Final Week Until Competition

The last week of school is on the horizon and with that our completed assembly. Thecompletion of our project was to a great relief as hours and weekends were spent to complete this for the slot b0t competition. We did however come across many bumps within this past week. One of them had to do with the drop bar. As we tested it on the tables found in the machine shop, we noticed that the tables were not designed equally. In particular, the slots of the tables were not the same. one was measured to be 2.33 inches wide, while the other was found to be around 2.4 inches. The reason forthis major difference was blamed on the warping of the plexiglass. Due to this warp, the slot was smaller than it was previously designed. This big difference affected how the slot jammeroperated in the slots. With a smaller space, it was difficult to install the slot jammer within the 2.33" wide slot. However, our slot jammer operated easily within the 2.4" wide slot. After talking to the instructors and GSIs, we were told to modify our design to fit the natural variation seen in any design. Therefore we came to the solution to cut the entire slot jammer in half and weld it together in order to make the widthsmaller.

Another problem that we came across had to do with our track wheels. With the enormous amount of torque that our double gearbox produced, the shaft filed down the inside of the wheels and were unable to grip onto the shaft. We came to a solution that involved clamps, in order to deform the plastic onto the shaft.

Even with all of these set backs, the assembly fit together, and we were able to have a completed assembly. A net was constructed to contain balls within the hopper as the flipper motor was observed to be powerful enough to flip the balls over the hopper.