Prototype Arm

During testing today it was discovered the “choochoo” mechanism is under powered. It had mounting pattern for another motor so we added that, we’ll test it again tomorrow. We probably will have to rework that gearbox to increase the reduction. But we did manage to test the “choochoo” mechanism by hold up the weight of the second arm.

CAD

The first design review of the season happened tonight for the buddy carry mechanism. From the review 17 issues were raised that need to be fixed. These range from small to medium amount of work to fix. But before we get into what we need to fix let me explain how the buddy carry mechanism works.

There are two carbon fiber forks that are articulated down by a gas shock and servo combination. These two forks are then driven under our partner robot. Next a cam rotates beneath the forks which lifts the forks and raises our partner off the ground. We then drive up onto the charge station to get dock and engaged.

The forks and the cams on the buddy climb can be moved in or out up to 4″ on each side. The forks are also 27″ long, these two items allow us to work with a wide variety of drive base configurations. This includes all configurations of the kit bot, 27″ forks will reach to the the inner part of the second frame rail.

Now back to the design review, here are some of the bigger items that need to be fixed:

• Flip inner plate to mount on the outside of the inner rail (It currently mounts where the arm mounts)
• Front powered shaft should be one piece across the robot to time the cams together.
• Rework the servo mount and deploy mechanism
• Rework the arm from a solid piece of .5″ aluminum to use 2 x 1 box tube for the straight part

Charge Station

A bunch of packages came in today, a few days of ice holds things up for a bit. These packages contain all sorts of hardware for the charge station, hinges, bolts, rivets and more. Assembly continued today making good progress. The final piece to manufacture before we can complete half a charge station is modifying the door hinge that just arrived today.

Bumper

Here are a few different pictures of the bumper attachment system that we are using this year.

Not technically bumpers, but bonus picture of the belly pan cover. This cover has a removable window to access the Roborio.