Robot Progress

The drive train for Odin had been put back together and fine tuned very well. Unfortunetly we bought new bearing. We started to take Odin apart and replace all the bearings. We only got half way so we are going to finsh on Sunday. Since Ares was already taken apart and cleaned, we waited until the new bearing came in to put Ares back together. The new bearings were worth it. After taken out the old bearing in Ares, we found that some of the bearing we were bad. This could explain why the motors in Ares were overheating. With the new bearings we started to put Ares. Although there were some difficulties with Ares drive train. One of the set screw in the axels mount was stripped so we had to mill out and modified the threads for a large set screw. Also one of the sprockets had a defect which had to be fixed with the mill. More of the draw sliders for Achilles were mounted. All that is left now is to modify the acutally draw that holds the laptop. More work was also done on Thor. We cut another mount for the other motor and holes were drilled in the frame and in some L brackets to prepare the mounting of the motors. More work was also done to the motor controllers, we finalized a design for the new modular motor controllers. The new connectors leave them some what bulky but we are working on a solution. The new modular motor controllers are going to be really nice. This will allow us to switch motor controllers in out of the robots very fast. There was also work done in regards to putting internet in the shop. Layouts of the shop was made so that our requisition can properly show where we want the internet jack. The electronics table was cleaned but will be finsihed on Sunday and a new wire rack was mounted to the end of the table.

Robot Progress

Ares was completely disassembled today. Every part was removed and maintenance was done. A lot of rust had built up on the drive train. All of the rust was cleaned off. We will be putting Ares back together starting to morrow. All of the wire and electronics have also been removed. With all of the robots being tuned-up, all of the motor controllers were gathered. We have started modifying them to be modular. This way we can switch them in and out very easily. The drive train on Oden was reassembled. Some chains were too loose so that had to be tightened. The draw mounts for Achilles were finished. Soon all of the draws will be mounted in Achilles. We also tested the new E-stop circuit. Some problems existed so we have to play with it some more. Since the electronics tables has been a mess, we have started to reorganize and clean it. A new rack is being made to hold spools of wire.

Software Notes

The software team members studied more Orca code.
We looked at orca2/src/interfaces/slice/orca/laserscanner2d.ice and
its implementation: orca2/src/libs/orcaifaceimpl/laserscanner2dImpl.h
and orca2/src/libs/orcaifaceimpl/laserscanner2dImpl.cpp

Meeting Notes

Today we got all the guys together, and brainstormed ideas for Jerry Sanders. We came up with a lot of ideas for both frisby and hula hoop. Mihai has the drawings and notes in detail for all of the mechanisms. Rayna worked on Thor. The front of the shop was mostly cleaned up, more cleaning up needs to be done.

Software Notes

At the CS meeting, we continued to learn Orca. We run a Player/Stage tutorial and Charles fixed his system.

Harper High School Demonstration

For the high school event, we will be driving Ares, Thor and Loki. Loki will again be driven by Mihai Rosu, Dalia Garcia will drive Ares, and Steve Kearney will drive Thor. Thor and Loki were worked on to make the operational for the event and the batteries are being charged.

Jerry Sanders Development

The new bufferboards were made and shown to be operational. Nick Novak made the printed circuit boards and Anup Kotadia and Rafal Radulski soldered the components together. The new boards look very nice and appear to be easier to maintain than the previous ones.

The Fernando Thing

We are planning to again do the "Fernando Thing" and we are planning to have three activities, one each in the fields of civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering. The civil engineering portion will remain largely unchanged, but more feasible alternatives for electrical and mechanical engineering must be found.

Jerry Sanders Robot Development

We will try to give life to Scarab once again. The current plan is to enter Ares, Thor, Odin, and Scarab for sure and Loki as a fifth contestant if possible. We are planning to obtain three or four new receivers to replace aging equiptment. The gaol with Scarab is to be able to jump off of platforms unharmed to reduce travel time and smash unsuspecting robots underneath. This requires an intricate suspension system, which the mechanical engineers are already working on. We are also going to get some new motors and other power electronic parts for use on the robots. Furthermore, the buffer boards will be redesigned to improve reliability and offer simpler repairs and several backup boards will be made. We are also seeing if it is possible to change the battery configuration inside the robots as two 26 Ah batteries have a better power to weight ratio then four smaller batteries without significant disadvantages.

IGVC Development

Much more still has to be done for the Achilles to make it ready for next years competition. Hopefully much of that can be done before the Jerry Sanders competition details come out so that our readiness will be better in the spring. Due to personnel losses after the IGVC, the need to recruit is ever greater and for the IGVC software, at least two contentious programmers are needed. For the design competition, we need to make our robot stand out from all others and ideas on how to do so were discussed. Finally new shelves are being designed and the mechanical engineers are already on the task.

IGVC Development

At this meeting, much was accomplished. Rafal and Anup Kotadia determined how the laptops are supposed to be mounted and Sean Ryan then made the Ethernet cables to hook up the laptops to the network switch. The power supply for the network switch was tested and shown to be effective at powering the network switch while running the network. The first test of the robot will be on Thursday, May 24, 2007 and should be a good showing. In addition, Nick Novak and Mihai Rosu worked on the shelving for the robot's laptops.

IGVC Development

Sean Ryan and Anup Kotadia built and tested the power supply for the network switch and Firewire hub and it works great. Thomas Burdick made a circuit which controls the iris of the new lenses. Dan Belarmino and Jeff Kantarek worked on microcontroller stuff and Mihai Rosu and Leeder Hua worked on mounting the cameras to the chassis.

IGVC Development

At this meeting, the IGVC report was finalized and written. Each section was thoroughly inspected and proofread and the different components were made to flow together. Steven Mockus and Christopher Kaczor then finalized the paper and readiesd it for submission. Sean Ryan and Steven Mockus also made some images which will improve the style of the report. Furthermore, a number of benchmark tests were performed on Ares for the IGVC report since Ares has the same drivetrain as the IGVC robot.