The Need for Speed on Robotics

      This week in STEM I've been working on making my robot faster. I've made my motors high speed by switching out the gears inside them. I'm having trouble scoring enough points during my one minute period that will be against a fellow STEM intern Lily. I have not been able to score on the high goal consistently and I struggle driving the robot and picking up the balls. The robot drives more towards one side when driving straight which makes driving take more time than it should and with only a minute to score as many points I need all the time I can get. This can be due to having different type of motors on each side or it can be the programming that was already on it. This project will not use any programming since the robots have to be controlled manually for the test. I have changed the flappers that pick up the balls to smaller ones hoping they don't cause as much friction on the ball when I shoot them out. I'll be working more on my robot this week and the competition is next week. Also everyone who got accepted to the Estrella Community College Student Conference good job and good luck! Here's a picture of the high speed gears that go in the motors and a picture of the bottom of my robot where these motors are located.

                      

Dual Motors for the Launcher

This week in STEM I'm continuing on working on my small 15 x 15 x 15 robot and making changes on it so that it can score more points. My small robot is going to be competing against Lily's much larger robot in test that will involve, speed, weight, cost, and ability to score by shooting balls into goals while being  controlled manually. I might have an upper hand in weight and possibly speed but outscoring a bigger robot might be a challenge since she will be able to score on the high goals of the field easier. To try and be able to score more high goals with ease I've added another motor to increase the speed of the rotation of the launcher wheels. Hopefully this can increase my chances of winning in the scoring round of the competition. Good luck Lily but I'm going to win! Here's some pictures of the motors that spin the wheels and a video of how fast the wheels spin now. Also there's a picture of the field we compete in to score goals. 

Nothing But Net Vex Competition at ASU

This week at the STEM internship we competed at the VEX nothing but net competition which was held at the ASU Tempe campus. There were a lot more people there than I expected even though most of them were affiliated with the middle and high school competition than ours. Either way it's nice to see that robotics is something that is growing in the interest of the youth. All the robots have to pass an inspection before they even are able to practice on the field and it turns out that my robot was about an inch too wide of the 15x15x15 requirement for a small robot. I had to move the entire gear portion of the robot over so it could fit the requirement which took some time. When it finally passed the inspection I started having some battery problems with the robot turning off on the field. With my robot not able to compete Lucas and Ainsley used their robots to compete in the beginning and they did great. Once the eliminating rounds started I was helping Ainsley load the balls into the robot and I drove Lily's small robot which had the main purpose of being picked up by the big robot. It was difficult driving her robot and getting it in position but I was able to get it there a couple of times. We ended up losing in the semifinals but against a very tough team from Colorado. The competition was a lot of fun even though my robot didn't compete I definitely want to go again and try and win first. Here's a video of me trying to score on the high goal with my robot but I wasn't able to.

VEX Robotics Competition This Weekend!

This week in my STEM internship I've been able to put my robot together with help from Josh and make it able to move, pick up a ball and actually shoot the ball. Although the shot isn't what we want yet that's where I'm at as of now on the robot. It's difficult to modify a robot when you're restricted to only 15 inches in length, width and height. I need to get the right angle, power and distance for the perfect shot to make the goals and score some points for our team. The VEX competition is this Saturday at the ASU Tempe campus and I'm really looking forward to it since it's going to be my first time at any type of VEX competition. I hope we do well and bring home 1st place, also anyone who is interested in going to support the PC team the event is free as well as parking. You should contact Amanda, Josh, or Matt for the details. Here are some pictures of how my robot looks like, it still needs some final touches before Saturday.

 Front View

 Side View

Rear View