Sacramento Regional

Nerds of the North have returned from Sacramento, with a lot of members in the group burnt from the sun. We had a ton of fun at the regional, and even got the opportunity to play Ultimate Frisbee with some of the other teams. Congratulations to all of the award winners, and of course the winner of the Sacramento regional! We learned a fountain of new knowledge from other teams and mentors, and had a huge welcoming from coming up from Alaska :)

 

The wait until sacramento

Just under a month before heading down to Sacramento, CA we have some more building to do! Yes, we plan on making a replica robot so we can have more shooting and driving practice before the competition. Building time is estimated to take about a week, since we already have a blueprint of how we want our robot to function. The idea is simplistic, but very crucial that we learn to use the bot to extent, because there is absolutely no room for errors. We did happen to meet our goal although, of being able to completely finish everything on the robot minutes before 12:00 on Tuesday.

48 Hours Remain

It’s the final countdown! Our whole robot is built, and we are now on the stage of debugging our program! We have tested a few shots, which are very accurate. Our robot also moves very nicely, from the surprisingly working 3 wheel omni drive. Our main problem is a loading problem, as we don’t quite have the capacity to put a full loader in it, so we're thinking innovatively to solve this problem. Good luck, and we’ll see you all at the competition!

Build day 2/17/13

Today, we have accomplished the following:

  • Loading system
  • Angular lifting system
  • Mounting the robot’s electronics


Things that we are currently working on are:

  • Perfecting the movement programing
  • Getting our t-shirt and button designs in
  • Climbing system
  • Learning to drive the robot


P.S Thank you Victor for bringing in the delicious Thai food!

Build day 2/16/13

Ah! As the deadline approaches for the build season, things are starting to work out pretty well for us. We spent the day on the loading system, and we are almost completed with the adjustment process of the launching mechanism. We encountered a few problems with the frisbees coming in at a straight angle, but fixed it by adding a rubber flap to the loading system, so the frisbees load how they are intended. We also found out that the launcher fits in nice and snug, and made sure to put 45 degree angle braces for extra rigidity.