Day 36, 37, 38, 39

3/16" rivet stems make great chain stops. Just like that scene from James Bond GoldenEye.

Build Update: SLLLLOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWW. But making progress. Parts getting cut. Parts getting assembled. Our CAD reviews are mostly complete at this point in time, so now the bottleneck is purely machining, preparing, finding the mistake, re-machining, re-preparing, assembling, and mounting. Software has been exceedingly patient this year. One step forward we are making is mounting the Limelight in the (current) final position on our rolling practice chassis so they can continue getting the drive and camera vision code tuned. So where are we now? We have a practice chassis with part of one subsystem complete and mounted (and the electrical board clamped on) and we have a competition robot with bumpers (wooo!) one complete subsystem assembled and mounted, and a full electrical board properly secured and mounted. I really hope next year we read back on posts like these and chuckle at ourselves...

One Twenty-Five

We're overweight! Also our robot is a bit too heavy. (Ahh... however many year in FIRST, that joke never gets old...) This is a well-known surprise for all teams in FRC. You finally get to building, you set the built pieces on the scale, and woah. Just the chassis, electronics, and one subsystem weigh.... 90 pounds.... And we still have our gear collector, cube shooter, and castle climber to install... Once again we turn to our still over-worked students for another list! First off, we are still trying to put a complete robot together for bag day. We have a LOT of machining and assembly to do. First list, machine schedule. One of our alum is very organized and put together a google drive spreadsheet with each machine and subsystem, the remaining parts to be made, and approximate timing. In my head, I'm doubling all of these times. It's slightly worrying. (I don't know if the other mentor already doubled the times that the students provided... That would be pretty funny.) Second list is for the 2 subsystems that are already complete. What weight can we cut out of them? And how much of it can we do cleanly? (E.g.  can we make it look like all the holes are intentional?)

Looks good!

Is heavy!

How did we get here? (Again?) Well, we allowed Solidworks to tell us incorrect numbers. We didn't build quickly enough to remedy these problems sooner. We had a running weight estimate, but really its meaningless until the robot actually hits the scale. How did we catch this? When the chassis was riveted, we weighed it. When the ... item in the middle of the robot... was added, we weighed it again. The electrical panel was completed simultaneously, so we weighed all the complete systems that we had. (I should probably ask coach if I can start just announcing what we plan on putting on the robot. We're 7 days away and have only the 36" collapsed height three-stage elevator attached, what could we really be giving away?) What do we do from here? Well, most parts we need to cut second versions of for our practice bot. These, we will simply add our lightning holes into the CAM and re-cut as much as possible (without impacting our other system machining). Other pieces (chassis pieces really...) may feel the wrath of a dremel or a Christmas tree bit in a hand-drill. To quote Formula 1 Team Boss Colin Chapman: "Simplify, and add lightness."

My quote of the day:

"Hey Dmitri, why is the router being quiet?" (I think the kids are starting to get sick of me saying this. In my defense, the router is being quiet. If they keep it running, I won't say it. :-D )

Oh, deer....