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Today was a big idea day for us. This year's playing game pieces are similar yet so unlike at the same time from the game pieces of the 2006's game. Like those of the 2006 game - Aim High, this year's game is played with balls with size similar to a soccer ball. The balls, unlike the 2006's ones, are made of several plastic strips which are wrapped over with stretchable fabrics. As a result, the balls are hollow shells. Having observed this interesting trait, Mr. Rodney Leong, one of our mentors, came up with an interesting idea for loading up the orbit balls in our robot. His idea was to attach plastic hooks to the chain so as the chain runs up and down vertically in the robot, it will hook up the balls and transfer them to another location like an elevator.  In order to try out Mr. Leong's idea, we took off one side of our chassis (one that has a chain on it), attached custom-made Kel-Tec plastic hooks to it and ran it with a portable drill.    Taking off a bar of Bosch aluminum from the chassis, substituting the sprockets with bigger ones, replacing some of the chain parts with straight side plates, and putting the chain back on.   Tightening the chain to a moderate level of tension by adjusting the dog point set screw.  Our chain system BEFORE...    Our chain system AFTER... Tadah!   Putting supports on to the chain. Ready? Let's RUN it!
  The design was workable, but our mentors said that we have to test it some more to see how dependent and efficient it is. While we were testing, problems appeared - the ball sometimes was caught between the chain and the back curve of the hook when it is supposed to fall off the hook. To resolve the problem, we tried moving the point of attachment to the middle and then to the rear of the hook. Nonetheless, there was little or no improvement to be seen. Mr. Tui, inventor of the Tui Flipper on our last year's robot, Hawaiian Electric, suggested a flapper be attached to the back of the hook. Mr. Tui's solution was doable but unfortunately we had to put our design aside for the time being as we must move on to the next mission. The next thing we had to do was to put the chassis back together, transfer the brain - the electronics borad from the kit bot to the chassis, and get it moving. In order for the circuit board to be tie strapped securely on to the chassis, we cut some Bosch aluminum bars and hung them across the chassis to create a support for the board. Next we added a specified amount of weight to the chassis, which helped define a simulation of the finish product that our drivers needed for practice. Our day was concluded with Sam & Erica driving the robot on the crater. |
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Disclaimer: These are actual student posts done by students and not paid actors. We make no claims or guarantees that the information contained herewith is 100% accurate or free of grammatical/spelling errors (English is not the first language for many of our members). You have been warned. |