The Shaft and the Shaft

Spoiler: Indexer, shooter, and gearboxes all ready to go!

After less than 2 weeks having limited on-site access, we have a rolling chassis that has already run some autonomous routines, some student-driven paths, and even collected a few power cells! (They immediately fell out, but, progress!)

In this next week, the goal is to finish manufacturing and assemble as much of the final systems that we can. This will give the most amount of time possible for practicing the skills challenges themselves.

Photo Dump(ster fire)

Really wish we could do choice color bumpers at competition...

Actually, not so much dumpster fire. It's been a good week for CyberKnights, the robot is coming along, machines are singing, parts are coming together, and at the end of the week - eh, no spoilers, read on!

(Ok, maybe the lead image is a spoiler, but it looks awesome, can you blame me?)

Boots on the Ground

The view from Discord looks a lot different!

Week 8 started off with a solid click. That click was the lab door being opened by our software team, spending their first day of the 2021 season in the lab, on site.

What a glorious day!

We're Done!

For the first time in CyberKnight history (and for a few mentors who have an even longer history,) the entire robot CAD is done before cutting a single part.

Also, we still have yet to cut a single part. Or step foot in the lab. Or even put the key in the lab door.

This is fine?

Obligatory Week 6 Post

You don't see this anymore...

This would be bag-and-tag week in an old, normal season.

Our major highlight of the week was the start of the full robot review. The burndown list was finished. Students took time to re-evaluate their systems, think about how to present, what questions to expect, and more. On Thursday, the whole engineering team took a top-down dive into our 2021 planned creation.

Setting Up Time

week 5

I imagine the school hallways look like this.

Something I've noticed, well, everywhere - work, robotics, family, etc during the pandemic, is that we no longer have "hallway conversations". Given we're remote, outside of immediate family we never encounter anyone in hallways, and this seems to make sense. But ad-hoc, spur of the moment meetings can be pretty defining. This year, we constantly have to make specific time to set up meeting time.

With the burndown list ever shortening and the CAD wrapping up, it was time to get mechanical, software, and electrical together to make sure everyone was once again on the same page. This is not our full robot review, but our controls, power, and sensor review. How does each system move, operate, what feedback does software have to control it.

Details, Details

Our master geometry got a little larger this week...

For CyberKnights, CAD usually starts during week 1, the chassis hopefully gets "approved" before the end of week 1, and then CAD continues on for a few weeks.

Many weeks.

Many many weeks.