Freight Frenzy Meeting #18

 Meeting 18

DATE : 12/11/2021

Attendees: Coach Cynde, Coach Grace, Sean Pakros, Jessica Hawkinson, Zeke Humber and Nate Humber, Skyler Firestone

Agenda: League Meet Debrief and Discuss Improvements

Notes: Discussion about the team element and improvement to the design. We would like to make the opening wider so that it is easier to place on the tower. It can also tip over if we’re not careful. We should make it bottom heavy. Ed and the boys created a bottom heavy cylinder for example. The concept was that it would be easier to grab from any angle, but the concern is that it could also slip through the grip of the claw and did not narrow inside to make it balance better on the tower. The weight on the bottom helps to keep it upright. We also discussed reprinting it in yellow so that the camera can read it easily and the red color won’t get confused for the red barcode on the field.

Communication with our alliance is very important but we also need to lead with our strengths and be able to explain those to our alliance.

We determined that the motor for the lift was a little too slow. We looked at our torque and ratio calculations and decided that we could change the motor from 3D rpm to 435 rpm and increase speed while still having the torque strength we need for the worm gear to function well.

The arm wasn’t extending smoothly for some reason so we looked over it carefully and adjusted the bearings. Now it runs much smoother in and out.

We had added encoder wires to the drive motors but the motor attached to port 0 on the Control Hub was not working correctly. We ran tests by changing out the encoder wire, changing motors to other ports, and found that the encoder port 0 on the control hub is not functioning. We emailed Rev about the problem to see if there was a quick fix. They gave us additional tests to try and determined we were correct. Sean connected that motor and encoder in to the Expansion hub and found that he could make it work that way. Our hub is past it’s past it’s warranty period. It can be mailed in for repair for a fee. We decided that we will do this but will wait for after the end of the season.

We discussed possible claw modifications to make it flow easier. A wheel perhaps?

Sean. Is working on programming changes and getting ready to work on better autonomous programs.