Check Out What Gatorbotics Has Been Up To! We've finally wrapped up our build season, and we're excited for all the fun events to come! Read on to learn about what we accomplished in the final weeks of our build season. Build Update By Annabel Goldman Just a few weeks into second semester, Gatorbotics’s Build Team had already made a ton of progress on the robot, finally wrapping up the build season over February break. As the competition season approaches, the team has been creating, adapting, and refining all the mechanisms for the robot and working on supports. Refining the Robot Towards the end of the build season, the practice robot sustained a few injuries to its systems after much testing. The team worked to refine these systems in order to create a stronger robot for the next round of testing. One of the injuries the robot sustained was to the battery mount. After a crash test where the robot Did a "wheelie," the battery mount became damaged, and the build team problem-solved to fix the battery mount and make it stronger. The next steps for the team revolved around testing the redesigned and refined parts of the robot before going into another round of fine-tuning. For every correction made to the practice robot, the CAD for the real robot was altered to prevent breaking or stabilize parts when the real robot hits something. Supports In addition to refining the robot, the build team has also worked on milling supports in order to stabilize the practice robot. We also learned learned how to adapt these supports to the real robot. Supporting the robot is necessary to in order to improve durability so the robot does not break. Robot Update By Allison Rabbani Gatorbotics has been working hard building and programming the robot so it’s competition-ready. The coding team especially has been improving the robot, working on hard-coding the mechanisms and vision. Since we completed the robot over February break, the team is now able to practice driving, shooting cargo, and scoring panels with the practice robot. The robot is able to complete the tasks necessary to score points for the team at competitions and respond to commands from the team. With vision through the Limelight camera, the robot can identify targets, do basic alignment, and calculate its distance from a target. This helps the robot during autonomous mode as it is able to “see” and react to things without intervention from a team member. The team is also able to receive live images and video from the robot, and can react according to information directly from the robot. The next steps for Gatorbotics’ programming team were to combine the mechanisms and vision so the robot can drive and score with the use of its vision and to automate the cargo intake. The coders did amazing work alongside the build team this season getting the robot ready for the competitions. Team Member Interview: Sam Borbas By Lauren Ashby Sam Borbas is a senior and a member of the Gatorbotics build team team. Sam joined Gatorbotics in her junior year because, as she puts it, “ I love inventing things, working through mental puzzles, and working with my hands.” Sam’s favorite part of Gatorbotics is getting to do projects with everyone saying, “you’re all in it together, you get to joke around and learn about the other people, and when you’re finally done and it fits into the bigger picture it is so rewarding.”
When Sam was asked about what she’s learned in Gatorbotics she said, “I have learned so much, but to keep the list short, I’ll say that I have learned how to use a 3D printer, how to cad (somewhat anyways), how to troubleshoot problems, how to figure out what tradeoffs to make, how to prioritize, how to tap, how to exist in a slightly chaotic workshop with dangerous tools and safely use all of them, how to use a mill and not destroy the highly precise machinery, how to make Reese happy (oreos and red vines), how to teach other people all of the above skills, and how to be better at making friends.” Sam is a tremendous team member as a leader for the younger members and uses her technical skills to help the team become even better.
1 Comment
|