Jan. 28/29 - Spending bday in lab, oh how fun ;P In any case, my friends did choose to surprise me later in the night. We've abandoned our drone because we're just having problems making him spin properly around the cup. Whoever knew that would be the hardest part of it? O.o In any case, it's been a long night, but our guy seems much more consistent now. We managed to qualify with the help of Team 50 (thanks Zane, Lux, and Dan! ^_^). Impounding happened @ 7... given all the problems I had with the servo mount last minute, I can only hope all will be well tomorrow ^_^; Hours logged: 33.5 continuous hours in lab... / Sleep log: 3
Jan. 27 - Ick for Round 1! That was pretty bad... 10 teams won, but only 4 actually scored points. 7 of those wins were from the other team being disqualified because they didn't start. Oops =P Aniewayz, it's basically become a single elimination competition, which is really kinda silly. I mean, last year was the longest competition ever because of lots of double wins. This year? I swear the contest will only last an hour ;P Ah wellz... Hours logged: 12 / Sleep log: 6
Jan. 26 - -_- So... somebody put their jacket on a stool and it fell off the stool. Unfortunately, I happened to step on that same jacket while carrying my robot. Emily slips and goes boom and robot goes into little pieces as well -_- Obviously, I was VERY unhappy... but it's all good now. I managed to track down Lawrie and Daniel and then they put it back together. Afterwards, just kept hacking through the night. Didn't leave till mmm, 7 in the morning ;P Hours logged: 13 / Sleep log: 2.5
Jan. 25 - Yet another late night. But by the end of the night, the robot successfully got to the cup (at least on one side =) Unfortunately, when I finally got the robot to wall follow consistently the first time, we discovered the robot was just a little too large and no longer fit in the box anymore. So we had to change the location of the bump sensor, and then I had to recallibrate all my wall following code -_- What makes it worse is the fact that since our robot isn't symmetric, it takes a different set of callibration each time. Bed time? 4:30 am ;P Hours logged: 18 / Sleep log: 3.5
Jan. 24 - Pretty late night. We managed to finish up mounting everything but the drone, but we figured out that we can just catapult the drone off in the very beginning and that would be that. The last thing we did of the night was to test my sortBalls code which appropriately dumps or keeps the ball according to the color and which side we're on. Hours logged: 11 / Sleep log: 5
Jan. 23 - So the robot was taken apart again today and we finished up when we mounted the servos for the trapdoor and the feeder. Kathy also came and gave us a great idea for a way to make sure balls came into our feeder still if we kicked away one, though we don't think we can do it because it would required us freeing up a servo somehow, which we don't have... but Daniel finally came up with a scoop idea that seems to work well =) Hours logged: 10
Jan. 22 - Doh... we're taking apart out robot frame again because it's not strong enough. Every time we transport the robot in the box, it falls apart... so we're going to try building a stronger frame somehow. Hours logged: 9
Jan. 21 - Hrm, we're having problems adding the drone onto the robot. Wish we didn't have to have the drone! It would make it so much easier, because then we'd be done... but unfortunately, a placebo isn't going to help us by knocking balls our way =P We have created our tether though. Thanks to Phil for helping us machine shop our base plate ^_^ Hours logged: 10
Jan. 20 - Somehow, everything's falling together. We found a way to attach the arm and we finally got a feederish thing to work out. We went back to the garbage truck idea but now we simply added a flat on the bottom that helps to clear the space underneath should a ball get stuck there. "Keep it simple, stupid!" they say. And yup, this solution is simple =) Hours logged: 12
Jan. 19 - 2nd day of rest
Jan. 18 - We now have a stronger trapdoor, but Lawrie's having problems still with the feeder/ramp. I also made investigations into how to make a tether. My friends last year used the base plate. One stretched it, the other simply pegged it. However, while the pegging one folds more nicely, there's no wire attached to it which we'll be needing. Hrm... Hours logged: 8 (but I had to leave twice)
Jan. 17 - *ker-SNAP*! Welcome to the creation of the arm of the robot ^_^; It's a powerful little guy, even if it uses up all of our 12s and quite a few of our 16s. But rubber banded? He's pretty darn cool =) We also made the first version of our catapult/trapdoor. Daniel's convinced that he can make it strong and then maybe it really catapult balls off the table =D Haha, if that works, it'd be so awesome! Hours logged: 10.5
Jan. 16 - Lesson learned: if your expansion board sensor ports don't work properly, going to lab will magically fix it, but restarting the board several times will not =P Yup, that's right. We were sitting here playing with sensors (also discovering along the way that one of our bump sensors had come unsoldered) and all of a sudden, the expansion board ports were being funky. 31 - 28 just stopped working, then restarting the board made them work but 27-25 stopped working. And then after more experimentation (and alternating of working ports), we discovered port 23 and 19 were acting linked. Wha?? O.o So I take it into lab, and when in front of the TA... it worked. Perfectly. Not that I minded that it worked, but still, made that long trek in the cold for nothing! *whimpers* Hours logged: 11
Jan. 15 - Work, work, work, breaking for only PEs. Around 10, we finally left for lab to retest our new gear boxes and wheel base. He's a fast little sucker ^_^ Trapdoors are also working, definite kudos to Daniel for getting it all together. Hours logged: 11
Jan. 14 - Went to the last workshop. Completed our wheel base and took it to lab to try and test it out and make sure the gear train ratio was still enough to get up the incline. However, while in lab (plus some visiting from a couple friends), we decided to completely change around our strategy to a much more mechanically difficult robot but one that we thought was cooler and more fun =) Interest is renewed! Hours logged: 12
Jan. 13 - We split up the workshops again, Lawrie and Daniel going to one at 1 and Daniel and I going to one at 7. We tried to finish up a wheel base (in an attempt to follow our TAs proposed schedule) though we weren't quite successful. Hours logged: 11
Jan. 12 - Our day of rest =)
Jan. 11 - Met a little bit to think up our competition robot and to do a bit of playing. Minor, though, and not much was really accomplished. Lawrie and Daniel met at 2, but I didn't come until I finished my skate guard shift at 5 and we broke up at 10. Hours logged: 5
Jan. 10 - Lecture, then completion of of Assignment 3, in which we were required to chase or run away from another IR beacon. Due to our work the previous night, we were quite ahead and got everything working by 1. We spent another half an hour playing with out robot before packing up and taking the rest of the day off. Hours logged: 3
Jan. 9 - Worked alllll day. Eventually, we moved to lab to figure out why our servo wasn't working (turns out it was broken) and to finish up our robot and then get checked off. We stuck around for a bit longer to start on Assignment 3 since we knew Daniel had to leave the next day by 2 and it would be better to get checked off before that. Hours logged: 13
Jan. 8 - Lecture. Lawrie and Daniel hit a workshop at 1, I hit the other at 7 in the evening with Daniel. These workshops helped us in figuring out more details about our assignment 2 'bot, and we really tried to get cracking. Hours logged: 9
Jan. 7 - One workshop, more brainstorming, and the beginning of our assignment 2 robot (which had to move forwards, backwards, turn, and react to a bump sensor) and additional experimentation with bracing. Crash course in C was useless... note: fellow programmers really just DON'T have to worry about going to it. Hours logged: 7
Jan. 6 - Welcome to Montezuma's Revenge, our first assignment being due tomorrow. We inventoried, did a workshop on soldering, put together Mr. Chomper (a kit included to teach us miscellaneous parts), then reunited for the evening to do lots 'o soldering for our assignment. Lesson learned: READ INSTRUCTIONS! Lawrie messed up, then Daniel and I messed up when we were trying to put the expansion board together. At the very least, I got good with the desoldering pump ;P Dinner time? 11:30. Then it was time to read up on the course notes. Hours logged: 12
Jan. 5 - Jet lagged and sick, boy what a LOVELY combination. Went to parts sorting for about an hour. Tomorrow we find out what the contest is all about!