So not wanting to miss a weeks blog post i asked our team leader (Geraint) to summarise what happened.
Something i may try to avoid doing again...
Well anyway below is what he said, after my summarised version (incase you dont want to read the full thing)
So summarised version first.
Work continued on the chasis after getting the castors on, last week, the rest of the cross braces could be put on. Making the robot nice and rigid, allowing use to put on all bets and bobs we need (to make it function)
Work was done on the flail, putting holes in pieces of wood, and there were what looked like bearings in use to...
Also decision on how to power it has been made, its going to be chain drive. which yes means more metal needed.
A member of the team was set to work on the door mechanism, a tricky component that will take several weeks to complete.
The rear wheels have been looked at again, and work on the motor connection has started.
It also appears that we had a dodgy motor board and have managed to fry the fuse in our electronics. That not being enough we stole the fuse from the other teams electronics and may have fried that to.
O and finally one of the teachers was almosted wiped out by a piece of wood and we managed to break a castor (which will be fixed for next week)
It seems i missed the most eventful meeting yet, dam.
And now here is what Geraint said, in its raw unedited form. Enjoy...
Long Live Aliminium, the great wonderous being who gives life to all robots!
The Great Aliminium Monster gained yet more Aliminium, a quick estimate suggests we've already consumed about 30 - 40 feet of the stuff and it got worse today with a further 3 feet of aliminium being added. We'd got the front castors fitted in the final few seconds of last week, finally enabling us to get on with cross bracing and completing the lower half of the chassis. Though, after spending half hour fitting cross braces to the back of the robot, I realised that they totally consumed the space where the wheels should be... Oh $%£*&*... Hopefully the 2" of movement (that's two inches, or about 5cm, for all those Frenchies who work in metric) in the lower chassis will be resolved by all this aliminium, which I hope to have fully fitted by end of play next week. This will mean the robot will be nice and rigid for all the things we intend to fix to it, even if it has been built by eye, not protractor, or worse still, with use of a ruler...
Flail work is continuing, I get asked lots of questions, mostly "can we borrow the robot?" to which the answer is always "no, and fog off and don't come back"... I enjoy my style of leadership, not sure anyone else does... I saw some wood with holes in, I also saw a bearing (hopefully that was being used as some kind of support or paperweight, god forbid someone might actually have considered using it as a bearing!). Looks like it will be belt drive, I like the idea of this, not convinced how much benefit it will bring, but I think it is cool! Also means lots more bit of bent metal.
I set someone on the task of building a "door drive mechanism", a fancy piece of wood with a motor and other stuff on it. The idea is, it will pull a piece of string to close and open the door when required, this means various things working in perfect harmony - IE, it will be a sod to make! Hence why I got someone else to make it! Good luck to that poor soul, who'll spend the next month fiddling with microswitch and string... At least this won't be required for a long time, but will save a lot of time when it is required, given that we won't need to wait for it to be built.
Someone also started looking at wheels, I managed to wreck the motor/wheel mechanical connection last week, so it's a case of start from the beggining. No real progress appeared to have been made, I'll start looking at this in detail myself in about two weeks time, once I'm finished with the frame.
For once in my life, I didn't break the electronics! Turns out we have a dodgy motor board, which then fried the fuse in our electronic equipment, so the electronics people stole the other teams fuse, and fried that too! Thankfully, this has annoyed the other team - so I'm rather happy! They can fix our electronics when they return next week, once they have been shunned for damaging our robot!
Well actually, aside from almost wiping out one of our teachers with a bit of wood (I promise this was an accident, no late coursework due in or anything... promise!), we also broke one of our castors... The mount had seemed rather flimsy, and after rather violently turning the robot over, I wasn't entirely surprised to see half the wooden mount fly past my eyes...
I'll fix that before next week...
Finally (I think), we added yet more of our precious signs to every box that belongs to our team (and the boxes that we want, yet belong to the other team). These signs state simply "FOG OFF, IT'S OURS" - I like my aliminium. This phrase comes from last year, after the other team stole a load of our short bolts - which I'd spent several hours cutting down. We got our revenge, in that there was no aliminium left for the other team to use...
So hopefully this has distracted you for sufficiently long, such that we can restock our Aliminium supplies from yours, and so, I wish you Happy Bodging!
Geraint Shipsides
PSC Hitchikers - Hitchiking our way to your aliminium supply.
My Motto: "If it doesn't work, Hit It. If that doesn't work, HIT IT HARDER!!!"
DISCLAIMER: I DIDN'T STEAL YOUR ALIMINIUM - Promise(ish)
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