Final Post And Closing Remarks!

This year has been an absolute blast! We started out watching Mastercam videos with our favorite teacher Mike, and made it all the way to the end of the year with these complicated robots. It had it's ups and downs, but all in all this year was ten times better than last. Even though we had to deal with Mike's monotone voice, most of us got Mastercam certified! Then after that we did the West Point Bridge Design, which is always a combination of stealing other people's designs and sharing them with your closest friends. Not to mention that I held the best design in the class :D. And finally helping each other learn everything we need to know in Vex. Robots were probably the most fun/annoying parts of the year. The annoying includes having people stealing your parts to your own group members trying to annoy you just to get a quick laugh. But the fun part includes working with your friends and thinking of unique ways to get the challenge complete, and that momentary feeling of relief when you finished the challenge then finding out that you have to take apart your robot and build another by the next week. And now we are here recalling all of the great and amazing things we have done this year, and man was it fun. Peter, Josh, and I are looking forward to next year and what it has to offer. Hopefully it can be twenty times better than this one. So goodbye for the last time, 'til next year see ya.

The whole class reviewing for the final, we will miss them all(well most of them)

Done with challenges!

We completed our final challenge this week and that is Tug 'O' War. We did very well and won almost every one of our runs, including Jaret's group! This has marked the end of the year as we prepare for finals. It was super fun while it lasted.

Never have to see these things again!

Our Bot after it's many runs

Runs All Week

 This week we are doing Tug 'O' War all week. Everybody needs a minimum of 10 runs with their bot. On top of that Mr. Martin will be coming around asking us how we implemented our weight, torque, and traction. We are prepared.

The Box Bot Mk.I in action. (we won btw)

Box Bot Mk.I

We have created our robot, and man will it do good. It is 3, 1x1 foot pavement bricks in a card board box. Then we have our robot attached to the top of them with a gear ratio that is geared for pure torque. Its 7:1, and then we have a string attached to it so it pulls our victims in slowly but surely. It's not pretty, but we love it, and it destroys. Oh and Happy Birthday to Brendan!

The Box Bot Mk.I

the Tug 'O' war cable.

Tug 'o' War!

This week the challenge is Tug 'O' War. So we have to completely strip our robot apart and re-do the gear ratio, and change the structure. The 3 main things we need to win this challenge are torque, weight, and traction. And boy do we have a trick up our sleeves. :D

Took apart the robot and discussing our plans.

Finally Done and On to the next Challenge

The Racquetball Challenge is finally behind us. It's over and done with. Now we are moving on to the next one.

Felt it kinda necessary to post a victory picture.

Getting it Done!

This week we plan on getting this challenge done! All of these FCAT days have been putting our team behind. But we are finally ready to do this.

Final Touches

We had time to work on our robots this week! We just put the final touches and practiced for next week. The challenge is now two days late and on Monday it will be three. This means we need to get three balls in the tube in one minute in order to pass. All this time away from the lab has put us way behind schedule.

Peter working...

Josh working...

FCAT still sucks :,(

FCAT testing has been going on all week and we have had no time to work on our robot. Hopefully next week we can work on it a bit.

Basically....

FCAT sucks... :(

This week we started off in a different room than our usual one. The engineering lab was being used for FCAT testing, which made us not be able to work on our robot. If we get a chance to work on them then we will be practicing.

Josh doesn't like FCAT.

Fixed the Ballscoop and Programming... Finally

We finally fixed our ballscoop and it is working condition. Also we programmed our robot. We are ready to do the challenge. We are going to be practicing until we are confident to do the tube!

Our robot

Peter working on the final touches.

Ball Scoop Mess-up.

This week we were on our way to programming our robot and practicing the challenge. But just with our luck we miscalculated the measurements on the ball scoop, and the ball doesn't fit inside of it. So because of this our goals for this week is to get that right and program.

In this picture you can see our mistake that we made.

Here is a better close-up.

Racquetball Robot is Built!

This week we completed building our ball mechanism and attaching it to our PB&J Bot! All that is left is programming and getting to our challenge. Wish us the best of luck.

Here is the ball mechanism attached to our robot, it also has the motor attached.

Here is a close up of the ball mechanism.

Racquetball Challenge?

Now that the rack is done we have a new, and more difficult challenge ahead of us. We are required to design a ball lifting system on our robot, and make it drop it into a tube. This week we are planning on creating the ball lifting mechanism and placing it on our robot.

Here is the tube and the ball that we have to get into the tube.

Here is the design to grab the ball and drop it into the tube.

The Rack was a SUCCESS!

    Even after all of the challenges and difficulties that our team went through. We worked hard and got the PB&J bot done and ready for the Rack. Even with 3 days late on the assignment we actually placed three tetrahedrons on the top bar to rack us up a 90% as our final grade. Two challenges down and more to come.

Josh and the PB&J bot after our challenge.

Action sot during the Rack challenge.

Week 5 Goals

Now coming back from a great spring break, we are getting back on track to what we've all been waiting for. We need to modify our robot due to our tetrahedron challenge where we must apply an arm to our bot to be able to carry the tetrahedron. We are working hard trying to get all this done by Wednesday.

Preparing for The RACK

Our next challenge is The RACK. We have to make our robot lift a tetrahedron and place it on a PVC pipe structure. So this week we plan on building an arm to lift the tetrahedron. Also we are changing the gear-ratio of our robot.

Here is the rack and the grading scale, it is out of 100. And you can only place 2 tetrahedrons.

Here we were trying to 3-D print some gears for our robot, everyone else stole the good ones.

The GAUNTLET

This week despite all of the trouble... We completed our robot! And we faced the Gauntlet, which was a challenge Mr. Martin set up to test the maneuverability of our robot. Josh did great and got us an A!

Here is our completed robot with everything on it, and it actually goes!

..

Heart Break

This week we had planned on upgrading and rebuilding our robot completely. This is still on our agenda, but upon testing the PB&J Bot we found out that one of the motors was defective. So before going on to upgrading our robot we have to repair the motor, this requires us to take apart the robot. Wish us luck ;(

Josh and Peter working on repairing the motor.

The motor closer to the text is the broken one.

Robots are Beautiful

Thanks to everyone in our team, we finished assembling our ROBOT! We were a day behind because of the lock situation but we came through and finished it on time. The PB&J bot is almost ready for the upcoming challenges.

The One and Only beautiful PB&J Bot.

Josh might be a bit excited about the robot being done...

No lock, No robots ;(

     This week we are supposed to be beginning and finishing the full construction of our square bot. Unfortunately our group has forgotten the lock for our cart, and that means we can't build until we get one. So we are stuck with the horrible task of sorting left over nuts and bolts that weren't the week before. Hopefully by tomorrow we will get a lock and complete our goal of finishing the bot by Friday.

Brendan sorting nuts and bolts...

Josh playing with a magnet when he should be sorting.

Too much inventory....

Well we accomplished the most annoying and dreadful part of robots.... inventory. Literally this whole week we all switched off and took inventory, sorted, and cleaned nuts, bolts, and more. Finally that is over with and we can get to building.

Josh finishing up sorting.

Progress

Last week was a success for everyone and they all completed their tasks. This week we plan on doing inventory and finally building the Square Bot!!! Wish us luck! (especially Peter...)

Peter and Josh disassembling what was a motor testing rig.

                                         

Funny GIF of what I do while everyone else does work.

                                               

Preparation for ROBOTS

This week will be action packed with the delightful task of organizing and managing inventory! YAY! Peter will be taking care of this. I will be taking care of this amazing blog, and Brendan will use his god-like Solid Works skills on making the Square bot.

                  Peter, totally not posing for this picture of him doing a task for Mr. Martin.

Brendan, looking like a stud, is getting ready to use his magic in Solid Works.