Week 6
Feb 12 2022:
Our manufacturing team was busy creating parts. They worked from drawings to cut raw materials to length using a bandsaw, then faced them with an endmill to get the measurements precise.
Our mentors helped us with a couple critical parts. Our first big project they worked on was creating a threaded aluminum drum with a hex shaft drive. They created this part by using the threaded feature of the lathe. The drum features a thread that goes left and right handed and meets in the middle. This will be used to keep our rope on track as it wraps around the drum.
The second big project was cutting our shooter mounting plate. This was our teams first use with cutting aluminum so the progress was slow as we learned more about our machine. We did some tests by moving our Z axis well above our part to test for any errors in our code. Then we began cutting our final part once we were confident in the codes accuracy.
The electrical and controls team worked to apply controls to the completed robot base. They needed to reassemble our swerve modules to the new frame and tie down our electrical components such as our main breaker, power distribution panel, and roboRio.
Feb 14 2022:
We worked to cut shooter parts on the lathe. The parts needed to be cut to length, faced, drilled, and threaded. The majority of these components were stand offs with critical dimensions. They proved to be time consuming due to the lack of manufacturing support that arrived for the work session.
Other components were staged as they were completed in our subassembly bins. The extended intake cut their linkage components with a jigsaw.
After the trouble we experienced from the other day of reworking the entire frame, the design of the 1x1 ROCK block had been revisited and improved with a more substantial cross section. We started a large print of the redesigned blocks that we will look to implement upon completion.
The programming team worked through tuning their programmed autonomous pathes. They noticed we need to refine our floor layout to allow for enough room for one of our desired autons.
Feb 15 2022:
We have completed manufacturing more parts. Our extended intake was manufactured using Black ABS that was donated by Curbell Plastic. We initially intended for this material to be cut using our CNC Router. The material cut easily with a band saw, jigsaw, and hand drill. We were very pleased with the results.
Our internal intake tower was assembled for the first time as we have continued to troubleshoot various issues with our teams 1x1 ROCK blocks. This iteration appears to be the most promising so far. We had also completed creating two mounting plates for the belting system to mount on. This was also initially planned to be cut on our CNC router. Due to the large volume of usage and delayed delivery of the equipment, we have needed to pivot or manufacturing method here as well. To cut these plates we used our 60W Rabbit Laser machine to engrave the contours of our model to the physical material to act as a template for the manufacturing team. We will now need to apply our belting, shafts, pulleys, and shaft collars to the assembly.
We completed manufacturing our Shooter mounting plate on our CNC router. This piece was made using a piece of aluminum that was 15in x 15in x 0.25in thick. We were luckily able to use some spare material from our Precision Machining program lead by Mr. Fox.
Feb 16 2022:
Team members used the laser to verify tolerances for some of their critical dimensions. This was evident on our shooter assembly on the pivot mechanism. We discovered we needed to add support to the pivoting linkage to prevent it from binding when the actuator extends and retracts.
We also used the laser to layout parts for our climb sub system. We do this to ensure quality of our parts, and to reduce the amount of waste created from our manufacturing process.
Feb 17 2022:
Fatigue set in here at the work session. Mistakes were made by members of each sub team. Our programming team was testing code and didn't exercise caution when using our turret. The wires became tangled and managed to damage the Ethernet port on the limelight. The expense of this item is immense, and could significantly reduce our robot's competitive edge. We have sent the camera out to be reworked by one of our sponsors that will hopefully be able to repair it. We will now need to consider using an alternative means of vision tracking such as a combination of a pixy cam with a Microsoft camera.
Other team members focused on building bumpers. They used liberal amounts of tape for each connection leading to them run out of tape. The wood bumper frame was inaccurately assembled due to the student designer implementing various 45 degree angle cuts. The boards were recut and partially reassembled.
