Week 11: Weight Pull Progress

     To start off this week we are going to continue assembling our robot for the next challenge. The robot will be built with maximum torque. We've been planning the idea for several days now and it's finally becoming a reality.

Week 10: Ideas Done

At the end of this week, the class has decided on the cart that will be used to hold the weights we need to pull. There are three 140 pound lead acid batteries, along with a 22 pound weight and possibly more people to sit on the cart. Basically, we're gonna be pulling a lot of weight. Our idea for our robot is basically done. Here's a hint, you can never go wrong with MAXIMUM torque. Oh, and the WHAP exam has passed, so one less thing to worry about now. 

Week 10: New Challenge, "Pulling Weights"

This week, we will start working on our final challenge of the the year, to pull a cart stacked with weights. This time, we can modify our robot in any way we like, including our chassis and drive system. We also plan to clean up the blog and add any missing pictures. We'll lose a day this week due to the WHAP exam, but we should be fine. 

Week 9 : Interruptions

This week, we have finally completed the racquetball challenge. Super testing days ended on Wednesday, so we'll have more time to complete our remaining assignments.  Now that we have gotten most of the  Krusty bot's challenges done, we are focusing on finals for our semester, which consist of SolidWorks certification, AutoCad, and Inventor certification.  The year is about to end and we begin a close...

Week 9: Autonomous Racquetball Challenge

This week is the final week of super testing. This week, Tyler will be working on the autonomous racquetball challenge. He just has to do some adjustments to make sure the ball goes into the drop off zone. We don't know what the next challenge will be, but we will be prepared for it.

Update: Racquetball SolidWorks

Here is the SolidWorks of our robot while completing the racquetball challenges.

Week 8: Super days are messing up our schedule

This week, we haven't accomplished much due to super testing and and the Algebra II EOC. Tyler is done working on the SolidWorks for the racquetball challenge. These super testing days are really holding us back. Hopefully, after these super testing days, we will get back on track.  

Week 8: Super-Testing...again... and GMetrix

To start off this week, Tyler and I will be working on the SolidWorks for the Racquetball robot. Tyler is helping me out with some parts that had to get curved. Frank is not here today to continue the autonomous challenge. This week, we will lose 2 days of time because of super testing...again. Hopefully, we will work twice as hard and make up for those 2 days.

Week 7: Tetrahedron SolidWorks

To finish off this week,  we completed the SolidWorks Tetrahedron challenge. We are still currently working on the autonomous for the Racquetball challenge. I also started to work on the SolidWorks for the Racquetball robot. I had a bit of trouble trying to curve the parts. With those 2 super testing days, we lost 2 days of time that we could have used for this robot, but we will make up for it soon enough.

Week 7: Super-testing (Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay) and G-Metrix

So to start the week, Martin was out on Monday, which inevitably led to some kids hopping onto Halo. With the two days of super-testing also around the corner, making significant progress is probably wishful thinking. Frank plans to continue working on the autonomous challenge, and Roberto plans to finish the SolidWorks, including the new end effector we made for the racquetball challenge. I will be out most of this week, as I have states for band on Thursday. Good luck to those two. 

Update: SolidWorks #2 - Tetrahedron

Here's the SolidWorks for the robot after completing the tetrahedron challenges. 

Week 6: Racquetball Progress And SolidWorks

This week I was working on SolidWorks to create the robot design we used for the tetrahedron challenge. Frank was working on the autonomous racquetball challenge. In the middle of the week, I was in a pickle because I let Frank borrow my USB drive and he forgot to return it. Frank had to do multiple trials to do the racquetball challenge. After a dozen tries, he finally got the the ball to the drop off zone.

Week 6: SolidWorks and Autonomous Racquetballs. Tyler gone fishin'

For this week, the team plans on having both the SolidWorks and the autonomous racquetball challenge done. After that, we'll be able to move on to the final "challenge" of the year, Tug of War. I won't be able to work on either of this week's objectives, as Martin said he's been doing too much =( . I'll be working on other projects. The team has plenty of time to finish though, as we are farther than the rest of the groups in class. 

Week 5: Controlled RacquetBall Challenge Completed

This week was another successful week.  We went through many designs for the racquetball challenge.  The racquetball challenge is when we control the robot to pick a blue rubber ball and drop it in a pvc pipe (see images below). The KrustyBot2000 went through some modifications, but got the job done.  This entire week was trial and error, experimenting with different end effectors for the arm to efficiently pick up the ball and dropping it.  In the end, we decided to go with a Gear-basket-holder end effector (see images below). Throughout the week, we also helped out the other teams. Roberto should be done with the SolidWorks by the end of next week. The next task we have is to complete the racquetball challenge autonomously. 

Week 5: Racquetballs And End Effectors

This week, we plan to start building for the Racquetball challenge, both autonomous and controlled. A few different ideas were thrown around, with Frank trying to use the claw from the original clawbot. We also thought of using a bent piece of flat metal that can squeeze in the ball to pick it up, then have an axle spin to drop the ball out into the ''box''. We plan to have at least the controlled part done this week. We also plan to have the new SolidWorks finished, including the arm and end effector from the tetrahedron challenge, then the new effector. 

Update: SolidWorks

Because of the sub-par quality of the images included in the slideshow, here are the original SolidWorks pictures of the robot, as requested by Martin. 

Week 4: Tetrahedron Done, Time For Racquetballs

This week we have finished our tetrahedron challenge.  We successfully built an arm on our KurstyBot2000 for the challenge.  After we finished the controlled tetrahedron challenge, we then had to do it autonomously.  We came out victorious.  Team Enigma has no limits.  We also helped many people on various other teams. Next week, we will begin updating the SolidWorks to the robot.

Week Four: Tetrahedrons And Doing It Right

So we're back from Spring Break, and now it's time to finish up all these challenges! This week, our goal is to complete both the controlled and autonomous tetrahedron challenge, update our SolidWorks, and make some revisions to our robot (it was a little ratchet before). Today, we switched up how we mount the arm as well as the arm itself, and Tyler got to get in some practice for the controlled challenge. 

Week Three: SolidWorks/Tetrahedron Wrapped Up

At the end of this short week, we managed to finish up all of the SolidWorks for the first design of the robot, and all the images were placed on this blog. We also managed to finish (mostly) the arm for our robot to complete the tetrahedron challenge. Tyler almost finished the challenge (2-3 tetrahedrons on a post in a minute) today! Next week, we'll finish the controlled challenge and get started on the autonomous part, as well as add the arm to our SolidWorks model. 

Week Three: Finishing up SolidWorks & Robot

This week we are going to be working on the SolidWorks version of our robot. We will also start building the arm for the robot. Along these goals, we will also complete a challenge that involves putting a tetrahedron on a post. Frank also started making a new way to secure our batteries, so that we will have space for the new arm.

Week Two: Two Challenges Complete

So at the end of the week, we have completed building the clawbot (minus the claw)! Afterwards, we were tasked with using our controller to move the robot around through obstacles, and then go around two chairs autonomously, three times. To Martin's surprise (or maybe not, I'm OP), we completed both challenges within a week of finishing the frame. The autonomous challenge was done in a day. Frank was helping out with the programming of the autonomous part, I built the robot and hooked up the controller to the cortex, and Roberto started working on the SolidWorks for the robot. 

Week Two: Monday - Building

This week, we plan to start gathering parts to build our first VEX robot, with a design similar to the clawbot (minus the claw). We've had to go search for our parts, as we didn't receive a kit. Once we're done assembling the chassis, we'll pair up our controller and cortex and maybe a little programming before we start taking on some challenges. If we get time, we will also start building the robot in SolidWorks after it's complete. 

Week One - Friday: Finishing Up Organization

So today concludes our first week of robotics! This week, we finished up all the organization needed to start building, like finishing up this blog's bios and layout, organizing all the robot parts in bins, creating our robot cart (definitely not a laptop cart. We're sharing it with ''Torque Team''), and receiving our toolbox and some tools. We also spent some time helping people out, as we managed to get ahead. Oh, and the class toolbox is ready for use. 

Week One: Organization

This week, our goals are to organize our toolbox, gather parts for the robot, finishing the blog, and maybe even start building the robot itself! (SquareBot) We'll be cannibalizing one of the grey laptop carts, and it will serve as our toolbox. Today we also finished up all the bios on this blog.