10/7/23 Meeting Log

By Aarav, Anuhya, Tanvi, Sol, Vance, and Jai

Assemble and Test our Pixel Intake System

Today, Iron Reign focused on turning our ideas and designs on CAD into real-life prototypes in preparation for our first scrimmage on October 28th. We began assembling our beater-bar intake system that relies on a custom ninja-flex belt with protrusions that bring in pixels from the ground and from the stack. The ninjaflex belts on the prototype are controlled by a motor and chain system, but when further refined, we intend to replace them with belts.

The subsystem is shaped like a triangle, with one large ninjaflex belt in the center and two secondary belts that feed into the main belt. The triangle shape allows for a wider range of intake locations for the pixel and more flexibility for our game strategy when intaking.

The entire beater system is intended to be placed on an intake tray to hold the pixels as they slide in. Our current prototype has a cardboard version, but we intend to manufacture a carbon fiber version for further iterations. Our goal is to use this new intake system with a redesigned version of the Scoopagon with a transfer system.

Next, we continued prototyping and designing multiple drone launching mechanisms, including a trebuchet-like mechanism and a slingshot release by a servo. We plan to test both these ideas and continue to design and test throughout the season to develop the mechanism that is the most accurate and consistent.

Next Steps:

We will finish assembling and testing the subsystem for the beater-bar intake system, then begin redesigning the Scoopagon to hold 2 pixels and attaching the intake to our prototype Robot in 2 Days chassis. Additionally, continuing to design the chassis and drone mechanism is required to be able to field a complete robot by the scrimmage. On the code side, we need to start working on creating pathways and sensing for auton and integrating the new subsystems into the Robot in 2 Days code. A completed prototype of the robot also allows us to engage with local mentors in the coming months to get feedback on our design.