Day #16: Long Range Shooter

Author: Art Kalb

Prototyping

Shooter

After a morning discussion on the mailing list, students and mentors attempted to use the shooter to shoot from a longer range than before. The goal of these long range shots is to pickup discs by the human player and quickly shoot them across the field. In testing, the shooter wheels and guide rail were improved to reduce slippage in the wheels, improving the velocity and range of the shooter.  The previous BaneBots wheels were replaced with BaneBots wheels of larger diameter, and more compression was added.  By the end of the day, the shooter was able to shoot frisbees through the high goal from the far edge of the field.

Close-up of updated shooter, with larger BaneBots wheels

Shooting frisbees from far edge of the field

Intake

Students started assembling a new intake, with a roller low to the ground to allow for easy pickup.  Currently, this step is high priority, as the team needs a working and reliable intake mechanism for the overall robot design.

Students constructing new intake prototype

Manufacturing

Today, students worked on the lathe for various parts on the drive gearboxes.

Manufacturing gearbox standoffs on the lathe

Programming

Running the 2010 Robot

Students worked on reviving the 2010 robot’s drivebase to have our drivers (Abhi Kumar and Chris Sides) driving as soon as possible to practice with the Logitech F310 controller. Tasks involved modifications to the CheesyDrive code from 2012 and mapping the gamepad axes to the drivetrain, and reimaging the cRIO to v47.

The 2010 robot, Onslaught

Matrix Math

As a part of the program, the robot will need to do some mathematics involving matrices. To allow for this, students translated and reimplemented code to create a Matrix class, which will do basic matrix math (addition, subtraction, scalar multiplication) and matrix mulitiplication. Due to some uncertaintity about matrix multiplication, the class is not completed.

The students also worked on translating the state space controller from last year’s C++ code, which requires a functional Matrix class.

Action Items

• ​Finish and test intake prototype
• Improve shooter for speed, distance, and accuracy
• Finish translating matrix/control code from 2012 to Java + test code
• Flash v47 image to Skyfire