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      Now it’s the last couple of days of the season. We redid the arm joint that was stuck to the joint that was to hold the arm. There was some sort of dent that made it stuck to the joint permanently. So they cut off the arm and welded it back to the joint. Then we started to put everything that was on the test robot on the chassis of the real thing. Then we attached the base of arm with keyed shafts. Then we tested the arm with the power supply to make sure it was going the direction we wanted it to. From there, we helped place where the electronics were going to go. Then the mentors started to make all the mounts needed for supporting all the electronics and pneumatics in place.
       In the mean time, Jinny and Mr. Do were spray painting the design for the bumper covers. After the mentors made separate pieces for each bumper, we assembled the bumpers together. To protect the electronics from damage, the mentors made a polycarbonate hood to be placed over the front. After testing the robot, we found out that the treads tend to come loose. So the mentors decided to drill holes in the treads so we could set screw them in place.

       The last few days of the robotics season were especially memorable for the electrical/programming team. There were loads of tasks to be completed before the shipment of the robot. With the new controller box fully fabricated, we secured the joysticks, steering wheel, and the Operator Interface onto it. In addition, we added three switches and a potentiometer onto the control box for arm control and autonomous program selection, respectively.
       Electronics and pneumatics components were taken off the wood board, and were permanently mounted inside the robot. The team used a lot of brainpower to figure an ideal placement of parts within the robot. Although the compactness of the robot had made this task very difficult, we managed to mount all the components inside neatly at the end. A great amount of time was also spent on cutting and crimping wires to connect the robot's electrical system. The team also endeavored to use the least amount of wire possible to help the robot to lose weight.
       Finally and most importantly, the completion of the robot arm enabled the programming team to write a function to control the arm while restricting its extension within six feet to avoid a violation of a game rule. Although the program was not perfect, we managed to control the arm and made it moved in a set path. We plan to make further adjustments to the arm to improvement its efficiency.

       In the final few days of the build season we were able to get our Chairman’s Award submission polished by Mr. Tui, which enabled us to submit our Chairman’s Award essay early. Along with the Chairman’s Award, we were allowed to submit four pictures; we chose pictures that accurately represented our team actively getting involved in the community. We submitted a picture of the team’s meeting with Governor Lingle, a picture of the team demonstrating our robot at a news station, a picture of the team fundraising, and a picture of the team working with elementary students involved with the SPARK program.
       On the website, we were wrapping things up. We added and filled the new ‘Crunch Time’ section with pictures of the final days of the build season. We also finished an informative ‘Robot’ section in the website that is filled with many facts and pictures of the team’s final robot design.

       During these final and busy days of this year's robotics season, we basically did whatever was needed of us. The first task of business was to finish up our control box. We drilled holes into the control box to hold our autonomous knob as well as our set point switches. We then labeled all of our buttons and controls to ensure that we will remember what each button's function does.
       Also, we aided the programming team to wire and label the robot followed by helping the mechanical team to assemble the bumpers. After the completion of our robot, we started to fill our crate with necessary materials and tools. Meanwhile, our driver and controller practiced the controls on the robot. Finally, our robot was secured in the crate and ready to be shipped.

 

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