Final team documentation

In the end, our machine ended up working pretty well and as planned. During testing, we ran into a few issues such as the release of our ramp not working and the conveyor hooks getting caught up in certain areas, but we were able to curb these problems and get the machine running pretty smoothly. Once we had all the electrical connections figured out and figured out our in-game strategy, we became pretty confident that our machine would work well.

The main issue we had was the release of the ramp. Originally, we had planned on using a pin that would go through the pieces of the ramp and would be pulled out by a string wound around the conveyor belt’s drive axle. We figured out this would be difficult to do because of the angle between the axle and the ramp. So, we decided to use the magnets. Since our ramp was made using the 1/16” steel plate, we could use a magnet to hold the ramp up and then pull it off with a string wound around the conveyor’s axle, which would then release the ramp down into the slot.

In competition, we ended up modifying our initial in-game strategy. Originally, we were going to simply stay towards the back of our side of the arena, pick up balls, deploy the ramp, and just pick up as many balls as we could. In testing, it was found that picking up balls was a relatively slow process, so we needed something new. Zach came up with the idea of using the conveyor belt itself to basically just push balls over to the other side. He would lower the conveyor into the balls and drive the car forward, pushing many balls at one time. The strategy worked well, and we defeated our first opponent, but our second opponent (Sei Jin’s Army) was quicker to the jump than us, and they overtook us in the second round.

Our Final bill of materials link : http://bit.ly/6skKi2