We started building the robot over Spring Break, where Arnav and I put the frame together, and started brainstorming for the intake and outtake mechanism.
After break, we took an in depth look at rules, and then, with the help of Austin, Michelle, Jeremy, and Alex, we began constructing the intake and outtake. While those were being made, we 3D Printed the top cap, and then worked on making all the different parts work together.
Once those were attached, which took about two weeks from their start because of issues we ran into such as needing support for the intake wheel, running out of t-nuts, running out of 20mm aluminum for framing, and various small ruling nitpicks. Once we had that all attached, we were able to mount the aluminum launching rail and the robot was almost complete.
However, we were also running out of time. When this was done we only had one more day to work on the bot before competition, so we started to panic a little bit. On the final day before the competition, we read over the rules once more, and then read the forums. They had modified one of the rules in the forums and hadn’t updated the rules page, so we freaked out and had to make some last-minute adjustments.
We had to add a servo to the back of the bot to hold the balls on the ground before we picked up the ball. We finished these modifications around 12:30 am the day of the competition, and then went to get what little sleep we could before we had to leave.
With writing by Kyle O’Donnell, and pictures by Christopher Kitson.