Protoball gme plan

We decided to go with smaller wheelsin back and omni wheels infront so they are even we will mostly stay on offense and will try to outscore our opponent.  Our robot has some nice advantages such as the omni wheels where we can spin around the opponent to score.  But the problem we have found is that something is going wrong.  Its either our battery or motor.  The motor doesn't make sense though since we changed it with a new one but it was still teh same side that was having problems.  Hopefully we can find the problem on Monday.

Protoball

For the protoball game we have decided to use omni wheels in front and the all terrain or larger wheels in the back.  We are expecting this to make it turn faster and to move faster hopefully this will help for the game.

Omni/Tank drive system

Well it was rather easy to install the omni wheels.  They made our robot turn much faster and easier and were around the same speed as regular wheels.  But the problem we experienced with them is that it is very hard to control and turns just too easily.  Now the tank treads we had some problems with.  at first it was getting the design then our motors wouldn't work right, then we had to remake the tank treads, and our battery and charger was having problems as well.  But eventually we got them to work and found out that tank treads have great traction but move extremely slow.  Which also made them turn pretty slow.

Robot Larger Wheels Effect

For our robot we had to put on bigger wheels to see the outcome.  I had predicted that the wheels will make it go faster, but it would make the turning worse.  After we put the wheels on that was the exact outcome, making my prediction correct.

Robot finish/tests

We finished our robot on Thursday.  It was pretty easy to finish on time.  We only had a little difficulty putting  some of the screws down where there was little room for our hands.  The wiring was over all easy.  We did have a few problems with a motor getting jammed but we eventually got it fixed with some help.  Our robot works perfectly. When we tested it out the next day it worked pretty well.  Some of the parts started getting loose but it was an easy fix.  The tests were fairly easy.  Some times it was difficult to pick up the tennis balls but fairly easy.  Our biggest problem for the tests though was dropping the tennis balls back into the bucket but we got it done.  Overall I'm proud of the build and say we did a good job.

Proto-Bot progress

So far everything seems to be going how it should.  Sometimes finding the right screw gets to be annoying though.  Our robot has the wheels on it and we are currently working on the arm to pick up tennis balls.  Since all of our parts have been organized by drawer it makes things a lot more easier.  Our robot without any unforeseen complications should be done by early Thursday or late Wednesday.  Now our programming could be done by Thursday or Friday. 

Robotics Kit organized Progress

So far we have already checked that we had all the parts and have mostly organized them.  Our group still hasn't taken pictures and catalyzed them.  After Monday we should have most if not all the pictures taken of the different parts we have. So if we also work on the catalog Monday and Tuesday after we have gotten all the pictures we should be done by Wednesday.

BIO: Tyler Lovell

Tyler Lovell

• Age !5, grade 9th
• One Sibling younger brother
• Hobbies are Sports and reading
• Some Experience in robotics
• Some experience building with woods, metals, and Lego's.
• Some experience in programming
• A little experiencing in wiring
• Not good at brainstorming
• Joined robotics to learn more about it
• Expecting to learn and accomplish a lot in this class

BIO: Matthew Hagerman

Matthew Hagerman

• Age 16, 11th grade.
• Hobbies are playing video-games and talking to friends on Skype.
• Two siblings both older sisters.
• No experience in robotics
• Some experience in building Lego's
• No experience in programming
• No experience in wiring
• Good at brainstorming
• Wanted to join robotics for the experience
• Expecting to stay at average accomplishment wise.
• Expecting to learn a lot in this class.
• Planning to build a robot that will be able to throw things.

BIO: James Wilson

James Wilson

• Age 16, 10th grade.
• Has Experience building with Lego's, and tears apart to see how it works.
• Some experience in programming specifically with websites.
• Hasn't built & programmed robots before.
• Good at brainstorming.
• Thinks will be good at wiring otherwise no experience in the subject.
• Joined robotics class because he wanted to do robotics club last year but couldn't get in so he joined the robotics class this year.
• He is expecting to accomplish some things in this class.
• He is expecting to learn a lot in this class.
• He is planning to build a robot that can lift various objects.