10 Days till WPI

Today we spent a little time at the packing for WPI and working on autonomous, here's the first part of our three part run and a picture of everything ready for WPI!

Ready to Rumble!

-D

11 Days till WPI

Today a couple of the students met down at the practice field to get some practice in, after a couple hours of driving i'm very happy with the way the robot preformed! We need to keep it in high gear if we want to have a successful competition season, so we're planning on meeting as much as possible to continue all of the hard work! Here is a little video of the practice robot tipping itself back over with the Awesome Bar!

-D

12 Days till WPI

Today a couple of the members of the fab team met at the school to work of finishing the Awesome Bar on the practice robot, and after an hour or two of chasing a pneumatic leak, we transported the robot down to the practice field where tomorrow a couple of the students will meet to work on autonomous and programming.

-D

13 Days till WPI

The team is back in the shop today to clean and work on Chairman's some more. We're also going to start filming for the release video which will be released a couple of nights before WPI! We're heading to the practice field tomorrow to get some much needed practice and to work out all the kinks in the practice robot!

-D

14 Days till WPI

Today the team took a well deserved day off. Now that build season has ended, driver selection, practice, autonomous, and secondary changes to the robot to continue improving will continue!

-D

Day 46- Stop Build Day!

Today was quite an eventful day, besides that fact that it was the last day of build, GUS was invited to the City Hall of Meriden to receive a Citation that declares Febuary, 28th. (2,28) to be GUS day! Pretty neat stuff! Everyone got to the shop around 8 this morning and we quickly mounted the turret. After that is was just continuing to wire and system check the robot as well as add a few finishing touches while we still could! We were able to wire and check everything on the robot except for the turret encoder and the second motor on the shooter. But we should be able to bust that out quickly on Thursday at the WPI regional! We also working on the sponsor panels made from dusted Lexan which gives the robot a very distinct look! I'm extremely happy with how this build season turned out. I've learned so much in the past six weeks it's insane! Although it may explain why my head is throbbing(also might be the lack of sleep!). This years robot is elegant, fast, simple, easy to maintain, and in my mind is very easy on the eyes. Here are all of the picture I took today!

GUS at City Hall.

The last picture taken before the robot was bagged. 

Game face. 

Under Glow.

Bagged, Tagged, and ready to play!

I just want to thank all of the students and mentors that put their hearts and souls into this years build. Without the hard work by every student on the team we would never have gotten this far. I'm very very proud to say I'm the captain of a team like this. Now on the competitions!

-Dave Powers

Day 45

Today we wired almost the whole robot, we wanted to be as meticulous as possible with the wiring so it was easy to trace a wire if there is a problem. All we have to do left is mount the turret, the Lexan shields, wire the turret motors, systems check, make the bumpers and we're done! I only have one picture from today, but it's a pretty one!

Stop build day is tomorrow! Wish us luck!

-D

Day 44 and a half!

Here is the video I couldn't put up last night! Pretty nifty!

And here's a video of some testing done this morning on the retroreflective tape tracking code for the turret!

-D

Day 44

Today we spent 13 hours in the shop and boy does it show! We touched up the practice robot and installed some sensors, but we spent most of the day on the competition robot. We assembled all of the subsystems, and mated the two halves around noon, from then on we started paying lot of attention to detail. I assembled and put some vinyl on. Here's a picture!

Looks pretty snazzy if you ask me!

Here's a shot of the competition robot around lunch time.

I love it!

During lunch since I had a little extra time, I figured I'd do a little vinyl for the driver station laptop. 

Here's a shot of the robot at the end of the day!

Awesome!

Our programer also programed a code that automatically senses when the balls are in the elevator and rolls the balls to the bottom of the elevator, sucks up a new balls, then rolls then all up together so there will never be a lag in having to intake! I made the mistake of not bringing home to cord for the video camera, so I can't edit a video of it tonight, but I'll do it tomorrow at lunch and get it up on here! We're looking fairly on schedule, knock on wood!

-D 

Day 43

Today we completed the practice robot! The only things we had to do to complete it was make the lexan deflectors for the shooter and intake. So we were able to run some shooting tests and we're fairly pleased with what we see! The drive train is elegant and smooth, it shifts like butter! The intake is outrageous, it funnels balls like nothing, and the elevator is the perfect speed! I'm extremely extremely excited and proud of this years robot, and this is only the practice bot! We also continued assembly on the competition robot and it's looking more and more gorgeous every time I lay my eyes on it! I also would like to comment on our programmer, Matt, he programmed the entire robot in 5 minutes, in between bites of Chinese food during lunch! He truly is a super talented kid, so awesome job, Matt! The competition robot drivetrain has been assembled, and the elevator is going together fairly smooth! Here are the pictures I took today!

The intake gearbox, simple and effective. 

One of my favorite shots from today!

The competition drivetrain and intake/elevator.

A little added elegance! 

The completed practice robot! 

Picture of the week!

The competition robot halves mated together!

Gorgeous!

Here is a video of the practice robot shooting it's first couple of shots!

-D

Day 42

Today was one of those days were you just get super super excited! We're nearly completed with the practice robot and have all of the parts back from the powder coater and started to assemble the competition robot! After testing the shooter, we're extremely happy we went with the one wheeled shooter. The elevator is nice and fast! And the Intake is just perfect! Tomorrow we should have the competition robot about to the same point as the practice robot is today! I'm very glad we're a little ahead of schedule! Knock on wood! Here are the pictures I took today and a video of the first tests of the practice robot!

Competition frame assembled! 

The rest of the powder coated robot parts!

The intake section of the competition robot riveted together!

I love rivets. 

The practice robot.

Intake rollers installed. 

Competition superstructure assembled!

Competition drivetrain.

The practice robot all wired!

-D

Day 41

Today was an extremely productive day at the GUS shop, as soon as we got to the shop after school we continued machining the spacers and axles for the competition robot and start assembling and working on the electrical on the practice robot, we also got some powder coated parts back today, everything else will be done tomorrow around noon! Right now we're looking like we won't make the Shakedown this weekend, but we will hopefully have the practice robot completed Saturday and about half of the competition robot done! On the practice robot, we got the shooter rollers, shooter motors, the battery box, the power distribution board, the main breaker, the jags, and one set of rollers installed for the elevator! After testing the shooter it looks like we'll have to play with how much we compress the ball, but that wasn't unexpected. Everything's coming together fairly nicely so far, knock on wood though, we've still got a lot left. Here are the pictures I took today!

At the end of the busy day.

Gorgeous!

3/4's of the black coated parts! 

Right before the end of the night. 

I love triangles!

Looks scary!

This truly will be a a season for the record books, not sure what's the fastest any one has ever assembled a FRC robot, but I have a feeling this is fairly close to being one of the fastest. None of this would be possible without the countless hours of work from every student and mentor on GUS, everyone really does an amazing job!

-D

Day 40

Today was an amazing day for the team, we received the final set of sheet metal parts, and I drove all the competition parts up to the powder coater. We also got really far on assembling all the sheet metal on the frame and started assembling the turret! So far we have the drive train, the elevator, and the turret all together. We also hit a little glitch when testing the shifter, the shifter wouldn't advance past neutral to go into high gear, turns out the shafts weren't drilled in far enough, thankful and even fix and it's now shifting like butter! Here are all the pictures from today, they explain a little more than I can!

Laser cut is best cut!

PARTS! YAY! 

Turret gear! 

Beautiful!

The elevator and turret!

The top and bottom, dry fitted.

Riveted together!

I love last years robot, but this years is looking even cooler!

I don't want to jinks it, but we're looking like we might be able to get the black powder coated parts back tomorrow night so we can start assembling that! Everyone on the team is getting more and more excited, so regardless of what happens it's been an amazing season!

-D

Day 39

The rest of the sheet metal from our local sponsor showed up today, and the rest our other sponsor will be in tomorrow at 5! We still plan on getting the robot powder coated, so tomorrow night I will be bringing all of the parts over to the powder coater to final let him do his thing. Today as soon as school ended I drove over to the GUS shop to help Mr.Morrison turn out some more parts, and as soon as Mr.Dutra showed up with the sheet metal we jumped right into building the gear boxes and assembling the drive train! Mechanically it's finished excluding chains on one side. Here are all of the pictures I have from today!

Gear boxes in and wheels being put on!

Close up on the shifting gearbox!

4/6 wheels on!

"Crap Art, you forgot to check to see if the wheels would hit the ground!"

One side complete!

Done for the night! Not bad for a couple hours of work!

From the rear!

Father and son working together!

Gearbox assembly gif! (CLICK ON IT!)

Tomorrow will be building the upper half and mating them! The team is super motivated right now and we need to stay that way if we want to compete at Suffield this weekend! We plan to keep The Awesome Bar a secret until WPI, no need to let the cat out of the bad so early, especially if it is going to work as well as we predict it will! I'll have more tomorrow.

-D