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      This week the mechanical team worked with the mentors on the wheels. We started off the week by cutting out blanks for the wheels from aluminum stock and operated with the CNC to create the the rims.
      As the week continued on, we created the hubs for the wheels and drilled and tapped the rims. By then we were able to finish milling out the design in the centerplates.
      As the week came to a close we cut out blanks for the bearing blocks..
      In the first week each member was able to get quality time on the machines. Hopefully our rookie members will be able to handle tasks on their own.

       This first week was quite an adventure for the electronics/programming team as we encountered both good and bad situations.
      The first thing we decided to do after the kickoff was inventory the electronics equipment. Then, we moved on to test the distance and angle at which the IR signal sent by the remote could be sensed. We found out that the IR sensor/decoder could sense signals at very long distances but does not work well with interference from other remotes. Other things that also affected the range of the IR sensor were the brightness of the setting and being indoors or outdoors (due to deflection).
      After working with the IR sensor/decoder for just a few days, we encountered a MAJOR setback. We short-circuited the IR sensor/decoder. By accidently reversing the polarities of the power source, the regulator (which has the appearance of a transistor) was fried. Hahaha....it really was not funny. We changed out the regulator with another one that we had; however, the regulator that we are currently using in place of the broken one may be against the rules of the FRC 2008 games since it is against the rules to modify any given electronics equipment. We are currently trying to find a regulator that is the same model as the one given by FIRST on the IR decoder.
      In terms of the TV remotes used, we found out that not all remotes behave in the same way. Some remotes sent higher frequencies of IR than others and so some were just better than others. We tested several remotes to determine the best remote.
      The electronics team also worked with the piston and the pneumatics system. Since we plan on using a piston on our robot, we wanted to find the best piston that we have. We tested the pistons by reprogramming the double solenoid. We found out that the bigger the piston, the less powerful it was. So we concluded that a smaller piston has greater force (in terms of its punch). Then, we chose to reprogram and test with a single solenoid. The 2008 FRC single solenoid did not light up or respond to us in any way even though we wired and programmed it correctly. To test the situation, we replaced the 2008 FRC single solenoid with our team's 2007 FRC single solenoid so that we could see whether or not it was the solenoid that was the issue. And it turned out to be that the 2008 FRC single solenoid was perhaps broken because the 2007 one worked just fine. So the electronics team is still doing troubleshooting and trying to fix the 2008 one so that we can use it.
      Moreover, another problem encountered was with the relay for the compressor. The relay was simply not working since it would not light up. We found out that the relay was not broken but rather, the yellow fuse was fried.
      Additionally, we reprogrammed the 2005 robot and 2007 robot for purposes of testing to see what kind of drive system we should have this year. The 2005 robot was reprogrammed to steering wheel drive and joystick drive. The 2007 robot was reprogrammed to one joystick instead of the original steering wheel and joystick drive.
      Lastly, we went over the usage of an optical encoder as we plan to use it in this year's 2008 FRC games.

      The Media Team started this week off by breaking in the new video camera by recording various happenings throughout this week. We also installed the software that would let us rip and edit the video on our computers.
      We also got reacquainted with the cameras by taking plenty of pictures for the website and for documentation purposes.
      The Media Team had a hard time updating the 2007 site into the 2008 site. It required a lot of updating to specific parts of the website and sometimes required us to update our Dreamweaver templates several times. But at the end of this week we managed to upload the site to it's relatively finished form.

      We started off by downloading most of the 2008 kit of parts onto a new version Inventor because the old version on the computers would not recognize the parts. After downloading the parts, we began brainstorming possible designs for the robot, especially the manipulator. We practiced drawing 2-D objects and converting them into 3-D objects. We also practiced building objects parametrically, using constraints such as parallel, tangent, and coincident.

 

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