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January 17, 2025 Electronics and Programming Teams Create a Test Chassis By Eleanor LeeSince early into pre-season, Electronics has been hard at work after discovering an old, unused test swerve chassis in the corner that didn’t function. It was decided that they would fix the old chassis so that the new students could have some hands-on experience in building the robot. After being fixed, it should be able to be used for prototyping and robot-against-robot practice. However, they realized there was more fixing needed than they had predetermined.They found out that the swerve modules were broken and were completely unusable, so they had to take new ones from a previous robot, TALOS. They also needed a new frame and currently have concerns regarding the lifespan of the wooden plate that is on the bottom of the chassis. Thankfully there were a fair amount of salvageable parts from the old one. They were able to reuse most of the electrical from the original, RoboRio, and motors alongside the recycled wheels from TALOS.As for what’s next, they are getting the radio set up to control and start using the chassis. Electronics is just about done, so now all they need to do is work with programming to get the chassis moving!  Programming students test out the test chassis Mechanics Subteam Interview! By Ethan Brixius As Spartronics strives further into build season, I wanted to take the time to get to know the Mechanics subteam better before they became busy with robot construction. Below is my interview with Mechanics Captain Audrey Benson. [Ethan] What are some key achievements of mechanics? [Audrey] So far we’re teaching a lot of underclassmen, some of the more complicated machines. Our upperclassmen are getting more confident with the machines that we didn’t use much last year.[Ethan] That’s good. What are the functions of mechanics? [Audrey] We build the bones of the robot. We build the things that other people can build on, and if mechanics weren’t here, we would be missing the robot because you would have just have wires all connected, but they wouldn’t be attached to anything. [Ethan] Okay. What’s the most difficult challenge mechanics is solved? [Audrey] We are currently cleaning the water jet because it keeps breaking and so it’s kind of a mess but we’re working on that. [Ethan] How do you approach building parts that need to withstand high stress during matches? [Audrey] Have a lot of replacement parts. [Ethan] Can you share a time when something didn’t work? And how you fixed it? [Audrey] Throughout all of Girls Gen, the radios were a problem and multiple times. It was the fact that we either didn’t switch the radios, or we did switch the radios and then it wouldn’t connect to the field and nobody knew what was going on. [Ethan] What is your favorite tool to use and why? [Audrey] Like the mill because it’s really exact and you can do a bunch of different things with it. You don’t have to just throw or whatever that’s good. [Ethan] If you could build any machine or Gadget outside robotics, what would it be? [Audrey] I like building stuff with wood so I’d probably make a couple of cutting boards or panel boxes or stuff like that. Thanks so much, Audrey, that was very informative! Subteam Updates Mechanics and Design: Mechanics finished assembling the practice field! This is great to have so we can start practicing robot skills as soon as the robot is functional. Design continued prototyping designs for our new robot. They also continued building a master robot design sketch   Programming: Programming students worked on learning about vision systems, and flashing (resetting) LimeLights. They also learned about programming code for the autonomous period of the match where the robot moves on its own.  Programming students dividing into groups to work on specific subsystemsElectronics:Electronics worked on a Pneumatics Test Bed, Corner Organization and helped build Programming’s test chassis.  Business + Marketing:Marketing worked on our impact award submission as well as our Woodie Flowers award submission where we wrote about a special mentor who has helped the team during the season.We went over our sponsors and donations. If you want to sponsor or donate to the team, you can learn how to do so here, and if you’d like to become a mentor in any of the above sub-teams, please reach out to Coach Austin Smith (afsmith@bisd303.org).As usual, we started this newsletter and took photos, asked interview questions, and recorded video.  |
Spartronics
Spartronics