Fixing the Design Flaws, Sprocket Gets a Makeover! & PRACTICE TIME: Week 6

This week was all about testing and practice. With much of the programming done, including some of our autonomous scenarios, we could finally put Sprocket on the field for some test matches (and practice for our drivers of course).

Each of our drivers had the remote control programmed to their preferences so that they could easily control Sprocket. One of our drivers only controls movement of the drive train around the field while the other controls all the other aspects of the robot like the shooter, intake, and wobble-goal claw. We had these two team members try out the controls during a practice Tele-op run. Everything on sprocket worked, except one thing....

The two drivers move sprocket around while the coaches show them which rings to intake and when to shoot.

The drivers quickly learned that if you run over a ring, it gets caught in a wheels and you're out for the rest of the game because Sprocket can't drive anywhere. We had to think of some way to prevent the rings from getting into the drive train, something to push them out of the way, something like PLEXIGLASS! The perfect solution! make a border around the drive train with plexiglass.

This was a simple enough concept, but, let me tell you, the execution of such a task was much much harder than we anticipated. The plexiglass had to go around the extrusions on the edge of the drive train. It had to be very close to the ground to prevent rings from sliding under it, but not too close or it would damage the tiles of the field. And then there's attaching it. We figured we could just drill some holes and screw it into the extrusions on the drive train. One problem, though: there are all sorts of other brackets and screws already on those extrusions. The solution? Longer screws and some spacers. Yea, yea, we know, spacers aren't meant to go on screws, but, you know what? It worked. We were able to mount each of the plexiglass pieces slightly out from the extrusion on screws with some spacers between the plexiglass and extrusions. This way, the plexiglass was attached and we didn't have to move anything else around that was attached where the plexiglass needed to go.

One of our team members scores the sheet of plexiglass to break it. This is how you cut plexiglass.

Each piece of plexiglass must be checked for sharp corners and edges. Robot's can't have sharp edges!

The plexiglass border works! No rings are stuck in the wheels!

With the most pressing issues solved, Sprocket went back on the field for hours and hours of practice time. We made some little tweaks, like adjusting the motor power on the shooter to make sure it made the rings into the goal every time, but this was mainly experience for our drivers. And I have to say, they were getting better by the minute at aiming and shooting those rings. I have no doubt we will do very well when scrimmages and meets start rolling around.

The drivers are getting better and better at shooting into the high tower goal (which gives a LOT of points!)