Day 11

CAD Updates

Today’s meeting was online only, we had a design review from our alumni Ryan C.

Design Review Notes

  • Make sure bumpers won’t interfere with climbing chain
  • Mentioned bumper slumping, 0.5” clearance above the note for intake should be okay
  • Test centering with the feeder wheels to make sure it works
  • Discussed width of intake vs width of shooter - about 6in of intake width on either side of each shooter wheel, which is less than the width radius of the note
  • Talked about adding sensors for note detection in shooter and intake - check if sensors would work through lexan or not
  • Need to increase compression of shooter wheels
  • Look at adding bracing or doing shooter out of metal to prevent shooter inaccuracies from vibrations and/or warping
  • Mentioned change in angle of the note when feeding from intake (almost upright) to shooter (less upright), make sure that the feeder wheels are the first point of contact and maybe have an upper guide to bridge from intake to shooter
  • Check if notes can get stuck in weird spots in shooter when feeding in - try reversing existing prototype to test
  • Talked about adding more supports for the elevator on the backside - have to work around swerve module and chain locations
  • Maybe build off of standoff on swerve module?
  • Make sure to add sponsor panels or something else to prevent notes from getting stuck in the robot
  • Put a sacrificial piece on the outside of elevator to avoid catastrophic damage to the elevator in the event of a collision (rip 2022 climber)

Climb Kicker

Fleshed out climber kicker for making sure we have a consistent/not tip over climb happened.

Elevator

We discussed mounting options for energy chain. This was a particular issue for us in 2019, and the energy chain got damaged regularly/got caught. This year we are taking much closer looks/inspiration on mounting, and looked at 254 examples from 2023 and 2018.

We also looked at gusseting on the bottom of the elevator and got that more sorted out.

Shooter

Discussed shooter materials, bottom should be 3/16” aluminium, made by Pure Ingenuity as that’s the thickest they can manufacture.

Feeder wheel distance changed to account for rotation in opposite directions via gear + pulley, shooter plate geometry changed, motor positions adjusted to allow for more space, metal supports planned out/added, sensor for note position added.

General Thoughts

The lack of CAD experience with students is definitely starting to show now. Progress is slow as we work through this, and we will have to consider reducing scope of the robot to focus on the critical things on the robot.

-Brennan