Robotics - Down to the Wire

Similar to what I hear happened last year, we all stayed considerably longer than expected to finish the robot the night before a competition. This year, there were two factors that made it easier: we were all there and tomorrow's event isn't the last one. Tonight, the following things happened:

• We tried to fix the autonomous program. It never worked particularly well, but it was being especially temperamental tonight. I ended up creating a simplified program that will score fewer points, but is hugely more reliable.
• We actually got a flag raiser. It does its job, but requires both the driver and operations controller to be very precise about the approach. Despite its motor having emitted smoke for a while, there doesn't seem to be a problem.
• The Samantha module made things difficult. I had to flash that thing not once, not twice, but three separate times during the meeting to keep the Wi-Fi link alive. Fortunately, at the actual competition, the inspectors will flash the module to their own network.
• The height was a problem. Apparently, in our rush to make stuff work, we failed to notice that the robot was about a half-inch above the limit. To remedy this, a cam was put together by drilling holes through a place off to the side of the center of a wheel and attached to a motor. It was amazingly useful... until slamming into the guards destroyed the gear box. Our tests, however, demonstrated that we can still get blocks into the baskets.

It's not working as well as we had hoped, but it is working! After this qualifier, we will have a few months to refine our design and hopefully do a lot better the next time!