Meeting Log 3/3

By Jai, Anuhya, Aarav, Alex, Tanvi, Georgia, Gabriel, Sol, Trey, Krish, Arun, Vance, and Leo

Task: Plan and strategize for the Road to State

Finally back from a much-needed break after regionals, the team got back together for a more strategy-focused meeting, and we did some preliminary work on code, build, and portfolio.

Planning:

To help us use our time efficiently, we focused the first couple hours of the meeting on planning. We created a spreadsheet with tasks, task descriptions, and deadlines. Learning from our experience at regionals, we decided to have a build freeze two weeks from the state tournament to make sure that our coders have enough time to fully integrate our new subsystems. With Spring Break coming up, we created a Doodle to help us find the best times to meet.

Code:

The main code task for today was creating collision detection for the UnderArm and the main Crane. This would add another layer of safety to make sure that our robot doesn't hit itself while it's controlled by Inverse Kinematics. We initially started by creating a line of no pass halfway between the main chassis and the chariot. We then realized that we needed more maneuverability with the UnderArm, so we created a box of no pass instead. We did this by checking if the field coordinates at the end of the UnderArm were outside the coordinates of a virtual box that we drew around the UnderArm. We also planned for the rest of the code that needs to get done before state.

Connect and Outreach:

For Connect and Outreach, we started with drafting grant applications. We need more funding to keep building the robot and attending the tournaments, and this was our first step toward acquiring some. After this, we reached out to some companies that we had connections with as a team. We talked to some people that were close with our team members so that we could get to them before state. We also emailed and contacted some newer companies with a connection to STEM.

Build:

On the build side of things, we reattached the UnderArm. We also tested new gear ratio motor speeds to find the most efficient one for our robot. We made more progress on the wiring harness for the crane and we created a couple of new custom pieces to help implement it. We also came up with a possible new solution to stagger the movement of each stage of our slide to improve predictability.

Next Steps:

Now that we have a clear plan and we've gotten some good work done already, it's just a matter of executing and polishing on the road to state.