The entry/exit deadline was Tuesday, and the outcome...the short: Our professors told us (the ME 72 class) that we need to get in the shop and keep developing our designs. With the competition less than 2 months away, it would not be ridiculous for us to be spending 25 hours in the shop per week (so much for being a "9 unit class").
The long...
Over the weekend I goofed off a lot. But when I actually sat down to do work, I worked on ME 72. I painted 1 particle board with the really really smelly white paint (to make it waterproof) and miraculously managed to not get any of the paint on my clothing! I got it all over my hands and everywhere else, but my clothes remained unsplotched. Sunday morning I spent fixing Hungry and Hateful. I spent quite a long time ripping long strips of Duct tape and then folding it in half and winding it around the wheels of Hateful, to act as a makeshift tire! It was really funny, but in the end it worked surprisingly well. As you all know, Monday was MLK day and therefore an institute holiday, so there was no class. I still woke up relatively early to get some work done, and then one of the graduate students in our house cooked Will, Bester (my friend down the hall), and me breakfast. After eating tons of delicious eggs and french toast loaded with powdered sugar, we headed out to Millikan Pond to test the robots.
Once there we decided to abandon the idea of pushing Hungry into the pond with Hateful, and decided to create makeshift paddles out of cardboard to attach to the wheels with...you guessed it...Duct tape! Will ran back to her room to grab a cardboard box that we could cut up, and then we created our "paddles." They were not the best design or materials, but they made it possible for Hateful to cross the pond, which is all we needed. We decided to meet in the shop Tuesday morning at 8am to make paddles out of sheet metal (still attached with duct tape) just because the cardboard was soggy when wet, and very flimsy.
Tuesday morning, my alarm went off. I woke up, turned it off, and then went back to sleep. At 8am Will called me to see if I was going down to the shop. She wanted to let me know that she had to take her physics quiz and was going to be late. So, I rolled out of bed and went to the ME Shop. Everyone was down there. Usually when I go anywhere on Caltech's campus anytime before 10 am, it is dead. Students typically sleep in until their first class, and many try to get the latest morning classes (if any at all), which occur at either 10 or 11. However, this morning, the shop was filled with students rushing around machining last minute parts, making quick changes for the big trial at 1. By the time Will arrived, I was done making and attaching the paddles to the wheels, and so we headed up to test before our 10:30am class.
Testing went relatively well. The only problem was that the back end was so heavy it was beginning to sink. So, Will ran into the shop, grabbed some foam, and we created a makeshift back fin to add lift. It worked, and we were almost sure that we would be able to not only cross the pond, but make it back out on the ramp for the win! Extra credit was awarded to the teams who could get out of the pond via the ramp, and after 2 weeks of hammering (or maybe I should say milling) away in the Machine Shop, we were not only going to be able to reach the deadline, but even get extra credit. It was exciting, but also nerve wracking. Then, we started to hear beeping...OH NO! Our controller was running super low on batteries. We ran down to the shop to charge it before the trial, and then headed to class.
We went to class, and then I had a lunch meeting. Towards the end of the meeting I kept looking at my watch. It was running dangerously long. Luckily, it ended only a few minutes after 1, and so I ran over to Millikan Pond. As I approached the group, I noticed that I did not see WIll anywhere. I started to panic when the professors gathered us to give announcements and explain how the test was going to run and Will (and therefore our robot) was still nowhere to be found. As usual, I was stressing over nothing. Will showed up a few minutes later and we connected our robot, closed the open connections with duct tape, and sat back to watch the teams before us.
Now, even though I was super stressed, and super tired, I still managed to remember to bring my camera to the trial, so that I could take pictures to put up on this blog. However, as I took my camera out of my bag, I saw that it was not charged! Noooooo. But, thanks to the technology of today, I took out my cell phone instead and took pictures. So, I have all of these nice picture of the other teams' robots crossing the pond. But...they are on my phone. And seeing as it is 8am, there is no one awake who can help me deal with the problem of moving the pictures from my phone to my computer. In the past I could just email them to myself from my phone, but for some reason I am epic failing at that...I know...I know. It seems really noob (novice, for those of you who don't know that word) of me to not be able to accomplish this simple task...but it is early, I'm tired, and I have lots of other things to do within the next 2 hours. So, as soon as I get the pictures, I will post them.
Anyway, it was really entertaining to watch the other teams. Some got stuck on the way into the pond. Some were nearly perfect, while others brute forced their way in and across. A few teams managed to make it up the ramp and out of the pond. We decided that since Will controlled Hungry during the last deadline, I should control Hateful during this one. We managed to make it across the pond, up to the ramp, and then we got stuck on the ramp. The makeshift paddle wheels did not create enough force or torque to get Hateful up the ramp. So, no extra credit for us. But it was still quite an accomplishment for Robotic Hamster. We made an entirely new robot within 2 weeks, while most other teams simply used the 1 robot they have been working on from last term. Two of the funniest occurrences during the trial: the bee who thought it would make for a wild ride to sit on the edge of one of the robots as it dived head first into the pond... for the bee activists out there, Mr. bee was not harmed in anyway. We saw him flying around shortly after. The second thing, was one of robots made it up onto the ramp but got stuck towards the top. So, the person controlling it basically attempted to brute force it up the ramp by putting both wheels on full throttle, while the other team member was standing at the edge of the ramp, bent over and clapping cheering the robot on... "come on...you can do it...come on boy!" It was very funny. I think they were able to get the extra credit, if not from that trial, at least from the 2nd trial.
We took the rest of the day off from machining, and then yesterday was the career fair, and so we only went down to the shop for about an hour to plan things out. So, today and tomorrow will be big machining days as we plan for the next deadline, 2 weeks from now! Ahhhhh! Though it doesn't seem like it now, we can do it!
