Signing Off

I totally forgot this was still live, oops.
Well umm the competition has been and gone, by quite a way (this years competition has now started)
I dont think i will be doing the blog this year, as in all fairness i didnt do a great job last year. Missed several weeks, never put an end post etc.
So yeah ill be passing that on to someone else, and they'll be starting there own thing, so this blog is now kinda redundant.
Well thats all really...oh other than WE WON, thats right marvin beat everyone in last years competition. Hopefully we can do the same again this year.

update

last weeks meeting was handed over to the programmers, as that's what we need to get done now. we did also make a top body panel, as a couple of thought the robot looked a bit odd without one.
and what about the tech day... well that was spent painting parts of the robot. as our programmers couldn't make it i decided to start to learn how to do the code, so we have more people able to do programing.
sorry the update isn't to long or detailed not much happened really, plus i don't have any pictures to add.

Tech issues

I haven't been able to do a post sooner as I've been having some issues with the site, kept crashing every time i wrote something, I've managed to partly fix it and can now type. However attaching pictures still makes it crash, i will endeavour to fix this within the next few days.
So last Wednesday...well i was away on a trip, and from what I've been told only 3 team members were actually there. Due to this progress was hampered but those that were there did manage to get all the bodywork of the robot done, and this week we will be starting to decorate it. there are some pictures of this, which i will put up when i fix the current issue with attaching images.

a very nice picture, courtesy of a nice DSLR camera that the other psc team were using.
this was taken without the side bodywork attached

















the robot with its side panels


















and from another angle

Apology and update

Sorry for not doing a post for a while, last week wasn't to good for me I was asleep most of it So what's happened since the last post... Well during half term our team leader took the robot away to work on. The results of this was a working scope and door, a battery box and a complete reshuffle of the electronics (there now within the robot) What about last week... As I said we had a final vote on team shirts and we've decided not to get any. The rest the time last week was spent discussing what had been done and what still needed doing and then testing the robot. And this week... Most of the meeting this week was spent making guide and body panels and also working on programming. So now the flail is completly surrounded, on 3 sides, by plastic. This sound guide the tokens onto the ledge, and so far it seems to be working. Now time for some pictures

the robot from the side, showing the inside workings

a more general whole view of the robot, still showing the insides though














the back of the robot, with no body panel on

Time for a technical drawing

i think its rather self explanatory (a larger version may be found in the gallery, or click on the image below)

picture created and provided by Geraint Shipsides

Poll up again

After hearing from the team today that most hadn't managed to vote on the poll about team shirts it's back up, for them to do so. Also we will hold another vote in a meeting in the next few weeks to finalise the decision. It will be decided soon, so that if we want them there'll be time to get them done

Shock horror

Yes you are seeing things right, it is wednesday and I've done a post. In fact this weeks meeting has only recently finished, and Ive already done the post. This is due to a timetable change and me now having a "free" in which I can do the post.

So firstly last week...
Well from what I've heard the main bit that got done was the door on the front of the robot, and it's motor and string mechanism thing. Other than that I believe programming continued and I'm not sure but I'd imagine sometime was spent driving the robot around.
Also as I'm sure most of you are aware there was a tech day on Saturday, again I wasn't able to attend due to illness. What I've heard about it was that only our time leader managed to go and spent most of the day driving the robot around trying to scare everyone. I do believe he did work on something but I don't quite know what.

Now onto this week...
So as I said this weeks meeting has only recently finished, at 1:50 to be exact.
Our time leader wasn't in today, and he left me incharge. Yesterday I was given a piece of paper outlining the jobs he wanted doing. Which he had signed and I had to, to say that he was giving me temporary leadership of the team. This amused everyone greatly, including the teachers.
Anyway, so what actually got done... Well we followed the list, to a degree, but mainly we did what we as a TEAM thought was important. So we first of all cut off some of the metal by the casters, to stop it hitting the ground.

the cut off bit is the bit resting on the top









Then we decided to work on the door mechanism and the curve behind the flail. First I'll talk about the changes to the door mechanism, after discussion it was decided to get rid of the motor mechanism and switch it for a much simpler servo mechanism, also we removed the heavy wooden door and replaced it with a lighter plastic one.

the old door, and mechanism

the new door, and mechanism










The work on the flail curve consisted mostly of curving a larger piece of plastic around the back of the robot and fixing it to frame work, we've managed to get it so that the cubes are flicked up by the flail and now we just need to curve the top slightly to direct them onto the ledge, which should be a fairly simple task.

Possibly just a temporary thing for now...