Today we got the practice bot disassembled so we can add 16 holes to each side of the drive rail. These holes are for two systems, the elevator, and the intake. We have a big number of gussets, and support brackets that we need to cut on the CNC router. We are also ready to cut the support on the bottom level of the elevator that routes the chain and holds the gear boxes that drive the elevator.

The geometry of the shooter and how the hood works is changing for packaging reasons. We are putting the shooter as far back in the robot up to the elevator as possible so we have a better angle at the goal when shooting from the scoring zone right up to the power port. Our current folding style hood takes up too much room so we are moving to a sliding extension.

Version 1 of the flywheel shooter was tested more today, the up close shot is working pretty well, but the reduction of belts is wrong so we are waiting for the correct pullies to come. The wrong reduction is just causing us to have to command more output from the Neo than desired. The first version of the shooter lost some of the wrap that the prototype had, approximately 60 degrees of wrap was lost. Now when we are shooting from the trench our power cells are weakly thrown a few feet instead of the 23 feet required. The next version of the shooter is going to get some upgrades, increased compression, different mounting point, different hood, and a mount for the lime light on the front. The shooter was mounted on the kit bot chassis, approximately where it will go on the real robot. We hope to give programming some more realistic systems to work with, as they spend time refining autonomous modes.

The intake was finalized with belting, and pullies being picked out, there is no longer a planetary gear box on it, and it looks pretty good. Now we just need to get it cut and we can put it to testing finally. We are going to be using 2″ PVC as the rolling member. We had considered polycarb but decided against it as a 4 foot section was $40 and some change.

The hopper subsystem made good progress today. Most of the structure and internals exist. Belting and power transfer has been figured out. My crusade against planetary gearboxes continues, a single belt reduction from a Neo will be powering the hopper. One improvement to be made is adding hinges and a locking mechanism to the hopper top, as we are planning on piling our electronics below it.

We attempted to start assembly of the elevator today, but quickly ran into problems. One of the stages had major defects from manufacturing, one side was an 1/8″ inch short, and the other side had a slot that went too far intersected a bolt hole for the sprocket. Both of these defects rendered the parts to be unusable. I’m not sure if we will be able to get a version assembled before Saturday night. The parts to be remade require a lot of mill time on the manual.