Student Talks
Bret Boucher
Sophomore
This year, I mostly anticipated becoming head of the electrical team, wiring the robot,
learning more about electrical and, seeing the robot work by the end of the 6 week peri-
od. In watching our robot this year, I believe we have a mechanism that can get us to
qualify for Worlds. Although I believe our robot still has some problems that need to be
fixed. For example, on the electrical side of things, the harness for the elevator has a po-
tential to get caught on the side of the elevator. Another problem is we currently have
no mount for the gyro. On a positive note, we have purchased LED strip lights for the
robot to give our robot a new look. On a functional standpoint, these LEDs will flash or
pulse when we have a cargo or hatch or switch into high gear in order to give the drivers
a visual representation of what is happening with the robot. Buzz is currently attempt-
ing to fix these problems on our second bot. On robot #2, we changed our harness to
the elevator so that our wires and pneumatic tubing are on separate sides of the eleva-
tor. This cleared up the issue we had on robot#1. If we can put the modifications from
bot #2 onto bot #1, I would have full confidence in our ability to qualify for Worlds.
Matt Leduke
Freshman
Build season started off slow, due to having a hard time deciding on a de-
sign for the manipulator. After choosing a design, it took a little while be-
fore production began truly. In the last few weeks everything started pick
up speed and, after awhile, the frame was built and being assembled. In
the last few days of build most of the electronics were put on and, by the
last day, we were able to test the robot a little and found that the elevator
came down too hard. It ended up knocking off the pixie camera. As the
drive team practices, the robot will begin to run more smoothly, as cur-
rently many of the difficulties Buzz is experiencing can be fixed with more
practice.
Issue 4: March 7, 2019
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