto the entire robot CAD. Hemish, a sophomore that was working on the CAD, frustratedly expressed, “6 hours all gone!” after being told to redo his intake.
Dora, our team’s build captain, also started redesigning a more structurally sound pit display last Saturday. After checking the parts of our old pit display, which were slightly warped due to weather and old age, she set it upon herself to build a new one.
We are currently swerving into problems, as the company we ordered the swerve modules from has not yet shipped our modules.
The hanger subsystem made progress throughout the week, working on the final prototype. It’s looking promising as they finish up the prototype and get it ready for testing. Fingers crossed no hex shafts get twisted into pretzels this time.
The most important revelation of the past two weeks:
We got a new coach!
Last week, our coach named “Sean” disappeared, but some guy who sounds and looks exactly like Sean with a buzzcut replaced him. He’s also called Sean.
Our PR team’s work has finally come to fruition! After weeks of editing and iterating essays, we submitted our Woodie Flowers and Dean’s List Award submissions!
It’s almost spring and Miss Daisy is ready for the seeds of labor we planted to bloom!
See you next week!
