Changes Made to the Robot During Summer 2016

Coming back to STEM means continuing my build on my robot that will be competing with a couple others from our club this November 5th at a competition at Embry-Riddle. Until the start of the new STEM semester there was a fellow intern working on my robot that had joined the robotics club recently his name is Brian. He made some very nice changes to the robot one of the major ones by changing out the wheels to some very larger ones making the robot able to strafe (the ability to make the robot move side to side without moving up or down). This new addition to the robot will help us very much in the competition by saving us time. Instead of having to adjust the robot to knock over the stars on the wall in the center of the field, we can simply move the robot horizontally to be in the same distance away every time making the robot knock down these stars faster than our opponent giving us the upper hand in the beginning of the competition. I was working with the robot this past week and it seems the front two wheels are powered by a stronger motor/ high speed motor making the strafing uneven. This was a simple fix by making all the motors high speed making it a nice straight horizontal move. Brian is working on the second part of the competition which is being able to pick up and launch the stars over the bar which is a very difficult task but he will make it work. Below is how our wheels are set up to make the robot able to strafe. We make each wheel on both sides go opposite directions.