SolidWorks Build pt.3

This is the SolidWorks build for the Racquetball challenge portion of the robot. This is the Isometric, front, top, and right view of the robot.

Problems and Solutions (Week 14)

Today we are still working on the automated ball challenge and have thought of some solutions to our problems. Due to the ball having the habit of rolling away when any force is applied we have began to rest it in divot in the floor. Also to make the process of the picking of the ball easier we are putting our robot arm directly above the ball when we start the program.

Ball Challenge Autonomous (Week 14)

Today we have began to work on the ball version two which is to get a single ball into the tube with autonomous commands.There are several problems that have arose from the beginning of our attempts. First the ball is a much smaller object than our previous automated challenge not only the force applied to the ball sends it rolling in the opposite direction. The second problem is that the arm of our robot is too heavy for the gears to hold up so it falls down when no motor power is applied. To the second problem I have resorted to using rubber bands to hold the arm in place giving it small resistance to its weight.

Finishing up (Week 13)

Today our team completed the ball challenge but not without difficulty during the test runs. During the first official attempt the first ball was picked and deposited successfully but the second ball was pushed away and began to roll away out of the robots reach.The second official attempt the first ball went in successfully and then during the lifting of the second ball into the tube the arm motor malfunctioned and quit working. Following the second attempt we immediately did the third official which finally worked as it is meant to.

Doing our 3rd (and probably final) test run (Week 13)

We have finished our claw/intake machine thing on our robot that kind of holds the ball and place it in the hole. We are hopefully going to finish and do well on the test run and finish our robot's final challenge.

Fixing our code (Week 12)

To not let our arm or robot fall down we changed the motors to continuously run a small amount. This way the motor is always running and will avoid any jagged movements by the robot that may cause the ball to get out of the cylinder during our test run.

Rebuilding our Claw (Week 12)

Although our claw was not completely bad it still needs improvement and will probably not complete the ball challenge unless we make the adjustments. Now we are dismantling the claw and adding weight to the squarebot. We are finding other battery clips as well because ours are broken.