Harker Robotics 1072

After a brief hiatus, I'm back the the blog life. Today we worked on putting the drivetrain together while prototyping more mechanisms. Field construction is going well, we are starting HAB next as it is one of the most important field elements for our strategy. Design is going well, we messed up on the drivetrain / bellypan hole pattern which is extremely annoying, we need to get better at releasing versions to manufacturing. Elevator CAD is mostly done, now working on the carriage and wrist gearbox. Andrew is ballin out on the lathe, finishing all the shafts for both drivetrains. Prototypes are going well, cargo mech is getting more fleshed out so design as some measurements to start designing around. Next, we are starting on prototyping for a center grab style for the hatch panel. More to come!

It was a pretty light day as a lot of people had a good amount of homework due tomorrow. We worked on putting the finishing touches on the carriage, and should be able to mount it once the plates are done. The pistons from automation direct should arrive Monday and we should be able to fully test the robot. The main thing we need to figure out is how to mount the sprockets for the 2nd stage chain run. We will manual mill them tomorrow and hopefully install them. I worked with Chloe on mounting the chain to the first stage by measuring out the hole pattern then bolting it to the carriage. We then attached the 4-40 bolts to secure it to the chain. We also installed the elevator gearbox, which unfortunately will require some of the electrical parts to be relocated which is a pain.

We are trying to get one robot complete so we can test it a little before putting it in the bag. We finished the gearboxes for the elevator and they are looking good. The McMaster order arrived so we riveted a lot of stuff. Bumpers for the practice bot were completed, and I think we have a good way of fastening the bumpers. Intake had the pistons for the 11/13 dimension intake arrived, and we installed them. Electrical kept wiring up the 12 775pros in both robots. Hopefully today we get the second chain run rigged up.

Back in the lab for another meeting, had pretty bad turnout but whatever. Machinists ran the last couple plates so we are pretty set on that. I honestly don’t know what is taking so long, it’s just there are a lot of tasks that all need to be done. Bumpers got closer to completion and another 2nd stage for the elevator is closer to completion. We lost the 775pro vent spacers so we couldn’t finish that today, but we will tomorrow.

Today we worked on just trying to get a finished and working robot. We assembled the second carriage, and the plates were also milled and attached. Rohan was milling the right angle brackets that interface with the chain, and Arusha tapped them with the tiny 4-40 tap. She broke one however; good thing we have extras! I think both the battery mounts were completed which is good. One issue was that the inner carriage has about 1/16 of play, which is a pretty big issue. We tried shortening the gab with some plastic taped to the elevator, but I think we will need to mill new plates to adapt and fix the issue.

We made a TON of progress today. We completed the drivetrain and now have working encoders. Joel and the programming team got right to setting up closed loop driving and started testing the autonomous paths. Over on the field construction side it was finally assembled for the first time and it is quite impressive. All the 2x1 for both robots was completed, and we will have most of the plates back from 299 this week. One elevator was assembled, and it feels quite smooth. Battery mounts were also created. Looking to have a productive week and power through.