It’s crunch time into competition season and Phantom Lakes Regional is coming up! Our team has been working to fix and improve our robot in the last two weeks before our first competition.
The CAD team designed the bumper backings and completed the model on the belly pan. They cleaned up and finalized the CAD assemblies. They redesigned the camera mounts and camera cases.
FIRST Impact got a new documentation binder which included organized photos, spreadsheet, and a labelled plan. We use the binder to show what our impact is on the local and STEAM community to the judges. They finalized and ordered the presentation board designs. Finally, they spent the weekend volunteering their time at the FIRST Tech Challenge’s State Competition. FTC is similar to FRC but with a different game and smaller robots. They practiced their presentation in front of mentors for some feedback. Strategy started SQL training with other team members and re-made match strategy boards.
Fabrication replaced the turn motors in the swerve drive to save weight. New coral end effectors and the drive rails were replaced to save weight. They helped to replace the belly pan and the top elevator plates for more convenient tensioning.
After attending a scrimmage with FRC Team 4786, Nicolet FEAR, our Electromechanical team refined the shoulder and arm mechanisms. They modified the shoulder design to improve speed and stability. Friction reduction in other subsystems, coral end effector and elevator, were also completed. They also focused on weight-saving changes with the fabrication team, including swapping out motors for lighter ones and adding lightened versions of end effectors, etc. They replaced the belly pan with a lightened one, contributing significantly to our goal of being legal for competition. They also repaired the arm, as 3D prints were splitting, and the epoxy resin that held in the carbon fiber arms were failing. Emech assembled the ground intake, climber, and many new electrical components onto the robot to aid in the highly functional robot. Electrical added the CAN range sensors and cleaned up the wiring.
With competitions looming, the programming team is spending a lot more time working on autonomous. Since a large amount of points can be earned there, it is time well spent! Programming finished and tuned the alignment of their autonomous options and after a week they finally got it working! They also fixed some commands corresponding that were not working correctly. Programming worked on and optimized advanced autonomous modes. They now have one that can score three game pieces within 20 seconds. They are working towards the goal of shortening it to within the fifteen second autonomous period.
Business finished and ordered the team t-shirts, which arrived later this week. Team 930’s pit presentation was updated to show teams at competitions all of the cool things we do. They evaluated the materials that we keep in the pit and they started to plan for later outreach events.
Make sure to come see us at our first competition this year, the Phantom Lakes Regional on March 28th and 29th at Mukwonago High School. This is going to be exciting because we have international teams from Taiwan, India, Mexico, and Turkey coming to our high school! We hope to see you there!