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FIRST Robotics Competition Team 238
Build Season Newsletter
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Team 238 has been busy with various projects. We have done a bit of fundraising including our “The Friendly Toast” dine-in night, chocolate bar fundraiser and our prize/cash calendar raffle. Team 238 has continued with prototyping, robot CAD, begun manufacturing and plan to attend Week Zero. We thank our sponsors and supporters because without them, this season would not be possible.
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Prototyping single wheel shooter:
There was a lot of trial and error with the prototyping of the single wheel shooter. We finally found a design that works very well and we have started the early stages of CAD-ing it.
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Prototyping intake w/ mecanum wheels:
We are currently working with using different wheel types to test how each one affects the ball differently. As of right now, we are still playing around with what combination of wheels we will use and where they go orderwise; however, we are making improvements.
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CAD
We completed the drivetrain frame and sent out the parts for machining, and printed out spacers for the axles. The shooter has been mostly completed, and we’ve begun designing the turret. A rough layout sketch was made with what geometry we know, and a tentative version of the bumpers were made, with the option of making a cutout for the intake. Prototyping the intake has been slow going, which restricts us in terms of what geometry we have to work with, so currently only the drivetrain has been completed, with the shooter on the way. Our goal is to have the entire robot in OnShape so it can be built by the end of week 4, however we have been discussing alternative timelines due to the delays.
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Software
Subsystem layout
We worked on getting important information about each of the subsystems of the robot, such as the drivetrain or vision, laid out on the shuffleboard in an organized manner.
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Autonomous
We worked on the autonomous downloader, including cleaning up the code, fixing multiple bugs, and making it able to work with the code for this year. We also started work on Pathweaver, which allows us to generate smooth curved paths for the robot to drive during autonomous. We’ve also fine-tuned readings and measurements based on our vision camera.
General Maintenance
The equipment for our robot has all been updated to the most recent firmware versions.
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Two Face Repairs
We are working on our 2017 robot for a fundraiser that is happening Thursday January 30th at McIntyre Ski Area. We are planning to share in profit of sold tubing tickets and selling s’mores supplies. For Two Face the repairs that were needed were just to bolt down the robot’s shooter and then to have a tune up by our software team to ensure it’s demo-ready.
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Community Division
This week the community division worked on our Chairman’s submission. We want to make sure that we meet our deadline on both the executive summaries and the essay. We just need to go through the executive summaries one last time and update. We are planning to send them out to some teachers and parents that can read through them and give us feedback. We are hoping to have both the executive summaries and the essay done two days before it is due.
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Team Builder - Macarena
For the past few weeks, we have been practicing the popular dances played at FIRST competitions to incorporate more team spirit. The first week we learned the Macarena and ended up doing well on it. Week Two we learned the Cotton-Eyed Joe and also played the Macarena to see if everyone remembered it. The whole team was able to get the dances down fast and we went to it with some music.
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Team Builder - Cha Cha Slide
During Week Three, the whole team did the Cha Cha Slide which is another song that FIRST plays at their competitions. The whole team just had to follow the words and make sure that they didn’t interfere with each other. At the end, we played the other two songs that they had learned previously. We wanted to see if they remembered how to do them and were prepared if they were to be played at competitions.
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Sponsor Spotlight
Protolabs has been sponsoring the Crusaders since 2017. Protolabs is a company based in Nashua, NH with separate sheet metal, CNC machining, and wire cable divisions based around fast turnarounds on prototype and production parts. Their state of the art machining centers, laser cutters, and presses along with their custom built software such as their Solidworks add on that will give instant pricing on parts allows the company to get finished parts to customers with incredible speed.
Protolabs has supported the team for over three years with equipment and services to help us create robot parts. Their sheet metal division is powder coating all of our finished parts for the competition robot using their in house paint facility and powder coating oven. When we were in a bind getting the base plate for the competition robot cut out, the machining division stepped up and cut it on their waterjet for us the next day.
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January, 30th:
McIntyre Tubing Fundraiser
February, 15th:
Week 0
March, 13th - 15th:
North Shore District Event
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March, 27th- 29th:
Southern NH District Event
April, 8th - 11th:
New England District Championship
April, 27th - May, 3rd:
World Championship
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