Thanks to Ruland!

On our visit to Ruland, we had the incredible opportunity to tour the factory, where we saw a variety of machines, including very basic machines dating back to the 1940s as well as newer machines designed just six months ago by Ruland’s engineers. It was awesome to see how some of the parts on our robot are created! We also spoke with the marketing department and learned more about the ways Ruland helps many FIRST teams. At the end of our visit, we showed everyone our robot and we were happy to find out that we’re using the Ruland parts correctly!

This weekend we got a generous donation of parts from Ruland. The shaft connectors will help to correct to our misaligned motor and drive shafts in our drive system. These parts are going to really help us this season, and we are proud to have Ruland as a sponsor!

 

Super servos!

 

 

 

We wanted to test the strength of some of our servos by having them wind up a very heavy weight- our Block Party robot. We were able to lift it completely off the ground with an HS-755MG servo! (page here) We are hoping to utilize the servo’s considerable strength in our robot design.

First mountain climbing ideas.

After some consideration, we narrowed down our drive system options to 3 different ways our robot could climb the mountain.

Our first idea was a simple four wheel tank with treads attached to its side. This would be combined with a linear slide that would hook on to the highest or second highest bar, assisting the climb.

Our second idea was based off the first, except the robot could come off its wheels. In other words, the body of the robot could remain horizontal to the ground while the wheels tilted to drive up the ramp.

Our third idea was a stair climber. In this design the drive is a simple tank drive. What allows the robot to scale the mountain are two hooks that go in a circular motion in front of the wheels. They hook onto each bar and lift the robot over them.

We are now prototyping our designs and drawing them up in Creo.

-IT 10/10/15