Caltech

And the trophy goes to...

Newt N' Salamander!  But congratulations to everyone who participated.  It was epic and everyone fought the good fight.  I brought my actual camera this time, and so I have a lot of pictures with a lot of descriptions, but I will go through a quick recap of contest day, followed by a few last words, as this will be my final blog entry.

I was extremely nervous from 10am up until about 1:30pm, which was about when we were eliminated.  The night before I had several nightmares regarding the competition, and I did not sleep very well.  I dreamt Saturday night that Will decided to completely revamp our robots and I didn't find out until contest day.  The robots were made completely out of poster board and were not even small enough to fit in the 60x60x60 box!  The night before the competition I dreamt something that involved a shark in Millikan pond and it was trying to eat me...it was horrible.

Since I didn't sleep well, I ended up waking up later than usual.  I forgot to set my cell phone alarm on ring, and so it was still on vibrate.  Luckily I woke up around 10am and made it down to the shop by 10:45.  There was not much to do, except tell Jimmy (our TA) the screw count of our robots (we could not exceed 60 screws) and then wait for Will.  Will had an interview that morning for a scholarship to go to Japan, and so I knew she would not be down for a while. I was very nervous, but the atmosphere in the shop was awesome.  Epic music was playing in the background, and everyone in the shop was completely chill, even though they were rushing to put the finishing touches on their robots.  I think everyone was nervous, but also a little relieved that it would all be over soon...

The shop closed at noon, so after we put our robots in the designated contest area, we had to kill time for an hour.  I was completely freaking out at this point.  We went to Chandler dining hall to grab some food, and to distract me from the stress.  We knew that Robotic Hamster would have a hard time competing, and so I was nervous that all of our hard work would look bad in front of all of my friends.  My basketball team came to the competition to support me, and so did a lot of my friends from Avery.  Will managed to slightly distract me by asking me about all of the fun things I was going to do now with all of my free time...but it still felt like time went by extremely slowly...

We finally went back to Millikan pond around 12:40 and laid out on the top of Millikan bridge.  It was a nice sunny day, and it was a little relaxing.  it was then that I started to see the news cameras and reporters...there were so many of them!! And they all wanted to talk to us.  I don't know how many different people I talked to and gave my name to, but the one that I do remember was this lady who was filming something to show back in Taiwan!  She noticed that my partner was Taiwanese and so she came over and started talking to us.  She wanted Will to speak Chinese, but Will's Chinese is more conversational, and not so much for describing how to build robots and contests.  It was kind of funny, since earlier that day I asked Will how to say "hamster" in Chinese and she said that she didn't know how.  Then, the lady asked Will to say the names of our robots in Chinese! :)  The lady told us that we would be subtitled and she interviewed us before and after the competition.  It was very interesting, and added to the fun and excitement of the competition.

For all of the stress and nightmares, the actual competition was extremely fun!!  The crowd was very enthusiastic and all of the teams put on a good show.  Robotic Hamster was eliminated after the first 2 rounds, but it was ok.  I was very nervous, and in the 2nd round, I messed up in pushing Hungry into the water.  So, Hungry was stuck on the side of the pond with nowhere to go.  Just to show how nice our classmates are...the other team drove one of its robots over to help push Hungry into the water. 

In the end, we could have done better on contest day, but what is done is done and there is no use beating myself up about it.  We tried our best, we learned a lot, and we had lots of fun doing it.  If I could go back a year ago, when I was a sophomore and signed up to take this class, I would definitely do it again!  For all of the complaining I did about having to go into the shop 4 hours a day/5 days a week for 9 weeks, I would not give any of it up.  What is important is that I made amazing memories, and now I can look back at them and laugh 3 times..HA HA HA :)  I also learned a lot in this class, about working in a team and dealing with things that come up when working with someone else.  I also learned a lot about design...simple is always best.  Start of with something simple and straightforward.  Don't try to do anything fancy until you have a simple base and then work up.  The 3 teams that were eliminated first all tried to accomplish designs that were fancy.  We all had something new and different, which was extremely hard and time consuming, and seemed really awesome in concept, but in reality we should have gone for the simple straightforward approach like the top 3 teams. 

We all worked hard.  And in a way, we all helped each other through the process.  I really enjoyed the time I spent down in the shop with my competitors, and I will really miss it.  Now that it is done, I want it back.  But, it was enough to be involved in something so epic.  That is what is so special about Caltech.  I knew that I was going up against my classmates, many of whom had previous machining experience or design experience, and many who are just gifted in the ways of Mechanical Engineering.  I would rather compete against some of the best and brightest students in Mechanical Engineering and come out tied for last, than win in a competition where there was no challenge.  It is a privilege to get to work alongside and compete with the future top names in ME. 

That is about all I have to say.  I hope you enjoyed reading, and have fun looking at the pictures.  I'm sorry Robotic Hamster couldn't be an uplifting underdog story, where we came out on top in the end...I guess Disney will not be contacting me for the rights to make a movie...

Team ROBOTIC HAMSTER!  Hateful on the left and Hungry on the right :)

Each team had to place both of their robots in the designated square on the starting field.  Both robots had to fit in a 60x60x60 cm box, which was confirmed prior to the competition, which is why you can see here, the teams stacked their robots.

The "placebo" robot that the TAs built.  Because we were doing double elimination, sometimes there was an odd number of teams in a round.  To make it fair, the extra team (chosen at random) would still have to play a round against the robot the TAs built, and all they had to do was get 1 ball in their bin to pass on to the next round.

This team got stuck in their contraption for stacking the robots.  A lot of unanticipated problems happened like this on contest day for most teams.  Once the designing is done, it is all about practice and thinking on your feet to deal with problems as they arise during the competition.  But in times like this, you just have to wait out the 3 minutes if there is nothing your robots can do.

Close up on Newt N' Salamander, the team that ended up WINNING!  Their stacking strategy was simple, the one on top drives off the bottom one, and then the bottom one drives around to get the piece of board off and then it joins his buddy in the water.  We were allowed to leave debris in the starting area, so this strategy was fine.

Teams had to control their robots from the top of Millikan bridge.  We were not allowed to walk around anywhere else on the course, so we had to do everything from that vantage point.  This picture also allows you to see all of the people across campus who showed up.

Deth Frog, the 3rd place team, had a contraption which had a rotating flag!

Bots battling for balls and for glory!

Ramen Cheesesteaks waiting to compete in the final.  This robot typically dominated in the mini class deadlines throughout the term, and had very  high expectations for contest day.  However, their 2nd robot, which was a mini land vehicle, was accidentally driven into Millikan pond in the first round, and so it was no longer functional.  They battled the entire competition with only one bot, and still got 2nd place.

The final minute of the competition.  Newt N Salamander rushed the course, drove up the ramp, and put balls in their bin, and went to block the ramp before Ramen Cheesestakes could make it to the ramp.  Then, one robot stayed on the ramp, while the other robot went and pushed Ramen Cheesesteaks into the corner.  For the entirety of the minute, Newt N Salamander kept Ramen Cheesesteaks in this position.  As soon as the 3 minutes were over, Newt N Salamander members, Marc and Kevin, leapt off of the bridge and into the water!!!  It was a well deserved win, and a good fight :)

The white board with everyone's records through the different rounds.  3 teams (including us, :( ) were eliminated after the first 2 rounds, and then it went down from there.  W is for Win, L for Lose, B for Buy (which was when they went against the TA bot) and F was for False start, and they had a rematch. (some people thought F was for Fail...)

It is always something...

The campus-wide announcement went out yesterday.

I saw fliers all around the cafeteria announcing "Amphibious Clean-Up" during lunch.

Every time I see someone, they always ask "is your robot ready?" or "how is your robot doing?"

5 days left until the big day, with only 2 days and 1 morning left in the shop... I'll tell you how our robots are doing...

I'll try to be as optimistic as possible...but with so few days left until the competition, and so many things randomly going wrong, it is really hard to look someone in the face and say "oh, our robots are fine, and they are definitely going to win the competition!"  The truth is, we are still struggling to complete the course, never mind competing against the other teams.  But here is a the most optimistic quick run down on where we are at as of this morning:

Hateful is done, we should not have to do anything more with him, except practice practice practice.  This weekend, my goal is just to drive him around everywhere I go, until I can drive him in my sleep.  The thing is, on contest day I am going to be so panicked and stressed, that I want it to be instinctive how to drive Hateful.  I want to be able to navigate him with my eyes closed!

Hungry...well, as of yesterday evening it was able to get into the water without flipping over, but this afternoon we will have to do more testing and tweaking with that, to guarantee it will not flip over.  We are also unsure if he can get out of the water...

Now for a few stories leading up to this point...

Tuesday was the mock competition, so Monday we slaved away in the shop to prepare everything.  The goal was to have both robots "competition ready" by Tuesday at 1, and then see how they did compared to everyone else's robots.  That way, you can take the next week to make minor changes to your design so that it is unbeatable.  However, we were even struggling to get both robots working.  Tuesday morning I went down to the shop as early as it was open, but Will did not show up until 2 hours later (her alarm didn't go off...) and so I went to class while she stayed down in the shop to finish things up.  During lunch, we did a few quick things and then took the robots up to Millikan Pond to test.  That is when we found out that every time we tried to push Hungry into the water with Hateful, Hungry flipped upside down.  Some other teams joked that we should just start Hungry off upside down, so it will flip right side up...but basically Hungry could not enter the water.  We started freaking out and trying to come up with a solution when...Hateful stopped responding to the controller!  The wheels wouldn't turn!  Only 20 minutes until 1pm, the mock competition and Hateful just stopped working!  WHY?!?  I know I tell him I hate him, but I thought deep down he knew I didn't... It turned out that the green battery simply ran out of power.

I swear, it is ALWAYS something!  Every time we have a deadline, something crazy always goes wrong.  Last time we broke off the tip of our controller so that the robot wouldn't respond to movement, and before that I had a concussion and our last minute foam backing was too thick and so Hateful sank...  I'm sure many more things went wrong, I just can't remember.  Anyways, I ran down to the shop right as the shop instructor was closing the doors, and grabbed a charger.  I then had to take Hateful into the nearest building (Sloan, the math building) and charge him in the hallway (see picture below).  I didn't want anyone to mess with him (or anything else to go wrong) so I just sat in the stairwell and waited for Will to call me and let me know when it was our turn to compete.

When our turn came, I grabbed the slightly charged Hateful, and went to see what we could do.  We told the professors that Hungry flipped upside down when entering the water, so they just let us start him off in the water.  The first trial, Hateful drove into the lane roping and got stuck!  AH!  Then, Hungry just went to block the ramp, since there was nothing else he could really do.  The next trial, Hateful did not get stuck, but went up on the ramp and guarded it so that the other robots could not get any points, but neither did we...EPIC FAIL!  But I guess, if we are going to go down, we might as well take someone else down with us!

After the mock competition we took a break to go eat food (we didn't eat lunch, since we were preparing our robots).  We went to the C-store (convenience store) and bought junk! haha.  We bought a container of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream and a bag of gummy bears, and sat in the sun eating the 2 mixed together.  After that we went to the bookstore liquidation sale and bought a bunch of random things, before heading back into the shop...

When we went back into the shop we immediately set Hateful to fully charge, and then we started analyzing Hungry's flotation and we made a list of what we had to accomplish, and then we left for the day (it was 5pm and we had to clean up and leave). 

So, that whole day I was pretty distracted from the competition since I had something else on my mind.  Like I said, I was down in the shop all morning, and there is NO reception in the subbasement of Spalding.  So, when I emerged to head for class around 10:30am, my "you have a voicemail" sound started beeping.  So, before I headed into class, I decided to listen to it.  I expected to hear Will's voice telling me she was going to be late down in the shop, but instead it was someone else.  This person was asking me what my response was to the internship offer...I never had an internship offer?!?  I had applied for a bunch of different summer internships, and I went to 2 interviews, but I hadn't heard back from anyone yet.  Since it was time for class, I just had to be extremely curious for the next hour and a half.  All I could think about during fluid mechanics was this "internship offer."  Time could not go by any slower...

Finally, class was over and as I ran outside, towards the machine shop, I called the person back.  It turns out, the emailed me with a summer internship offer back on February 3rd, however I never received it, and now they were looking for a response!  Oh my gosh!  I was in such shock!  Luckily, she told me she was going to resend me the email, and I would have until the end of the week to make my decision.  For the rest of the day I was thinking about it... even when our robots were epic failing...I couldn't help but wonder what the offer entailed.  Finally, I rushed back to my dorm, pulled up my email and read the offer.  It sounded super amazing!  I was going to get paid A LOT (at least in my opinion...almost twice the amount I was paid for SURF, and when I was a frosh I thought that was a large amount of money...) and on top of that, they were providing housing and utilities!  I was originally just happy to have an internship offer. Even if I was getting paid half of that, I would be happy since having an internship on our resume gives you an extra advantage when applying for jobs after college (which is probably what I am planning on doing).  The only problem was that it started June 4 and ended August 21.  Problem 1, school doesn't end until June 5, and my brother's graduation is June 6 (he is valadictorian and making a speech, so I have to be there), and problem 2 I was planning on going to Taiwan with a program which is the entire month of July!  I had applied for a study abroad scholarship that Caltech offers to pay from my trip to Taiwan, and just last week I was notified that they were willing to fund my trip!  Wednesday afternoon I was going in to sign my official acceptance of the prize money, but now I didn't know if I could go...

So, Wednesday during lunch, I got a call from Will saying that she was not going to be able to make it in the shop at all that day.  She was still not done with her Physics set, and probably wouldn't be until it was due at 5.  I said that was ok, and decided to head back to Avery to check my email, call the internship people, and then go down to the shop.   I called to talk about the dates, and much to my dismay they could not negotiate with me about the month in July.  They were more than willing to bump the start date back a week, but the problem with leaving for an entire month right in the middle of the internship, is that I would be assigned a project, trained for the first 2 weeks, and then only have 2 weeks to work on it before leaving and then return again a month later.  It would be too disjoint.  So, I had to make a decision...Taiwan or internship, but not both.  I called my mother and talked to her about it.  She told me what I didn't want to hear, but what I knew deep down was the right thing...take the internship.  We are in the middle of a recession and I have a job offer, and I can't just turn it down to go study in Taiwan.  I was very distraught, and by then it was almost 3:30, time for me to go sign for the prize money.  I sadly walked over to the Study Abroad and Fellowships office to tell them my dilemma.  Luckily, they told me that if I could come up with an alternate program after my internship is over, and I could write up the budget for the new program and submit the paperwork by this Friday, I could still keep the prize money!  I was so happy and relieved, that I rushed back to Avery to start looking into programs.  Basically, neither Will nor I made it down to the shop that day...

Yesterday we were down there 1-5.  Tweaking our robots and fixing things.  When we took them up to Millikan to test, we were able to come up with a strategy to slowly push Hungry into the water from the side, so that he would not flip over.  We had to adjust the flotation, and add metal supports underneath so that the propellers would not scrape on the ground, but it works.  More things went wrong with Hateful...2 of the paddles on the paddle wheels broke off, so I had to make new ones and fix that...and then the gear/wheel combo came loose and so I had to rip open the bottom and fix that!  I was so angry at Hateful for always messing up, but now we have to bond over the weekend and become one!  Hopefully, all will go well and nothing more will go wrong.  Everything has already happened to us, that maybe nothing will happen on contest day...as least that is what I keep telling myself :)

Enjoy the pictures of the mock contest!  Once again, I used my cell phone camera so the pictures may be kinda bad, but they are still visible! 

My view from inside Sloan.  As you can see (in the red box I drew around it using Paint :) ) Hateful is charging in the wall right outside of a classroom as the giant painting of Sloan looks on...

One trial of the mock competition...each team puts both of their robots in their assigned square and on "go" they drive off into the water...(see picture below)

It is kinda hard to see, but one team's robot is in the water gathering balls, while the other team's robot is guarding the ramp so that even if they do gather balls, they wont be able to deposit them in their bin...and therefore they will not get any points.

After waiting for the "2 minutes" warning (the competition is only 3 minutes long), the robot who was guarding the bridge rushes for the "double points" bin on top of the bridge.

In the blue box: Hateful, Red box: Hungry, Purple box: the contraption the other team made to stack their 2 robots.

The other team's robots stacked together

Everyone enjoying the competition :)

Hope to see you contest day!! (Even though I will be totally stressed out, and I probably won't actually see you :)  March 10, 1pm, Millikan

Scientific Hobo

The crazy thing about Caltech is that for most students, not sleeping is part of the culture :)  Maybe this is actually true of college students in general (staying up late doing absolutely nothing) but at Caltech one usually has to stay up late doing problem sets.  So, sometimes, on the occasion that you are done with all of your sets early, and have the time to go to sleep at a decent hour, you actually don't.  In my case, I stayed up later than usual (4am, I usually go to sleep promptly at midnight).  On top of that, we had to register for classes Thursday morning at 8am, and so I woke up at 7:30.  Registration begins at 8, but I think you actually have 2 weeks to go online and complete this task.  However, there are some classes which have limited seating (only 20 students are allowed to sign up) and so, in the case that you sign up at 8:15 instead of 8:00, you might not get into that class.  In my case, there were 3 classes like that which I wanted.  So, I had to wake up early, get my "mouse clicking" skills in top shape, load as much of the website as I could, and countdown the minutes until 8.  Luckily, I got every class I wanted (over the terms I have become the master of obtaining limited seating courses), but after that adrenaline rush, I could not go back to sleep (most students wake up, register, and plop back in bed).  This meant that by the time I went down to the ME shop at 1pm, I was completely out of it.  I was a walking zombie in desperate need of sleep (or caffeine...but I don't like coffee, unless it is extremely sugary and has lots of whipped creme and caramel). 

Now, obviously, zombies cannot operate the machines in the machine shop.  They will most likely fall asleep on a spinning blade, or in the very least lose a limb (which I guess wouldn't be that big of a deal for a real zombie...) or do something in their stupor that would hurt the machine.  So, for this reason there is a rule in the ME shop that you cannot be there if you are sleep deprived.  If the shop instructor finds you with droopy eyelids looking particularly sleepy, he can send you home.  However, the shop instructor was not there (he has been sick all week) and so I just attempted to look awake and did minimal machining.  This was not to hard, since over the course of this past week, we completed Hungry,  didn't really have any intense machining to do.  All we had to do was put the motors in their holders, duct tape them in some random orientation to the sides, and then go up to Millikan Pond to test how the placement of the propellers was when put into action.

Putting Hungry into the water, and watching him swim around was actually quite cute.  Hungry was much more peaceful, with quietly whirring propellers, than Hateful with his big boxy shape and loud splashing paddle wheels.  Everything worked out fine, and so Will just drove him calmly around the pond.  Yesterday was a very nice day...the sun was beaming down on my face as I was hypnotized by our little creation skimming around the pond.  My eyes slowly began to drop, and I laid down on the concrete in a daze.  Will saw this, and told me to go find a nice patch of grass, and take a nap before returning down to the machine shop.  This seemed like a most excellent idea, and so I found a bench by Millikan, and stretched out for a nap.

After about 20 minutes, I awoke to the sound of my friend's voice, questioning why there was a hobo with safety goggles sleeping on the bench by Millikan.  While I was sleeping, my goggles (which were originally located on top of my head) had slid down over my face, and I did indeed look like a scientific hobo.  I tried to explain to her the reason why it wasn't what it looked like, but she refused to believe me.  I got up from the bench to go back down in the shop, and since I was still in a daze, I put my safety goggles on.  Once again, my friend commented on my "stylish new look" and I quickly removed them and put them in my bag.

Now, today we have to actually attach the motors to Hungry and then we will be more or less done.  We will probably end up doing a lot of testing over the weekend, to see what changes we need to make, but hopefully they will only be minor adjustments.  Next Tuesday (March 3) is the "mock trial" where we each run through 1 trial as if it were competition day, and then we have exactly 1 week until the big event (March 10).  If you are in the area, please feel free to stop by Millikan Pond (either day, but March 10 will be much more exciting) at 1pm.  It is open to everyone, and supposedly there will be news cameras etc. everywhere.  I am nervous, but I am so looking forward to seeing who comes out on top (and finally being done with going into the shop every day for hours on end).

As a last quick review of this past week's activities in the shop... (complemented with lots of cool pictures of the very attractive Hungry Hamster):

We made Hungry's floaties twice as long, programmed and attached a flap for the net so that it will open and close with a flip of a switch (keeping the balls it gathered inside), and wired up all of the electronics properly.  In testing out the net contraption, we placed Hungry in the kiddie pool in the shop.  The professors had been promising us all term that they were going to get a simple inflatable kiddie pool to put in the shop (so that we could test simple things, like if our robots floated, without having to walk all the way up to Millikan) and we just got it last week.  It is very bright and colorful, but it does its job.  Enjoy the pics :)

Hungry with the gate up

Close up of Hungry's gate down

Close up of the gate up

Hungry in the Kiddie Pool

Hungry eating :)

 

Strength of Epic Proportions

Another week has gone by.  Another deadline past.  Only 18 days left until Contest Day.  Are Hungry and Hateful ready to take on Deth Frog or Newt N' Salamander?  The shop is closed all day today, so that leaves about 12 days in the shop to make Hungry an eating machine and Hateful a force to be reckoned with.  Basketball season ends tomorrow, so now I can spend every day in the shop from 1-5.  You can take that how you want...bad for my social well-being, but ME72 is not about making friends!  It's about domination, and more time in the shop will help me perfect the Hamsters!

The shop was closed this past Monday for Presidents day, and so we didn't get to start working until Tuesday.  I was mainly focused on fixing and finishing up Hateful, while Will focused on creating Hungry.  Hungry09 was a total upgraded revamp of Hungry08.  He is a bit fatter and shorter, but he will have more ball gathering power than ever before!  So while Will was busy creating our ball devouring monster, I basically finished up the waterproof boxes from both Hamsters and then worked on re-soldering all of the electrical connections in Hateful, and then combining everything.  Tuesday was pretty uneventful, but very efficient.

Wednesday morning we went into the shop to get a bit of work done before class.  Will got there early and stayed until noon because she wasn't going to be able to make it that afternoon.  So, one cool thing about the machine shop, is that in order to improve the "shop experience" you have the ability to plug your ipod/music player of choice into the big speakers and share your musical taste with the rest of the shop.  Now, so far, only a few brave souls have dared to expose their music choice, and this morning it was the Lord of the Rings/Star Wars/Pirates of the Caribbean  +  1 song from Aladdin (1 jump ahead!) mix.  I have to say...I feel rather epic when I am working in the shop and this music comes on.  I feel like I am actually working on something that is bigger than me and Will, bigger than the contest.  Something that will change the fate of Middle Earth, or overthrow the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic!  But in actuality, I am cutting foam with a hot wire into the shape of a square to place on the back of a robot that looks like a 3-ring binder and barely has enough power to overturn other small robots.  But it is still fun to be in that mind set, wielding the glue gun like it is a DH-17 Blaster Pistol.  By the way, I am sorry for all of the star wars references...my own partner in this competition hasn't even seen one of the 6 movies, so don't feel badly if you don't know what I am talking about.  She wouldn't either.  However, we made a deal that as soon as ME 72 is over, we are going to have a marathon and watch all of the movies in one day!

Coming down from the stars, back to reality...Wednesday afternoon, I was able to completely finish Hateful (this time for real!) and I decided to work on Hungry.  The basic idea of Hungry is to be a giant floating net, that just happens to have to propellers on the sides and a box of electronics on the top.  After it gathers all of the balls, it will have a switch which will close a gate over the front of the net so that the balls will not be able to escape.  The problem with putting a heavy (relative to the rest of Hungry) waterproof box filled with electronics on top of a flimsy net, is that it will buckle.  So, I had to create metal crossbars, to hold the box up.  In addition to this, the shop instructor suggested we make metal flaps extended off the crossbars, down the sides, to attach the motors for the propellers to.  Attaching the metal flaps to the crossbars with rivets involved using a hand drill.  I am embarrassed to say that while I have drilled my fair share of holes down in the shop, I have always either used the drill press or the mill with a drill chuck...I have never used a hand drill before then!  At first, I was kind of frightened that I was going to hurt somebody, or break something...but it all went well.  I drilled one hole dangerously close to one edge, so the next one I drill I tried to start closer to the other edge.  But then I drilled even more dangerously close to that edge.  So, while my drilling job may not be the most aesthetic, it does its job, and that is what matters!  No one is going to judge how pretty Hungry is.  This is not a beauty contest, its a battle :)

After the drilling experience Hungry ended up looking like this:
Ignore the duct tape...that was just for the sake of testing...

Wednesday night we were supposed to test Hateful, however I completely forgot to bring him with me out of the shop.  I actually remembered about it in the middle of basketball practice, at which time it was too late to go down and pick it up.  So, we decided to wait until the morning of the deadline to test. 

Thursday morning I went down into the shop, and Will wasn't there.  I waited for an hour, and then left to give her a call.  She was finishing up some work, and said that she would go down as soon as she was done.  I told her that I was going to go to class, and would just see her afterwards.  We both had meetings during lunch, so we met on the Olive Walk (a walk way in between the two clumps of Student Houses, leading to the Athenaeum, with olive trees on both sides) before heading to our separate meetings to discuss our plan.  Unfortunately, that day happened to be Dabney House's "Freedom Day" (or something like that)... From what I hear, this is a day when Dabney House goes up to the mountains and gets snow, which they bring back down to Tech and throw around on the lawn in front of the Athenaeum.  Basically, we saw a bunch of students throwing around snow balls, and thought nothing of it.  We decided that we were going to meet back on the Olive Walk as soon as our meetings were over, to finish water proofing Hateful, and then head over to Milikan Pond for the deadline.  During each of our respectful meetings, we were ambushed by snow.  I was innocently sitting at a table, when all of the sudden I was hit with not 1 or 2, but several snow balls.  I came up with the brilliant plan of staying where I was and waiting it out, but after being hit by about 5 snow balls, I decided to run into a corner.  By the time they were done, the entire meeting space was covered in snow/slush/water (since it is southern California, and it was relatively warm that day), so we had to move our location.  During Will's meeting, the snow balls barely missed hitting Hungry, and I guess she was very angry about it.  I thought it would have been kind of funny (in a sad way) to tell the professors that we couldn't show our robot, since it was destroyed by snow balls.  They probably would not believe us!

After avoiding the blizzard, we headed over to Millikan Pond.  Now, here comes the best part of the day...after we tested Hateful, I went to slide the antenna of the controller down, and it snapped in half!  AHHHH!  WHY?!?  We duct taped it together, but when it came to our turn, the signal was screwy and so we couldn't show Hateful's full potential.  I felt really stupid for breaking the stupid antenna.  This was our chance to show what we could do, and I screwed it up by just pushing too hard.  Oh well, one other group had no robot to show, since they broke theirs during testing the night before.  The professors understand.  It is all part of the design process...we all just hope that everything works on contest day.  So, that is where we are now.  One of the TAs fixed our antenna, and so now we just have to work on Hungry.  We have the day off, and so I am going to cherish it!  I can wear open toed shoes and leave my hair down, without the fear of having a piece of metal dropped on my foot or my hair getting caught in a whirling blade!  I did manage to take some pictures during the deadline of a few robots.  Everyone seems to be coming along ok, some groups better than others, but it all depends on what we can do 18 days from now...
The contest arena, with 2 robots going through the course.  As you can see, there is a "flag" pole and two red scoring bins on top of the bridge, and two blue bins right across the pond.  There are balls scattered in the pond, and the area is marked off with pool ropes.

 

Friday the 13th

Happy Friday the 13th!

Before I start blogging about ME72, I have to give a special tribute to one of my favorite days of the year...Friday the 13th.  Now, being a scientist, I know that the chance of bad things happening is not actually increased just because the 13th day happens to also be a Friday, but it is fun to pretend that it is.  So far, my day has been amusingly unlucky (and it is only noon!).  So, a short story of my morning, and then back to 72...

I decided earlier this week that I was not going to do ANY work on Friday the 13th, since my sets would probably spontaneously catch on fire, or I would end up doing a bunch of unnecessary grunge work for a problem that was only supposed to be 2 lines or what-not...so I worked extra hard to do a lot for the non-work I am going to do today. Anyway, I woke up this morning at 8 (just because I do that every day...darn my biological alarm clock) and since I was not going to do any work, I decided to go out to Starbucks.  The unluckiness started when I came back.  So, in order to get back into Avery (my dorm) you need your id card...and I had forgotten it in my room.  Usually, I can just call my friends in Avery and have someone come down to the parking lot and let me in, but since it was 9am the people that I would normally call were all asleep.  So, I went through my phone book and called about 5 people who I knew would be up, but none of them picked up (it turns out they were either in the shower, in class, or I accidentally called their home...in Texas...).  So, I had to pick which friend of mine would be the least angry at me for waking them up and making them come down to the parking lot and let me in.  This person happened to be Bean Child (her nickname...don't worry, her parents were not cruel).  But, since I woke her up, she was in a groggy state, and forgot to bring her id when she went down to the parking lot to let me in.  So, I got into the parking lot, but then after you park, you need an id to swipe back into the actual dorm building.  So, we had to formulate a plan to get back in.  Luckily, I have had this problem happen before.  So, I knew we could go from the parking lot, to the dining hall, into the piano room, and then climb out of the piano room through the window, into Avery's courtyard!  Success!

That was the first thing.  The next unlucky (but highly humorous) event happened on the way to my 11am class.  Usually I walk with my 2 friends, but today one of them had to go into lab.  Usually we wait 5 or 10 minutes for him and then we arrive to class right as it starts.  But, today since he wasn't walking with us we arrived to class while the previous class was still going on...However, we didn't notice this.  So, I was in the middle of telling my parking lot story, when I barged into the class and said very loudly "parking structure" looked up and saw a bunch of frosh and a prof all starting at me, and then ran back out of the class!  It was funny/embarrassing, and I totally blame it on Friday the 13th.

Anyway, back to ME 72.  This week there were no deadlines and all of the days kind of melded together.  Every day (Monday - Thursday) I went into the shop from 1pm - 4pm.  Day to day I would pick up from where I left off in the machining the previous day, and so they all feel like one continuous block of machining in my mind...But basically, earlier in the week we thought we finished Hateful.  We made the skids bigger, shaved down the shell, and extended the leads for the battery and the receivers to the top of Hateful.  After I closed everything off, and it was perfect, I put it on the floor and tried to drive it around.  It worked fine for a minute, and then it started spazzing out!  The wheels were spinning like crazy, and I was not even touching the controller.  I turned it off and decided to let it "rest" for a day, and then tackle the problem the next day.  When I went in the shop the following day, it was still freaking out.  Noooooo!  Why?!  I talked to the TA, and it turned out that I would have to open the robot back up, and then break into the permanently sealed "waterproof" box and see what was wrong.  I sadly broke into my masterpiece, and pried open the box with an exact knife and a screw driver.  It turns out, our "waterproof" box was not so waterproof...there was one spot of leakage, and it got our receiver and speed controllers all wet, which is why the wheels were freaking out.

Luckily for us, our most wonderful (and awesome) of TAs figured this out for us.  He spent an hour during lunch testing out our various electronics, until he came to that conclusion.  And then after he discovered the problem, he fixed it!  I just have to say, most of the ME TAs I have had at Caltech are awesome.  There is at least one in every class that goes the extra mile.  I do not know if I have just been lucky, or what, but in every one of my ME classes there have been one or two TAs that either meet with you on individual basis before the final to go over practice problems, or answer your questions on the set at midnight the night before it is due, or spend extra time to solve your robot's problem...Being a TA myself, I know that we get paid the same amount for whatever work we do (if we do no work, I'm sure we will not get paid, or at least not be asked to be a TA again...).  So, I know these people are not getting anything out of being extra helpful, except bonus points on their conscience.  If the TA is a grad student, I think they feel bad for us undergrads for working so hard, and so they want to help as much as possible to alleviate that burden.  And, if the TA is an undergrad, I think they sympathize with us, for they remember how hard it was for them, and so they want to help you get through it like, presumably, someone else did for them.

Anyway, once we knew what was wrong, I went on to fix it.  The waterproof box is almost fixed, and as soon as I am done writing this blog, I am going to go into the shop and (hopefully *fingers crossed*) complete Hateful.  While I have been working on fixing up Hateful, Will has started working on Hungry, and he is about half way done!  So, we are pretty far in our progress...seeing as the next deadline is the "vehicle trial" next Thursday.  The only thing is that the shop is closed Monday (for the holiday) and so we only have 2 days to machine before this so called "vehicle trial."  None of us are exactly sure what is being tested (graded) that day, and the profs and TAs blatantly told me that they were being vague on purpose.  Basically, they just want to see what we have at that point in time.  So, I think we are on the right path!

I am kind of afraid of going into the shop today...there are a lot of machines with sharp objects meant to cut metal that could go awry on Friday the 13th.  Hopefully, I don't lose a finger or whatnot, but I cannot let fear stop me from machining!  Wish me luck on this most unlucky of days!

Happy Friday the 13th :)  And Happy Valentine's Day/ Singles Awareness Day tomorrow!

It's the kind of glue gun I would take on a date...not marry.

Hateful Hamster lives again!  Not only does it live, but it jumps into the pond, swims across the pond, collecting balls along the way, climbs up out of the pond and then...stops.  Ya, so the last part is a bit of a let down, but at least he didn't sink :)

So, before the ingenious success of Hateful, a lot of thought and work had to be done.  Wednesday I went into the shop for 3 hours to work on keeping Hateful afloat.  Will decided she needed to take a day off from the shop, so I was on my own.  The first problem I decided to tackle was the water leakage problem.  For this entire term that had been a major problem.  Water was inevitably going to leak from the small gap where the rod was coming out of the robot and spinning the paddles, but that amount of water should be relatively insignificant in the overall scheme of things.  However, gallons of water (figuratively) were leaking into Hateful.  There was a direct correlation between the amount of time he spent in the water and how much of his body was submerged under the water.  The thing was...duct tape is awesome (don't get me wrong) however it is not the best choice for forming water tight seals.  The water was leaking in between the duct tape and getting inside Hateful from all sides. 

I am pretty sure I came up with the solution in a dream.  Yes it is weird/cliche, but I woke up Wednesday morning and suddenly came up with the answer.  Hot glue as much of the foam shell as possible directly to the board, leaving only a little area where we would have to make a flap to open and close to get to the electronics inside.  It was such a simple solution, and now I wonder why we didn't think of it earlier.  First problem solved!

Now, for the second problem...Hateful's foam "belly" was rubbing on the ground when it was driving around on land.  In fact, in some areas it was so large that it was preventing the wheels from making enough contact with the surface (and so it could not drive).  Hateful needed to lose weight, and I needed to figure out what diet was right for him.

Since Hateful is a wedge (pyramid), the shell should have 1 angle from the point where y is zero to the point where y is the height of the foam that we determined would be appropriate (so that the wheels would not touch the ground, but also so that all of the electronics and gear boxes would fit inside).  Long story short, the angle was too small, and when is we made the shell to that exact specification, the waterproof box would not fit inside.  Easy fix!  I moved the waterproof box as far into the back of Hateful as possible (where the height of the foam was greater and could encase the height of the box) and then put the battery where the box used to be.  This worked very well, but I still needed to make more calculations and a few slight changes to the shell and its angle.  In the end, I drew out all of the pieces I needed to make, and started working on molding the foam.

The 3 hours went by fast on Wednesday, and since I had spent so much of my time drawing up plans, I was only able to make and attach the front part of the shell.  That left me with a lot of work on Thursday.  Will was there on Thursday and we were both able to work from 1-5pm (I had a basketball game, but it was at Home and so I didn't need to be at the gym until 6), so we got A LOT done!  We finished the entire shell and everything was ready for Friday's demonstration.  The only thing with staying in the sub-basement of Spalding for 4 hours straight, surrounded by the smell of oil and metal, is that you start to get a little bit loopy...

So, I need to preface this with an explanation of how to mold the foam... You cannot cut the foam with a knife, because it just leaves jagged ends and it falls apart.  So, the way to cut the foam is to melt it with a hot wire.  A problem then arises when you try to glue the foam together, using hot glue.  Obviously, if the glue it hot enough, it will melt the foam, and you are left with less than you started with (instead of more...).  That is what happens when you use the ME Shop's glue guns.  They have one setting, and it is HOT!  We think this is where some of our problems with leakage came from.  So, we needed to find a new way to glue our pieces of foam together...

Luckily for us, our neighbors at the bench right next to us had nice foam creations, and so I asked how they glued the foam together.  It turns out, he bought a hot glue gun online that had 2 settings of hot glue, one which would not melt the foam.  He told us that we could borrow his hot glue gun to make our robot.  As it was getting later and later, I started talking about the glue gun, and how it was a good investment.  Will wanted to know the reasons for having 2 settings on a glue gun.  I mean, why else would you need the low setting besides gluing together foam?  While our neighbor was coming up with legit reasons for needing a 2 temperature glue gun, I blurted out "to pick up guys."  Yes.  It makes no sense, and no one in their right mind would have given that as a reason, but you have to remember...I still have a concussion and I was down in that shop for 4 hours straight...

Anyways, that started a discussion about which glue gun (the nice 2-temperature blue one with a light, or the crappy yellow one from the shop) would attract guys more, and if you would take the glue gun with you on a date, or to your wedding...etc.  We had about 5 people involved in this discussion, when Will finally ended it all by saying "we will never get any guys if we are stuck down here in the shop all the time..." And that was that.  The sad reality that we had spent our entire day down there gluing foam together with a glue gun...no matter how impressive the glue gun was, it was kind of lame.  Haha!  But it was fun, and Hateful was done!

Friday morning, I went into the shop to add RTV to all of the possible slots where water could leak, and then I charged the battery and the receiver.  The thing was, once we connected the battery with the motors, and then sealed up the robot, we would not be able to turn it off until we ripped it apart.  This posed a new problem.

In the long term, we will create extensions on the battery-motor connection, so that we can completely seal Hateful without having to get to the electronics inside.  But, that day, we just had to connect it, seal it, and hope that neither the battery nor the controller would run out of power before we had to show it to the Professor.  We plugged everything together at 2pm, and our trial was at 4:15.  We needed to test out our robot with enough time to make adjustments, but not so much time that there would be no power left by 4.  As we were testing it, I could see the Voltage going down on the controller display.  I was scared, but I had hope.

Luckily, everything worked out fine!  We did have to make a few adjustments to Hateful, up until 4pm!  There was a hole that we had to hot glue shut, and we had to make a few adjustments to the net.  But other than that, Hateful performed well!  The prof seemed happy, and a few of our friends stopped by to watch Hateful in action.  When Hateful made it up the ramp, I was so excited and surprised that I let go of the trigger, and he stopped right at the top.  Ha!  Granted, he didn't make it into the scoring bin, but at least he did everything else.  The professor gave us some tips on how to make Hateful better, and finish the task, and then we went back into the shop.  We didn't actually work much afterwards, because we were so relieved that it worked.  The next deadline is still over a week away, but we have a lot of work to do.  We have to finish up Hateful, and then resurrect Hungry...

 

Drowning...

So I have good news and bad news from the deadline yesterday...

Yesterday we had to show that our robot was able to score and:

   i) I got lots of pictures of other teams' robots swimming in the water, gathering balls, exiting the ramp, and scoring in the bin!  They were taken from my camera, so the quality is not as bad as last time, and I will post them at the end of the blog!  "Yay me" for remembering my camera!

   ii) our robot sunk.  It was not even able to get more than a meter away from the pond's edge before it took on so much water that its net was completely submerged.  It never even had the chance to pick up on ball...I think you get the idea.

So, from my last post (Sunday) we were right on track with our robot.  Even though I had a concussion, we were able to finish the robot and everything was OK.  However, on Monday we went out to the pond to test the robot and that is when things started to go downhill.  We put our robot in the pond and started to drive it around.  Everything was working amazingly!  I had programed the controller so that only one joy stick would control both wheels together.  Before we had it in the factory settings which had each different stick control a different motor.  So basically when I wanted to turn, I would only use one stick so that only one wheel would turn, but moving forwards and backwards, I had to push both joysticks forward simultaneously so that the wheels would move together.  Anyways, my programing made the robot much easier to control, and it entered the water and drove around like a hateful hamster :)

However, after a while, it started to go out of control.  Both wheels were spinning at full speed, and I was not even touching the controller.  So, we grabbed it out of the water and opened up the inside.  It turns out that it was slowly taking on water and eventually the water had leaked into the group of electronics and they were going haywire.  For the past few trials and deadlines, we had been using Saran wrap to protect them from getting water, but it never was 100%  waterproof (or when it was, it was because we used a ton of Saran wrap, and a baggie, and a ton of duct tape...).  So, this was when Will decided that we should rush and make a waterproof box.  It was only a slightly lofty goal, so I agreed and we went down to the shop to start machining.

Luckily, when I had the concussion and could not machine, I took that time to write up the dimensions of the box, and so all that we really had to do was start machining.   By the time I left for basketball, all of the plexiglass pieces were cut , they just had to be be milled down to the exact dimensions and then drilled with the holes for the wires and glued together!  Before I left I told Will to call me or email me with the details on what needed to be done the next morning.  Because I left early, I was going to go into the shop at 9am and finish up where she left off...

I was up until 2am that night grading papers (I am a TA) and I received no email, and no call...I thought that maybe she had finished it all, but how could that be?!?  The next morning before I left for the shop, I checked my email again...still no sign of Will.  So I went down to the shop.  Once I was there, I saw no note and worst of all...NO ROBOT!  I started freaking out, so I went to the shop instructor and asked him if he had seen Will that morning or if he knew how far she had gotten the day before.  Luckily he knew exactly where she had stopped machining, so I ran back to the desk and found the pieces of the box laying there.  I promptly started machining the pieces, but I eventually reached the point when I needed the electronics themselves.  At this point it was about 10am, half an hour before my class in which the problem set was due.  I ran upstairs and called Will to find our where the robot was...she had it with her in Ruddock and asked if I could run over and pick it up.  I knew at this point that I would be working in the shop through lunch, and so I knew I had to get breakfast in order to survive.  I ran into Chandler on the way to Ruddock, ordered a vegetarian breakfast burrito, and then told the chef that I was going to step out for 5 minutes and I would be right back.  I then ran to Ruddock, and got the robot from Will.  She said that she was really tired and would be in the shop as soon as she could.  As soon as I got the robot, I ran back to Chandler, picked up my burrito and ran back into the shop.  By then, it was 10:20..  So, I checked to make sure that the wires from the electronics fit through the holes I had drilled in the box, and then ran up to class.  I only stayed to turn in my homework and listen to the first half of the lecture (while eating my burrito), before I ran back into the shop.  I stayed in the shop with Will from then until 10 minutes before the deadline (1pm).

Because we just barely had time to make the box and connect everything, we did not have time to test the robot.  What ended up happening was that the shell did not fit on it anymore.  The foam shell was designed around the robot with electronics in the Saran wrap, and did not have space for the size of the box.   So, the foam encasing did not fit, and we tried to duct tape everything together and tape up all of the cracks, but it didn't work.  The water leaked in and it sunk.

Luckily, we talked to the professors and they said that they would dock off some points, but that they would schedule a retrial for us later in the week.  So now, we have to go back into the shop today and make a new shell, so that it will not sink.  Uhhhh...

We were both so tired after the failure, that we went to take naps.  But now I am ready to make the perfect shell, and I have new ideas on how to accomplish it and I know everything will work out OK.  Our next deadline isn't until the week after midterms, so hopefully the stress will go away...

5 more weeks until competition day!

~Jo"trying to keep her head above water"ules

PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!

I got in a fight with a door...and lost.

The reason why I have not written a post in about a week is because...well, I have a concussion.  Tuesday night we got out of basketball pretty late, and the kitchens had already closed, so I was kind of angry.  I was not really thinking/paying attention when I swiped my card to get into Avery.  As I yanked the door open, I suddenly had this intense pain in my forehead and I had no idea why.  In about half a minute I realized that the metal door was against my head, and I deduced that I had in fact slammed the door into my face.  I thought it was no big deal, and luckily no one had witnessed this horribly embarrassing moment.  Well, later that night, as I was showering, it looked as if the walls were closing in on me, and my vision was starting to blur, so...I went to bed.  This was a bad idea, and I know that, but it was around midnight.  I had to go to sleep.  Anyways, basically I felt horrible the next day, and every day since then, and when I visited both the athletic trainer and the Health Center they told me I had a concussion.  They said it could take anywhere from a week to a few weeks before I would get better.  So, for the past week I have been dealing with headaches and being intensely confused.  I randomly forget what I am talking about in the middle of conversations, and I cannot focus too long on reading or work, or else I get a headache and become very confused.  So, seeing as this upcoming week is midterms week, the Dean told all of my professors that I may need extensions on my midterms until I can think again...AHHH!  I'd rather not get extensions, but I also would not want to take my midterms if I can't think...

So, I have still been going down to the machine shop, I just haven't been able to machine.  So, luckily my AWESOME partner Will has been doing all of the machining.  I have been working on the little things that require no thought whatsoever, or at least the things that if I screw up, it would be easy to fix.  We have our second deadline on Tuesday, and we are pretty much ready for it.  I have to program the controller today and fix up the shell of the robot, and then on Monday we will test it out.  Tuesday I will bring my camera and take some pictures, and the rest of the blog today will just be pictures.  I got the ones from the last competition off of my phone and onto my computer (the quality is not that great) and then I also took pictures of the wheels we made for the robot.  The dark gray plastic around the edges are the tires, and the little squares of plexiglass are the paddles.  Have fun looking at the pictures, and I'll write another blog Tuesday night (hopefully I won't be so confused!)

~Joules

 

Strengthen Those Hand Muscles

I realized last night that I have been working on the ME 72 robots for too long.  I noticed that it was starting to take over my life when I spent every minute of my free time (between 8am and 5pm) in the ME shop.  But last night was when it went too far...

Thursday and Friday the shop was being closed early (3:30 and 3, respectively).  A comment was made earlier about the ME shop in relation to the honor code.  It is true that all of the buildings are closed at night, and that students can get keys (or swipe card access) to the buildings where they have night classes or where they have labs.  The thing with the ME shop is that there are lots of expensive, dangerous machines.  Therefore, no one (not just students, but also other professors and faculty) can be in the shop unless the Shop Instructor is there.  If he has to leave even for 5 minutes, everyone has to stop machining until he returns.  In one sense it is an issue of safety.  Most of the machines involve spinning blades designed to cut through metal, and so none of them would have any trouble cutting through flesh and bone.  The other reason is because, while the machines are very powerful, they are very easy to operate incorrectly and damage.  Not only are they expensive to replace/fix, but there are only a limited number of each tool/machine, so if you break it, it kind of ruins it for everyone.  So, the shop is only open from 8am - 5pm, or when the Shop Instructor can be there. 

Anyways, back to Thursday.  I went into the shop right after lunch, but that still only left us with 2 and a half hours to do work.  Will had a class or meeting to go to at 2pm, so we knew that by the time we set up and prepared to work, we would only have a little bit of time.  Regardless, Will managed to make a set of 4 stand-offs and I managed to make the paddles and attach them to the wheels.  The only thing left to do was put on the tires.  It was a relatively successful day in shop. Thursday night I was up until 3am working on my ACM set.  This does not usually happen to me.  I always go to bed at midnight and wake up at 8am.  8 hours.  I cannot function with anything less than 6 hours, and seeing as I only got 4 hours of sleep that night, I was not myself on Friday.  The only reason I was up so late doing my set was because I was busy with classes, working on ME 72, and then we had a basketball game against Cal Lu.  I didn't get to work on my set until 10pm, and then as it got closer to midnight my efficiency began to decrease exponentially.  So, by the time I quit working at 3am, I was too tired to function.  I was starting to think that the derivative of x^r was rx^r, and the second derivative (r^2)x^r... ya... so I really cannot function past my "bed time" :) 

Friday morning I finished my set, scanned it to the computer, and submitted it online before going to class.   Technically I did not have to finish the set until 5pm, however I knew that I had basketball at 4pm, and that I was going to be working down in the ME shop up until then.  So, I had to get it done before class.  During lunch, I met up with Will and found out that she still had to finish her ACM set, and so she would meet me down in the shop as soon as she finished it.  I knew that if nothing else, we had to make the rubber tires for the wheels.  The rubber takes at least 24 hours to harden and set, so we had to get that rolling (no pun intended..haha).  I went down into the shop and mixed the rubber goop (which looked like and had the consistency of marshmallow syrup) with the catalyst and slowly let it run into the syringe.  So, this may be a little hard to describe, but when I go down to the shop on Monday I will try to remember to take a picture of the set up.  Basically, the wheel sits down in a circular mold which adds about half an inch to the diameter and has the same thickness as the plastic wheel.  Thursday I drilled a few holes around the wheel, with slits coming out of each one.  The purpose of this was so that the rubber tire would stay attached to the wheel.  Basically, when the rubber is injected into the holes, it fills them and seeps out through the slit to form a tire around the outside of the wheel.  So, when the robot is rolling around on the cement during the competition, the tire will not accidentally slip off. 

So, there I was, getting ready to inject the wheel with the rubber concoction.  It was at this moment that the Shop Instructor looked at me and asked where Will was.  I told him that she would be coming down soon.  It was then that he told me it was best to have 2 people working on the wheel and mold, otherwise I would have really strong hand muscles by the end of the day. I laughed to myself.  How hard could it be to push the rubber goop through a syringe and into the mold.  He must just be underestimating my strength.  He must not know that I am on the basketball team.  I have faced much tougher opponents than a syringe of rubber.  Well...it was I that underestimated the syringe.  It was so hard!  I pushed and pushed and only a little bit came out at a time.  If you have ever worked with glitter glue before (or puffy paint) it was kind of like that, but much much more concentrated.  I kept having to take the paper clip and unclog the tip.  Finally, about an hour passed by, and I was about half way, to 2/3 of the way done.  The shop instructor came to check on my progress, only to find me pushing with all my might with no results.  my hands were red raw and I was tired.  He took the syringe from me and then promptly told me that the rubber had started hardening while in the syringe, and so that was why it was nearly impossible for me to squeeze it out.

Good Game!

Basically, we had to throw that syringe away and then mix up a new batch of rubber.  However, there were no more cups left to mix the rubber in.  So, I quickly threw off my apron and ran upstairs and across the courtyard to the C store (Caltech Convenience Store).  I grabbed a bag of red plastic cups, swiped my card, and ran down to the shop.  I then mixed the marshmallow goop with the catalyst, except this time I put in a little less catalyst, so it would react, and therefore solidify, more slowly.  That helped immensely.  As I was just finishing filling up the mold, Will walked in the door.  But, it was already past 3pm, so we could no longer use the machines.  I had to head off to basketball anyway, and there was nothing more for us to do.  So, we made an outline of what we needed to do and when they needed to be accomplished by.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, I had only had 4 hours of sleep the night before.  I was planning to get sleep as soon as I could, but this would not be until after basketball, dinner, and then the jazz concert.  So, one of my teammates plays the trombone in the Caltech Jazz band, and that night she had a big concert at 8pm.  We all like to support each other, so a bunch of us decided to go and listen to her play.  Not only was she playing jazz, but Flea (from the Red Hot Chili Peppers) was there to play with them, and the concert was free!  So, the auditorium was packed!  Now, I am not a big fan of jazz, and so I once the concert started, I leaned back to "rest my eyes" and listen to the music.  What actually happened was I started dreaming about ME 72!  I tried to focus on the music and think about happy things...but instead every time I started to drift off I would find myself either imagining I was in the shop working on a part, or out at Millikan Pond wondering at what angle the ramp needed to be so that our robot would be able to get out of the pond!  Nooooo!  Why?!?  I was supposed to be relaxing and enjoying the music, but instead I was subconsciously thinking about ME 72.

It has now gone too far.  ME 72 consumes my days and nights! 

Come on...you can do it!

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!