Started Building the New Small VEX Shooter Robot

     This week in the S-STEM Program I started building my smaller shooter robot that has to be under 15 inches in length, width and height. I got my parts in this week that I ordered and started building the main chassis or the main frame of the robot. I got the 4 omnidirectional wheels on the chassis that make the robot able to move forwards and backwards and side to side. I also started on the part of the robot that looks like the path where the balls will be going into. This path I built will guide the balls up by a chain and several other parts to be shot out by one or two spinning wheels at the top. I still have a lot to finish this robot with the competition around the corner in a little over two weeks. I'm looking forward to getting my robot moving and shooting the balls in the goals. I'll keep you guys updated next week. Here's a couple of pictures of how the robot is looking so far.

First Week back at S-STEM Program Spring 2016, Robotics Project

   This was my first week back at the S-STEM program and it feels good to be back and meet some new people and scholars, along with the people I knew from my previous internship. My project is going to be based around VEX robotics which are robots that are built from scratch using  materials (wheels, structural beams, motors, wires, gears, etc.) and are made to do a task or to compete against other robots. In my case there is a VEX competition upcoming in March 5th called Nothing but Net at ASU which is a competition where robots must pick up plastic balls and shoot them at goals and have to beat the other team's score. This semester I have to build two small robots with dimensions no bigger than 15x15x15 inches. My first robot that I've started already will be designed like a motorcycle and it's job is to ultimately be small enough to fit and drive up inside the larger robots pictured above to the right. The point of this robot is to get us 25-50 extra points to our score as long as it's 4-12 inches off the ground. The second small robot is going to be a small shooter robot based off the design below that will hopefully be able to score on the higher goals. My parts are ordered for my second robot and I should be able to start building next week. Wish me luck!