by Dan Ngo '17

Competition Preparation

Driver practice continued today in preparation for Madera, with the same format as before. One driver controlled with practice Barrage, while the other driver played defense with Skystalker.

Members worked on attaching power cables to fresh batteries, to be used as soon as possible.

In addition, competition materials were packed, including the custom-made drill holder, various tools, and spare parts.

Awards

Today, the team also worked on crucial parts of the Chairman's Award, including the binder, video, and presentation. Progress was made on the binder's graphic design, and finished in time for the competition. The video was filmed beforehand at school, and one of the members will work on the editing. The presenters practiced the Chairman's presentation to get feedback from the mentors.

Pit Display

The video team crammed work on the competition pit display on the 20" screen. Next week the team will receive a 42" monitor.

Action Items

• Technical BinderBill of MaterialsChairman's Binder: History, Images
• Chairman's Video EditingDriver PracticePrepping BatteriesPacking Materials

Team 254, NASA Ames Robotics "The Cheesy Poofs", proudly presents our 2014 robot: Barrage.

Barrage will compete at the Central Valley Regional, Waterloo Regional, Silicon Valley Regional, and FIRST Championship.

Team 254 is sponsored by NASA Ames Research Center, Lockheed Martin, The Mercadante Family, Ooyala, TR Manufacturing, Qualcomm, HP, West Coast Products, The Magarelli Family, The Yun Family, Google, Modern Machine, The Gebhart Family, Aditazz, Cisco Meraki, Vivid-Hosting, Nvidia, BAE Systems, Gilbert Spray Coat, Pacific Coast Metal, S&S Welding, Good Plastics, Team Whyachi, Applied Welding, World Metal Finishing, The Jimenez Family, Hy-Tech Plating, and Bellarmine College Preparatory.

by Ian Chiu and Tyler Cuff

Testing

At the NASA lab, the drivers have begun to practicing to operate the robot for the upcoming tournament at Waterloo. One group of students used a defensive robot to block Barrage, while the other group used Barrage to score.

Construction

The drive team decided to create a drill board to hold their drills so they could keep all their drills in one place, allowing them to keep the lab a much more organized place.

The drive team had to get off the field when the belt on Barrage broke. They removed the flywheel so that they could replace the belt.

Several members began treading the wheels for the robot, beginning by putting the treads into the tread gauge.

Awards

Some of the mentors and members were working on the screen together to create a successful scene to film for the Chairman’s Video. Soon, they will edit the filmed material to create a final product to submit for the Chairman’s Video. A few members also worked on the Media and Technology submission

Action Items

• Clean up - Everyone
• Driver Practice - Pat/Kevin/EJ
• Film the catcher - See Collin if you want to help
• Build Control Board - Cory
• Prototype catcher
• New accumulator standoffs
• Set up the BOM - Ryan/Louis/Clay/Vidur
• Film flythrough scene - Alex
• Wire batteries - Mani
• Test batteries - Pat
• New pinniped standoffs: cut, weld, powder
• Mentor castle prep - Mani
• Automate vision targets and lights - Bruno

Co-Authored by Tyler Cuff and Robert Lim

Testing

The day began with students and the drive team practicing and troubleshooting the robot. The drive team traversed the field and practicing scoring goals as quickly as possible.

After Skystalker, the surrogate opponent robot, was up and running, the driver practiced scoring with its uncooperative counterpart playing defense (see image below) This accustomed the driver to moving around the field with an opposing robot attempting to block movement and impede shooting.

Electronics and Wiring

During a half hour window of robot downtime, students attended to other projects. Students installed lighting in the battery cart and added a vinyl finish. Meanwhile several other students worked on improving the wiring of Skystalker by loosening its chain for the drive train.

Parts Organization

The main piece of organization was the continued efforts on the Bill of Materials, pronounced Bom in airports, needed for Madera. The BOM will describe a list of the raw materials, sub-assemblies, intermediate assemblies, sub-components, parts and the quantities of each needed to manufacture an end product).

CAD

Several student worked on completing the SolidWorks CAD tutorial to improve their practical knowledge of CAD. The majority of them created sketches while others put together assemblies.

Awards

A team worked on the Chairman's Award presentation PowerPoint for the upcoming Madera tournament in March. A leader began to finalize the script. Remember that our Chairman's presentation is confidential and should NOT be shared or discussed outside of the team. Another team worked on the Media and Technology Innovation Award that is due tomorrow. Its content was finalized with approval throughout the team and the graphic design and layout format will be finished tonight.

Design

Upstairs, students had a discussion on how to improve the robot and what will definitely will happen. We will be adding the side panels for giving proper recognition to all our amazing sponsors. Two suggestions were adding triangular plates onto the side of the robot to assist in catching, and another involved the addition of surgical tubing to strengthen the catcher.

Miscellaneous

The lab received a new printer, scanner/copier, and 24" monitors. With the recent rain, a few students noticed a small leak in roof on the east side of the lab. The team also played some pick-up volleyball with an exercise ball and the truss.

Action Items

• Driver practice
• Build control board
• Machine, anodized, and then remachined
• Print handles
• Make control board standoffs
• Prototype catcher
• New accumulator standoffs
• Drill Grommet holes on spare intake
• Set up us up the BOM
• Film fly through scene
• Technical Binder
• Wire Batteries
• Test Batteries
• new pinniped standoffs
• cut, weld, and powder
• Mentor Castle prep
• Autonomous vision targets and lights
• Make wheels
• Redesign catcher pistons

Driver Practice

Today, students continued to practice driving the robot on the field. Obstacles were set up on the field earlier in the day to test the new drivers’ capabilities.Later, students practiced driving with other students in the human player boundaries feeding the robot balls.

Demo Gearbox

Students finished assembling the display gearbox.

Chairman's Award

Students added pictures to the Chairman’s Award PowerPoint. Finding the right pictures is a big process in creating the presentation.

Technical Binder

Students worked on updating the technical binder for the Chairman’s award. This binder contains all of the specifications for the robot.

Team Flyer

Students continued to work on drafting the Team Flyer. The flyer is an easy way toinform other teams and passersby during tournaments about the robot and theteam. This is a simplified version of the technical binder. However, after some further discussions we decided to try remaking the flyer with a shot of the robot with the intakes opened. That photo is being photo shopped now and will be used soon.

Programming

Programmers continued to work on the pit display. Currently, they are working on fixing the team page.

Field Optimization

Students started to improve the field by configuring the scoring lights. These lights indicate whether the robots are in autonomous or in tele-op mode. This will help simulate a real game for driver practice.

Assembly

Students began constructing an intake on-top of the Overkill Practice Drive-base made of wood for a drivers to face-off against.

Bill of Materials

Students continued working on the Bill of Materials. Today they finished recording data for the intake, electronics, and are currently working on the hood.

Action Items

• Continue working on the BOM
• Continue driver practice
• Continue improving Chairman's Script
• Finalize Chairman's Video storyboard
• Improve Chairman's PowerPoint
• CNC the new rear VEX bump sensor mount
• Finalize the Team Flyer
• CNC new wheel hubs

Chairman's Award

Today students brainstormed and storyboarded the 2014 Chairman's Award Video. This video is required with all Chairman's entries and the winning team's video is shown at the end of each tournament. Also, another group continued work no a Chairman's Powerpoint template that will be used during the presentation. Finally, the three presenters continued to flush out the script and got to practice 2 times before mentors and get their thoughts on what information should be added.

Driver Practice

Drivers worked on receiving the ball from the human player without utilizing the rear intake. They rigorously practiced pinning the ball to the side wall to force the ball into the intake, in an attempt to lessen ball transfer time.

Field Construction

Students finalized the field construction today by adding the human player boundaries on the side of the field. This boundary tell the human players exactly where they are allowed to stand, which help make driver practice more realistic.

Programming

Programmers were brainstorming ideas for a possible Team 254 mobile app that will feature all the web products 254 has to offer. This includes the hours tracking systems, various resources (handbook, identity standards, tutorials), and the home page with a simple calendar.

Graphic Design

Students continued to program the team's new pit display. Others were adding sponsors to the 2014 T-shirt. Students were also rendering specific assemblies in of the CAD for use in the Technical Binder. These renders all people to more easily see the functions of each mechanism of the robot and they all work independently and then come together into one finished product.

Assembly

Students began to assemble the 5th, display gearbox. All the parts have been found and the gearbox simply needs to be assembled. In addition to being a useful display piece to explain the 3-CIM shifting gearboxes we are using this year, this will also serve as a spare gearbox we can use or at least scrap for parts if something breaks at competition.

Miscellaneous

Students continued to work on the Bill of Materials (BOM) by using the CAD and Parts Management System to figure out what parts we ordered and what actually made it onto the robot. Currently the drivetrain is finished and electronics and intakes subsystems are in progress.

Work on the release video made significant progress. A first draft was made featuring "Light em Up" with shots of the robot and the double-3-ball-autonomous. This draft can be viewed at this link: //video.team254.com/watch/hhZjlzazqf4JTKXlP62-pq2Q3vi1pTBQ
As this is only a draft and not the final copy, don't share this yet!

Action Items

• Finish assembly of demo gearbox
• Continue working on the BOM
• Continue driver practice
• Continue improving Chairman's Script
• Finalize Chairman's Video storyboard
• Begin work on compiling the technical binder
• Begin work on compiling the Chairman's binder
• Create Chairman's PowerPoint
• Decide what spare parts need to be made, including for demo
• CNC the new rear VEX bump sensor mount
• CNC new wheel hubs

by Matt MacDonald '17

Assembly

Today, students worked on replumbing the locking pistons on the practice robot to make sure it functions to the best of its ability.

Organization

The team also organized the Box of Pat. Students cleaned out the case and made sure the parts inside the shelves were placed in proper order. The parts were put in different compartments that would allow students to find what they need easily.

Pit Display

The team also improved pit lighting controls. A mentor worked on the Arduino code that can be used to control the lights and students also worked on the website that controls the lights.

Writing

Students also prepared for the Chairman's award presentation.They also wrote about the team’s outreach events and its basic information to display at tournaments.

Action Items

• Continue driver practice
• Reorganize lab
• Finish the pit display
• Finish Chairman’s presentation

Everyone took the day off today as a reward for all the hard work we put in over the past 6 weeks to get the robot bagged!

by Chris Powers '15

Photo Shoot

Today was bag and tag day, so not much machining or robot work occurred. Most of the team worked on taking multiple shots of the finished competition robot, which was placed in a studio area on one half of the field. The team took photos at multiple angles with different lighting and game objects.

Practice Bot

Other team members worked on improving the practice robot on the other side of the field. A belt broke on the robot, so team members repaired it.

Graphic Design

The graphic design team continued working on the T-shirt designs. A design is not yet finalized.

Bag and Tag

The robot was bagged and tagged at approximately 9:30, concluding six weeks of intense fun and work and ushering in six weeks of regional competition preparation.

Action Items

• Rest day tomorrow- no build.
• Continue working on T-shirt and flier with Kevin.
• Continue working on practice robot.