At today's robotics meeting, we had a bunch of trouble! Engineers worked on an extension to the front of the robot, and it works reasonably well; the trouble was in the driving.
First, the robot wasn't driving straight - its gears were slightly misaligned. That was easy enough to fix, but it is still moving mysteriously slowly. When we tried raising the lift, the entire thing was rattling constantly and it ejected some nuts and washers from the guts of the lift. After we repaired that, the fishing line used to operate the lift snapped. There was also a generous output of white smoke from the motor.
Everything seems to be working to some extent, but we have discovered that our robot is built of questionable quality. The lift is the greatest offender in that regard; it keeps slipping down and getting jammed. After the builders finish installing their metal flap on the front (that falls down after the robot moves, preventing balls from getting stuck under the robot), we should have fewer issues with the lift.
The engineers also added a small sheet of metal to the ball hopper and lift assembly to prevent the hopper from rotating and getting stuck above the ball conduit.
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