Electronics 12/14/08

Attendance: Ian

Agenda:

• Test LEGO Lamps hooked up to the NXT motor ports
  
• work on redesigning a circuit to use 8LEDs with only two digital bits on the prototype board

Today I met with Jeff and John; the team has been coming up with ideas of how to use light and sound for decoration. My first expiriment had three lamps each plugged into a motor port and I set them to different values to find if we could control brightness.  Even with a power of 5 the light was at it's highest intensity.  Upon looking at the code again we noticed that PID control was on, so because the lamps dont provide a response we had the same problem that we had with the DC motors earlier, after turning off PID control the intensity now changes relative to the amount of power we apply. 

After some simple testing of the lamps we took a look at a circuit John had made using 6 LEDs and the prototype board.  This circuit was very limited and simple because it used all six digital bits, one for each LED.  We came up with an idea that uses 1 IC and only two of the digital bits to control 8 lights.  It works because the chip passes the original value on to the next pin with each clock cycle so we can enter a pattern 1 bit at a time using an input pin and the clock pin.  We can program the clock to be pretty much whatever speed we want. So for example we can turn all the lights on by turning the IC's input pin on and then doing a number of rapid cycles of the clock.  All that remains after I assembled the circuit on our prototype breadboard, is for our team to program the nxt to talk to these lights.

Saturday 12/6/08

Attendance: Kevin Burns, Terry Adolphson

Kevin: We worked on demoing the robot for the FLL teams; we also got wired and programmed the arm. We found that the mounting of the second arm motor caused the arm to start clicking and fall. The robot was able to climb the ramp and hold it down on its own. We found some problems in the arm in that it can hit sensitive parts of the robot and can get shoved under the robot.s

Friday 12/5/08

Attendance: Kevin Burns, Penelope

Agenda:

• Replace bad motor
• Replace beta wheels
• Mount NXT

Kevin: I worked with Penelope to replace the upper arm motor and mounted the new motor controller.

Penelope: helped Kevin to replace the upper arm motor. We also mounted the new motor controller, replaced the illegal “beta” middle wheals with the new ones, and put Velcro on the back of the NXT for mounting. 

Tuesday 12/9/08

Attendance: Penelope, Tucker, Nick, Kevin

Agenda:

• Rebuild the Feild
• Maintain the robot
• Continue designing the manipulator
• Program with Robot C

Penelope-helped re-set up the field, then put tape down where it was missing.

Nick wrote his first robot C program and is planning to learn more in the future. :D

Tucker tightened the touch sensors, reinforced one of the motor controllers, switched the drive motor channels, and re-mounted the switch.

Kevin: I helped with the changes to the robot and the setup of the field. Later I worked on the FRC bunny-bot.  I found that the original bucket would work with almost no modification.

Meeting 12/2/2008

Attendence:
Ethan, Tucker, Kevin, Penelope, Nick, Jared

Agenda;
1) Overview of changes
2) Harvest parts from betabot
3) Design bucket cont.
4) Rewire*
5) Add panels to field
6) Work on mounting Hardware*

-Ethan dedrickson

Harvested a motor hub from beta bot to test with lift system gears the hub from the beta bot didnt fit but the other hub we had found did so problem solved. -nick

PENELOPE helped Kevin fix the robot.

Jared drilled and screwed the new arena wall panels together. I also glued PVC parts of the panels together.

Kevin: I disassembled the end of the manipulator, realined the gears, found mounting locations for the NXT and motor controler, and remounted the manipulator motor.

Friday 11/28/08

Attendance: Ian, Kevin, Penelope

Agenda:

• Continue to work on the arm
  

What happened:

We cut a C channel to be slightly smaller for the second segment of the arm. This peice has two free-spining wheels on the end to easily use the ramp, and will have servos controling a bucket-like mechanism on top of it. We mounted a motor at the end of the first arm to controll the second one, however we didn't have any real control over it. We decided to gear it down, all we needed to do was come up with something small with a good gear ratio; what we ended up building is a little gearbox that works at a 4:1 ratio, this used two more small gears and two of the medium gears.

Today we had to do a lot of build, find out it doesnt quite fit, tear appart, rebuild slightly differently, etc. We remounted that motor 3-4 times and still have to mount a second support for the second arm. There was some difficulty when we were trying to work and found we were missing one of the peices we needed to connect anything to a motor shaft, also at the end we accidentaly broke one of the power tabs off of the motor so now we have to replace it.

The current position of the motor controller is a problem, we need to move it to allow all the motor wires to reach regardless of the arm's position. We discussed trying to use the prototype sensor board to both control a large number of buttons and run some fancy lights for things like turn signals, brake lights, etc. We now need to wait for new parts to arrive before we can really continue, and we have to move the compass sensor to make room for the second arm segment.

Monday 11/24/08

Attendance: Ian, Kevin

Agenda:

• Build a manipulator
• Tweak drive train

We modified the drive train because there was a short length of C channel that was sticking out the back of the robot, which would catch on the ground when we tried to go up the ramp. We used two peices end to end to replace the old peice and fix that problem.

For a manipulator we wanted something that could: collect pucks, score in the central triangle, pick pucks up off the ground, and lower the ramp so we could drive up it. So far we have mounted a motor, and created a large arm that is the base of the bin. We need to cut one of the plates to hold another motor mount, yet give space for a better range of motion. Our intent is to mount a similar mechanism on top of what we have with servos controling a bucket like thing at the end of that one.

National Science Teacher's Convention 11/22/08

Attendance: Ian, Chris, Nolan, Kyler, Kevin

Agenda:

• Work on the robots
• Demonstrate the FTC robotics system
• Work on software

We were invited to show our robots in the area that FIRST had at the convention.  Those of us from team 267 worked on their manipulator, while kevin and I made a lot of progress on our program.  It now recognizes if both buttons on the front or back are being pushed and can respond appropiatly, we also worked out a couple of bugs in the compass functions which left the robot unresponsive because it didnt have enough power to turn the last couple of degrees; the motor power in that function is scaled based on how far the robot has to turn so the closer it is to the target heading, the slower it goes to prevent it from overshooting.

Ian McBride

Meeting Friday 11/21/08

Attendance: Ian, team 267

Agenda:

• Finish mounting sensors
• Debug color sensor
• Work on program

I mounted the rig that had been built at the previous meeting to have two touch sensors on the front of our robot.  I also mounted the touch sensor multiplexor.  We realized that we werent getting good readings from the color sensor, so we tried to bring it closer to the ground.  It works more reliably after lowering it about a quarter of an inch.  I modified the code a little to test the light sensor more easily and to have it constantly display the color it sees; the gray tiles show up as 0, the white tape should show up as 1 or 11-13, the red tape is around 9, and the blue tape should be more like 3 or 4.  This way we can find distinct values for all the possible starting locations and use it to find the lines on the feild. 

If the robot sees a color immediatly then it knows its on the platform, and which alliance it is on.  If it doesn't then it knows it is in one of the squares on the feild, and when it goes forward it will find out what alliance it is on by reading the colored tape box.  This is important because it means that we can write one program that will do the appropriate thing in all four starting cases, because the feild is diagnaly symetric.

Meeting Tuesday 11/18/08

Attendance: Kevin, Ethan, Penelope, Jared, Nick, Nolan, Tucker

Agenda:

• Calibrate Ramp
  
• Discuss Strategy
  
• Continue Autonomous Code
  
• Manipulator Arm
  

What happened:

Ethan taught Jared how to start the blog entry. Nolan and Nick are calibrating the ramp. Kevin is working on the autonomous code. Tucker and Penelope are working on the manipulator arm.

After calibrating the ramp we tested it out on the robot and we first thought that the robots front was jamming in the ground while still on the ramp then we found out that that was the back of the robot so there are no problems besides giving it another arm to press the ramp back down and return to its starting position.

• I saw that the robot couldn’t get up the ramp because the push sensors on the back were running-a-ground and stopped the robot from getting up the ramp. I suggested that he goes up the ramp backwards and it worked.

Jared

• I came up with a theory that the thing at the end of the dump mechanism could also serve as a pickup-type thing. It scoops up pucks off the ground and puts them in the dump truck.

Penelope

• I worked on the autonomous code. It now goes forward until it sees white and then continues forward for a set number of rotations then makes a left turn. The big improvements are that we can now read the color sensor and that the turn functions work.

Kevin

Meeting Wednesday 11/12/08

Attendance: Ian Mcbride, Kevin Burns, Ethan Dedrickson


Agenda:

• Talk
• Work on ramp
• work on navigation program
• weigh pucks
• measure hinged board panel and figure out screw placement
  

What Happened:

• I worked with John on the measuring of the starting panel. we measured one inch in from each side to find the correct placement of the 'X' wooden board stand. After discovering that the panel could not fit because of the placement of the other screws, we moved it around until it woul fit well. when there was a perfect spot for it, we measured about 4" in from the ends to find the placement of the screws. We didn't have the screws with us, but the drilling spots are marked.
  
• Ian discovered the weight of the pucks in grams, which was 1.962 oz
  
• Ian and Kevin worked on programming.
  
• Jeff showed me two examples of motor design. one put more stress on the gears, and the other was much more efficient by splitting the weight.
  
• Kevin worked on a design that would bring in and hold the touch sensors to they were at least 6" apart. The wheels are 10" apart.
  
• We all made a big mistake in that you acnnot plug in touch-cables through metal ]=. The design for the touch sensors was built wrong so the cables could not plug in correctly.

-Ethan Dedrickson

• I massed one puck and found it had a mass of 55.6 grams.
  
• I worked with kevin on programming some basic autonomous functions
  
• we worked on writing code to go forward until we see a line and code to use the motor encoder

-Ian McBride

• I worked with Ian on the navigation code and on a better mount for the touch senors, as mentioned above it did not work.
  
• I was able to determine that the pucks wiegh 1.96oz. 

-Kevin Burns

Team,

I just received the pucks via UPS. I have eighteen for our two teams.

Eight pucks weigh exactly one pound, according to my scale.

John

Meeting Tuesday 11/04/08

Attendance: Kevin Burns, Jared Kent, Ethan Dedrickson, Nick Mueller, Ian Mcbride, Penelope Biggs

Agenda:

• Start manipulator
• Mount sensors (draw)
• Mark start point
• Program Navigation Code
• Blog!
  

Nick and Ethan talked about the design of the scoop. After coming to the conclusion that there will be a gate added and the shape will be changed, we began to draw some tentative designs on the chalkboard. Our final idea was that it would be flat instead of curved, and will have a gate on the end to keep the pucks from moving until desired.

• A possible method of doing this would be having a servo control the flipping of the gate so it flips either out in a similar way to a pickup truck, or flipping up so it only moves out of the way of the pucks.



• Later on, we will make a scale drawing to provide a much easier design to work with.


• We will cut out a prototype design of the scoop out of paper a few times until we get a good idea of it before we continue on to the design made of sheet metal.

Ethan Dedrickson

• We broke apart the rough beginning draft made by ian and then experimented with shapes for the scoop as well as its dimensions.


• For the gate on the end we have 3 tentative designs as mentioned by ethan we have the dump truck outward folding ramp, the upward opening dogflap or the double flapped doorway that opens into a ramp.

Nick Mueller

• I worked on making a navigation program that will go from the starting location to the near pucks, dump them and then score them. I was able to finish the program but it will need some revision; it will also need to be tested.
  

Kevin Burns

• I watched Kevin start a program on robot c that goes forward, turns and goes backwards. It all looks so confusing at first but it is really just a lot of writing and even though it is over three hundred lines long it is mostly empty space.

Jared Kent

Helped mount compass on top of pole.


• Helped Fixed the wobble in the base with a few more screws.


• Thought about where to mount color sensor.


• Then mounted it.

Penelope Biggs

• I worked with Penelope to attach some sensors and strengthen the frame of our robot.


• We managed to mount: A compass, color sensor, and a touch sensor.


• We plan to mount 3 more touch sensors to the other corners of the robot.

Ian McBride

Meeting Tuesday 10-28-08

Attendance: Ian, Penelope, Tucker, Jared, Nick, Kevin, Ethan

Agenda:

• Haul stuff in
• Talk about electronics
• Talk about blogging
• Talk about safety
• Work on robot
• Test shaft encoders
• Think about sensors

What actually happened:

We all met together to talk about safety for both hardware and electronics.

We added the white tape lines to the floor of our partial arena.

We decided to change how the motor and servo controllers are mounted on our robot to give us more space on the top to design manipulators with.

We wrote some RobotC code to move forward N clicks and stop to learn how to use the shaft encoders.




Coach John's shirt pretty much sums it up for us...

What happened on Saturday:

On Saturday Ian, Kevin, Penelope, Ethan, Tucker, Chris, Ben, and Travis went with John and Jeff to OMSI, to demonstrate and work on our robots. One of the VEX robots from last year was there to be driven around.

Ian and Kevin did
a little testing on
the Prototype
sensor board.

Then Ian taught Chris and Penelope a little about robotC.

Ben and Travis worked on team 267’s robot.

Ethan and Tucker supervised the VEX bots.

Hello everyone it's me Jared i guess I'm only bloging because i have to so here it goes as a first timer. today i learned a little about the RobotC and got set up on this bloging with Ian. thats about all i did today. By the way how often do we have to blog here? once a week?

Meeting Tuesday 10/21/08

Attendance: Ian, Kevin, Penelope, Ethan, Chris, Tucker, Nick, Jared

The agenda for today's meeting:

• Get everyone using the blog
  
• Fix practice feild
  
• Set up RobotC for Vex
  
• Test the robot
  
• Come up with manipulator designs
  
  

Last week during team 267's meeting, the partial circle goal got broken.

Here is Kevin creating metal brackets to repair it.

And here is one of the new brackets installed on the field.

We started to get RobotC for VEX set up so that we can use the Vex bots from last year. We will be participating in a robot demonstration at OMSI this Saturday and plan to bring our Vex bots from last year as well as our new Tetrix bots.

Blackboard brainstorming...

Trying out the dump bed mockup that Ian made at home last night.

We have been having problems with the DC drive motors on our robot. We havent had fine motor control, which we really want. Coach Jeff reverted to an older version of RobotC and the problem went away, but that also removed the updates that came in the current one. When we shifted back to the current build, we again lost fine motor control.

Attitude is everything.

Biographies

Ok team, here we should add bios for ourselves as comments. We need to have one for each of us.

IM brainstorming

Tonight Tucker and I talked about some ideas over google talk, here they are:

Tucker: i mean i had a few ideas, but not during the meeting

should i go ahead and post them anyway?

Ian: go ahead and put them up if you want

it is our team's notebook

it should include ideas

Tucker: what about for a scoring mechanism kind of like a cross between a combine harvester and a garbage or a dump truck?

Ian: i had tought of a dumptruck type thing

Tucker: ok

Ian: dont see anyway we could implement a combineharvester thing though

Tucker: we could work together on it this weekend or next week

Ian: of course any ideas of how to get pucks from the floor into the bin would be much apprecieated

assume you have a max of 2 motors and 2 servos

Tucker: yeah, we won't need much power to lift the pucks, just enough to get them into the hopper-thing.

Tucker: but i want to work on this hopper thing at some point

Ian: awesome, the idea i had has it cantalever out about a foot

and up a bit

Tucker: that could work

Ian: think similar to a paralellagram

Tucker: it would be simpler just to hinge it though

Ian: we could shape the bucket like a paint roller thing

we couldnt get it into the triangle

Tucker: well yeah

Ian: this would also tip it in the process, (hopefully)

Tucker: i dunno

Ian: the goal is a full hopper in the triangle

Tucker: we could try both

Ian: yes, we could have a servo on the end that tips it

if necessary

Tucker: are you sure a servo could support that much weight?

Ian: it wouldnt have to

you have 4 that move a frame the hopper is in

Tucker: when it tips it

Ian: and one to lift the back end

Tucker: that one is going to be under a lot of stress

Ian: its only lifting 1/16" alluminum or polycarbinate + some 2oz pucks

Tucker: well yeah but taken into account the size of the tray

Ian: think of it like a lever

the further from the hinge point you are the easier it is to move

Tucker: if we do that it'd be a 3rd class lever

we may not have enough effort from 1 servo to move that much of a load

Ian: we do have 2 motors left if necesarry

Tucker: yeah

well we'll see when we work on it

Ian: yeah we will have some foam board or cardboard or something to use when working on ideas for the manipulator

Tucker: yeah

Ian: regardless we will add a plow to the back incase

Tucker: yeah

Meeting Tuesday 10/14/08

Attendance: Ian, Penelope, Kevin, Tucker, Ethan, 

This was the first official meeting of the tuesday team. We split into groups to cover a number of different tasks:

• Programing and testing the first design of our robot's base
• Make the Triangular goal for the club's partial arena
• Make a sign to put on the door so students know where we meet
• Start a blog to be our notebook
• Set up the partial arena in the club room:

We test-fit our robot chasis against the round goal to see if the touch sensors are in the right place and if we high-center on the drive gears.

Then we sketched ideas for a puck delivery mechanism:

Welcome!

Welcome to the blog that is the engineering notebook for The Benson Robotics Club's team # 187.  Here we discuss what happens at our team meetings, and any ideas or progress we make.

It looks like the way we are going to be doing this is by creating posts for each relevent day/meeting and then people add comments saying what they did/discovered etc.