So, it’s been a while since our last blog post. But, we’ve still been quite busy in the lab. Finally, the fourth, and final week, of finals have ended! Which means that the lab will be filled with tons of manpower [excuse me, girl power] until the end of build.
Meanwhile, there has been lots of work on the various aspects of the robot during the past week. This past Monday, we decided on our final design, including which kicker and hanging mechanism to use. During the past few days, lots of work has been done on prototyping the kicker mechanism we: laid out a pneumatic board to support the kicker mechanism and began prototyping a second, metal pneumatic kicker system (because the wood split). Currently, we’ve encountered some slight configuration issues with the kicking mechanism, but not to worry, all will be quickly resolved. In addition, there has been much progress on the hanging mechanism, which has proved to be one of the most challenging parts of the game.
As a whole, the team is facing tough deadlines to finish cutting the parts of the chassis to length so it can be sent to the welder on Monday. All in all, “Breakaway” is much tougher than it initially seemed. Despite this, there is one aspect of build season that doesn’t come as much of a surprise each year- Chairman’s award submissions. The writing team met again this week to discuss the essay outline and to break down the authors of each of the subsections of the essay. With it’s creative theme, this year’s submission is bound to be eye-catching.
With 3 and 1/2 weeks remaining, the Space Cookies are trying to keep up the momentum and finish building a triumphant robot!
-Rachel
Marketing/PR Director
CADing the kicker and roller assemblies
Kicker Prototype 2