TigerTronics Blog

There was a meeting on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 to continue working on our new testbed.  We had an interesting mix of TigerTronics  mix of some current members, a few mentors, and a few 8th graders who will be joining Tigertronics next year present.  Unfortunately, what was discovered is that part of the transmission assembly we will be using never got ordered.  Fortunately, we have the money to order them and will be doing so, so hopefully it will not be too long long until we can begin building the transmissions.

We will be using slightly modified “Nothing but DeWalts” transmissions, which are themselves modified DeWalt XRP drill transmissions.  “Nothing but DeWalts,”an excellent step-by-step guide to making the transmissions, was written Josehp Pavliga of team 647 and Joseph Johnson of team 47.  TigerTronics has used these transmissions before (on Apollo) was was very pleased with them, despite finding it somewhat difficult to interface them with the wheels we used on that robot (once that problem was solved, however, we found the transmissions to be spectacular: tough, light weight, and versatile).  For our testbed, however, we have decided to modify a part of the “Nothing but DeWalts” transmission to allow for easier mounting of the transmission on robots and avoid needing to modify the motor that drives the transmission.  Details of the modification will be posted once the modified part has been made and tested.

On a completely different note, TigerTronics website has also undergone some recent improvements, mostly related to the blog.  The most noticeable difference?  Well, you may have noticed in the past that parts of the blog, such where it displayed number of comments on articles or instructions to post comments, was not in English.  This was because the blog’s look was originally based on the theme “Simpla Siyah TR 1.01B” by Emre Guler, which was not in English, although an excellent theme nonetheless.  Although the theme has been heavily modified by TigerTronics’ webmaster to fit in with the rest of TigerTroncis’ website (and doesn’t resemble “Simpla Siyah” too much anymore), it still retained many of the non-English words of the original theme until now.  As of today, almost all the non-English in the blog has been replaced by English.  Some additional explanations about commenting were also added, to avoid any confusion as to why comments might not show up.  You’ll see them if you decide to post a comment to any blog article.  Updating the theme of TigerTronics’ blog (or more, using “Simpla Siyah” as a base to create a new theme) has been a great learning experience, but since it was a learning experience their may still be some lingering problems.  If you find any (such as the blog not working, non-English in parts of it, or something else), please be sure to alert TigerTronics webmaster.

At long last, I’ve gotten all the photos taken at the 2009 Chesapeake Regional competition up. This was TigerTronics’ second regional for 2009. This set of photos has slightly new layout… let the webmaster know if you have any problems with it or any comments.

Chesapeake Regional photos:
http://www.team2053.org/images/2009/ChesapeakeRegional/
All photos from 2009:
http://www.team2053.org/images/2009/

Enjoy!

I’ve been working hard to put more about Tritos, our robot for this year, up.  So far, information about the 2009 FIRST game, and an “Interactive Tour” of Tritos (to be improved/expanded eventually, I hope, depending on feedback and time) are up.

Tritos homepage:  http://www.team2053.org/Tritos/

Interactive Tour: http://www.team2053.org/Tritos/tour/

And of course pictures and videos (more added all the time, as long as I keep getting more), are in their usual places.

In other news, the software people on TigerTronics have pretty much decided we won’t be using encoders with Tritos.  We’ve just had too many problems with them, and we feel rate-limiting and speed-capping will be enough to make up for the loss of what the encoders could provide.  Also going into this decision is the fact that there are still software issues with the cRIO regarding encoders, so it’s not always possible to even get an accurate count from them.

Dan said the robot drives suprisingly well, after getting use to it.  It seems that if the driver can compensate for the surface without help of encoders, and the fact that there are bugs with the encoders, there isn’t much point in fiddling with them.

We did keep the electronics back (we didn’t ship them).  The plan is to do a little more software development/debugging (since LabVIEW allows more simulation than was possible in past years) before going to competition.  But, as of now, evern if we don’t, the software is usable.

The first of the 2009 pictures are up on our website. More should follow in the next few days.

To see them right now, go to the “Photos and Media” menu at the top of our home page, or jump right to http://www.team2053.org/images/2009/index.html.

In other news, most of our design setbacks have been overcome, and TigerTronics is busy implementing the latest round of minor changes and improvements into our robot. Our biggest obstacle at the moment is a shortage of square nuts for 20mm T-slot, but compared to other problems our robot’s encountered, this is minor. Things are looking bright.