Progress has continued on the TerrorBytes during Week 2 of the build season. Overall, we’re moving forward fairly quickly with building our robot, with some minor delays here and there. Morale here is high while we move into the dregs of the build season.
Our Prototyping groups having been refining their prototypes based on feedback from the Design subteam. The gear manipulator prototype was rebuilt early in the week and was a great success. We are now assembling a third iteration based on Design’s specifications, which will provide valuable testing data and feedback. Our new shooter design prototype is working great. It’s accurate, fires quickly, and above all is fairly simple. It could be refined further though. Our climber mechanism has reached the final prototyping phase and has completed numerous full scale tests, mostly passing them with (literal)flying colors. Here’s some testing:
Fabrication subteam has gotten to work on the robot chassis. They have mostly completed the sides of the chassis but ran into a few issues involving our chosen wheel type. We’ll have to modify the robot chassis slightly to accommodate the wheel, but that shouldn’t present too much of an issue.
Along with Programming, the Controls subteam completed the test boards and is currently setting them up to run code tests. Controls also discussed wiring and sensor placement with various engineering leads.
Programming subteam this week made progress but also had some significant issues. Early in the week, the subteam encountered problems with GitHub and the configuration of team members’ computers. This was a large time sink, but the issues should not present themselves again. Programming also improved the code architecture and organization and is nearly ready to test all subsystems on the control boards.
Design subteam this week worked extremely hard to meet some very tight deadlines. The robot design was frozen this week, meaning no subsystems will be added, removed, or drastically modified from this point forward. Design completed the CAD for the climber and gear manipulator, and are currently working out some geometry and integration issues.
Shoot door? Yes, shoot door.
Various miscellaneous preparations for competition made a bunch of progress over the past week. Banners and our team t-shirt are being prepared and ordered, and we are currently building and testing a new pit design. The robot cart has been de-glittered and repainted with branding improvements.
TerrorBytes logo on top of the robot cart.
Recon has been in the planning phase, but last week they worked on formatting the data collection sheet for competition, making it easier to train for and use. There is also some general process streamlining in the works.
We’re preparing to send out our design to our machining sponsor, Solara Automation, next week. We’re also gearing up for more chassis building and robot assembly as parts arrive at our lab. So, until next week, use your best judgment!
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