You might be wondering, ” Why are you guys still meeting? FIRST is keeping the game from last year, so you don’t need to be doing anything!” While that might be the case, there is still a lot to do for this upcoming season. Today, almost every sub-team has accomplished something in the few hours our shop was open for.
The mechanical team has started assembling our new scissor lift for our robot (Infinite Horsepower). The old one was made out of aluminum, which proved that the robot was too heavy to be lifted up when trying to climb. In order to combat this, a new scissor lift was designed, this one being made out of polycarbonate. This will not only decrease the weight of the robot, but it will also help the robot climb faster. The pieces of the scissor lift have been cut out and have been spray painted green.
This year, the game allows teams to be able to play from home, which requires the robot to be able to autonomously navigate numerous routes around the field. The programming team is working on creating a computer program that allows a user to simply draw a route on the screen and immediately get a time estimate for how long it will take the robot to complete the route. Today the programming team worked on creating the software which will do just that. Once we have a good route, we will be able to upload it to the robot, and start driving immediately.
After two weeks, a cabinet that one of our new wood working students designed is complete. He designed the cabinet on paper and built it on his own. This cabinet makes use of the extra space underneath our table saw and will be used to store tools used in the woodshop.
