The team members of Miss Daisy went into Week Five with renewed enthusiasm, as they started to see the robot drivetrain and mechanisms assemble together. We started to make much-needed progress on attaching all of our sub-mechanisms to our sheet metal drivetrain, while also reinforcing and testing the drivetrain itself.
The mechanical and electrical sub-teams had their work cut out for them this week, with the mechanical team members working mainly on end effectors, and the electrical team constructing the electronics board.
The intake group made a lot of progress this week, finishing
and mounting two intakes, one for each robot. That
process did come with its fair share of issues though, with bearings sliding out of mounting plates and challenges drilling into the drivetrain to attach the intake assembly. After three days of hard work, they were successful, yet still not finished. There were still more problems attaching pistons and motors to the intake, but after a few small design changes, the team fully completed the task!
Similarly, the shooter group ran through a few hurdles to get the shooter to work properly. They worked tirelessly to rigidify the shooter, and angle it back on the drivetrain to make shots from multiple points around the courtyard. Even though we constructed our shooters out of sheet metal to ease assembly, the group was only able to assemble one of them completely. Hopefully, they’ll have the second one finished and attached to the second drivetrain by the middle of next week.
Finally, our hanging group rode the success from last week and finalized one hanger, complete with arms, a winch, and a deployment system. Some problems arose with their assembly too, including packaging it with our intake. We hope that all the problems will be solved by early this week, so that we’ll be in good shape going into the final few days of build season.
Of course, all of our other subteams continued their progress this week as well. Our media team is changing things up this year, by making one long film documenting all of build season, instead of filming weekly video blogs. Until this week, the team had a somewhat vague idea of how the theme of the movie would work, as well as what types of music and camera work would be used in it. After a 2 hour Saturday morning meeting, the team was able to finalize the direction and style for their film. We can’t wait to see the finished product!
The awards crew also took a second look at award entries this week. With Woodie Flowers essays done last week, they shifted focus into our Dean’s List Nominee essays. After many long nights of writing, our small awards crew pulled it off. In addition, they started a lot of work on our team’s business plan and media award entries.
Despite many struggles throughout this week, Daisy is still looking strong. We’re hoping that many of our subsystems will be finalized this week, and our programming group will be able to get their hands on the robot to bring Daisy to life. It’s time for Week Six!
