day 3: electronic success and mechanical failure

Well, we’ve gotten startedELECTRICAL/PROGRAMMING:
We’ve got the camera, gyro, accelerometers, and encoders functioning and on board. Now with the motor controllers online, we were able to get the motors spinning after a wireless malfunction, which got fixed. From here on out, we need to get the camera in sync with the rest to possible start some recognition/respond programs going.
MECHANICAL:
Unfortunately, our design team hasn’t been so lucky. They had and prototyped two kick mechanisms, both of which failed. The first, a pneumatic lever system, had less of an impact than we wanted. The second, a golf-style swinger powered by a fisher price motor. Next is a spring loaded kicker and a pneumatic puncher, as well as a heavier swing that would hit lower on the ball.
WEB/MEDIA:
Thanks to the help of PAUL MARTINEZ of CREATIVE OPS (site bellow), our media team will be attending a word press training course this Saturday to help start the conversion of our old site into word press. Their official site will be posted in the link section bellow.

Overall, we made some good progress this week. Once again, we thank CREATIVE OPS, and all our generous sponsors.

For more info on the team, please visit www.team2449.com
For more info on FIRST, please visit www.usfirst.org
For more info on Connect a Million Minds, Time Warner’s campaign for the education of science and technology, please visit http://www.connectamillionminds.com/
For more info on CREATIVE OPS, our new sponsor, please visit http://creativeops.com/

edit on: Day 0: Kickoff

for more info on the game, FIRST or competition, visit USFIRST
For more information on Connect a million mind, visit the official site

Day 0: Kickoff

Well, it’s officially begun. Kickoff has passed and it’s time to buckle down for the build! This year, the task is Breakaway, a soccer-Esq game where the goal is to get soccer balls into goals. CHANGES OVERVIEW:
Among the most interesting additions, another new vision system, and laptops to replace the driver system. As for Dean’s homework, our task is to grab the attention of the general public and hopefully get them at the regionals. Already, FIRST has joined with Time-Warner and the Coalition for Science After School (CSAS) to encourage the education of science and mathematics with the connect a million minds campaign (visit the official site here, or click below) as well as possible sponsored such as an recycling program and energy audits and merchandise selling (similar to girl scout cookies, but something robotic related, and NOT cookies.) So, with renewed vigor from the slow summer, the team is revving up again and getting ready to play some ball!

The2010 Build Season Approaches

Happy New Year! Team 2449 is back at it, preparing for the 2010 Build Season. Kick-off is in one week. We’re rev’ing up to burst out of the gates on 1/9/2010. This week’s warm-up activities: build a practice chassis and launch WordPress as our website CMS. Keep your eyes on team2449.com . . . we are Out of Orbit!

Its time for Regionals!

We're pumped for competition!

It’s finally here! AZ Regional’s are tomorrow, and we are all excited to see the robot that we put so much of our hard work into perform. This is what it all comes down to! Now all we have to do is try our best at competition and have fun! But while we do this we still must keep in mind the strengths and weaknesses of The Black Hole. Here are a few important ones:
Strengths:
• We have both baskets that dump the balls and the shooter; this gives us a wide range of options that we can score from on the playing field.
• We have several different options that we can use for the autonomous period.
• Our electronic components are well protected from any collision because they are housed inside the robot by the sturdy frame. Or belts and roller are also protected by the bar in the front of the robot.
Weaknesses:
• Because we had to take a centered drive wheel assembly off (for weight considerations) we don’t have as much control or friction as we would like to have on the smooth playing field.
• We don’t know exactly how well the robot is going to do on the playing field or with other robots because we had very limited testing time.
• We cannot hold as many balls as many robots can. We can only shoot 4 at a time and we can only dump 4 at a time.
• Our rollers are also very fragile, and the “fingers” that are used to pull orbit balls into the assembly fall off frequently.
Overall, we have a very impressive and unique robot whose ability on the playing field will hopefully be an asset to our alliances. It’s been a long, hard journey to build The Black Hole but that’s what makes it all the more rewarding. After all of the work we’ve put into the robot we all want our parents, family and friends to come see us at the competition and help cheer. So make sure they remember to come and cheer us on. Let’s do our best!
GO TEAM 2449!

On the Road to AZ Regionals

Drums beat and banners waived as we bid our “Black Hole” a safe journey on Feb. 12, ship day. Now we’re working to get in shape for REGIONALS!!!

We’ve got . . . .

. . . . shooting practice,

tool packing, practice scouting, pit designing, and . . .

. . . . button-making

. . .tracing the flag image.

. . . flag painting.

. . . . going Out of Oribit-style

. . . . programming touch-ups.

And,

community outreach . . .
(March 14 – be there!)

Join us on March 19-21 at the Arizona FIRST FRC Regional Event, at Veterans’ Memorial Coliseum. Click for driving directions plus helpful do’s and don’ts for event participation or view the event agenda.

Week 5 Update

One Week to go, and already everything is falling into place! We had one jam packed Saturday!

We got the gear box that spins the shooter all mounted and welded to the chassis. AND, we

welded and inserted the shooter transmission frame

mounted the transmission for shooter to the frame

mounted a single piston for the ball lift and created a bracket for the other side (we’re waiting now on another piston)

welded the basket arms

cut the controller mount fiberglass

pulled the controller electronics which are now ready to mount

mounted the accelerometer and the encoder to steering mechanism

we’re madly working on the final touches to the website, and, WOW! we’re a real performing team!

And we have drive!

It's moving!

Lots of cheers were heard from room 311 tonight as we tested the drive axle of the steering assembly to see if it would pull the entire robot. It did! Then we tested it with the steering axle turned. It pulled again! How about with the trailer attached? Yes!

The globe motor got pretty hot, but normally it won’t be doing the job on its own.

We still have a long way to go and just a little bit of time, but it was great to see the new robot moving!

Week 1 Summary

Team,
So we have completed our first week… What do you think so far? I think we can all say that Saturday was our best day yet. We had a full house and still managed to make a lot of progress. I feel that the key was that people are starting to really gel into little teams, and are starting to better understand and contribute. With that said, here is a summary of some things I saw get done. I am sure there were others also.
Robot deign chassis is moving ahead well, though we need to push hard these next few days to wrap it up and build it. It is critical that we get the 3D modeling complete on the front wheel assembly so that Mark can help us machine the major parts. As far as the rest of the chassis goes, we should be able to finish that up today.
There was a small team that assembled all of the gear boxes (We need to pick up some lithium grease today to finish the assembly, then work on direct driving the wheels with these boxes.
The ball collector was worked on extensively and we make good progress in our ability to collect balls. I think another day on this and we can implement the proptotype onto the robot. BTW, the fisher price adapters came in today, so I will bring them in tomorrow. We can look at using this motor to direct drive this mechanism.
The trailer was complete, and though I have not seen it in person, I saw a picture and it looked great. Great job guys! I think we should get that hooked up to the chassis tonight and drive around on our back wheels if we can to test it out. Hopefully our wheels are in? I was also told that the corner goal is complete! Now we can start practicing that half court shot to see if it is possible.
We complete a very nice test setup for an encoder driven off a globe motor. This is vital for us to precisely control our robot.
We finished the conceptual design of the front wheel assembly and started on the 3D model We definitely need to wrap this up today to give some part drawings to Mark to machine over the next few days.
We worked on the video ideas for the Chairman’s submittal. We also need to make sure to keep our eyes on all the other awards.
The web page is coming together and we have been reviewing several versions of various prototypes, and they are coming together nice.
We disassembled a globe motor to determine that changing out the gears will not be a simple task!
We did some more prototype testing on the shooting mechanism
The trailer hitch was completed.
Overall, I want to thank you for a great team effort on week one. We are really working well together, and I know it will just get better and better as the season goes on. I also really appreciate the students taking on things outside of the normal work hours. For example, coming into the workshop to find it all cleaned up is a great start to the day! (Thanks Chris!). Finally, remember to keep reading the rules, updates and Chief Delphi posts because you never know when a chunk of data will greatly affect our design. See you all tonight.

~Shea~

09′ season kickoff begins!

Shea examining the feild

Well, the new season has begun! Yesterday was kickoff, and it’s time to get ready for our six weeks of work, work, and more work! Going into kickoff was kinda weird; we had been given the strangest game hints, but we didn’t know (and were a little scared) of what the game might be. The presentation itself was boring, with one speech after another. When we heard the game, however, you could hear an audible sigh of regret, astonishment, and groans.  I myself am excited yet perplexed about it. Now that I’ve talked about the reaction long enough, I should probably say what the game is!

The game this year is Lunacy!  The floor and wheels are made of regolith, a very slick material.  The goal is to get “moon rocks” into trailers hitched to the back of each robot. This can be done by human players and robots, each of the two alliances being built up of three robots each.  I’ll include the animation below!

So, let’s get ready for another season of challenges and fun!