2014 Build Season - January

So far January has been extremely hectic but it's going well.  The team has been organized and attendance has been really high as we have worked through brainstorming and prototyping and starting the build.  With about three weeks left we are in pretty good shape - we like how the design is coming together and it's pretty neat to see us trying things that we didn't do last year.

The build team was able to use parts from an old robot to quickly do some prototyping of the throwing mechanism that we will shoot and pass with.  It is basically a catapult type design right now that will work with motors and springs to get enough force to throw the game ball where we want.  Prototyping the device to pick up the ball has gone through a lot more work.  The original idea worked great but we couldn't integrate it with the thrower well.  The frame perimeter rules are really annoying sometimes !!!

The programming team has kept up with what the builders are doing and putting the structure in place while the robot is getting built.  We hope to use sensors this year to identify the hot zone, give us some indications of distance, and make our robot a lot smarter than the one we had last year.

Below please find some pictures of how the team has been doing - from the January 4th kickoff in South Portland up until the end of February.