1/23/10

1/23/10 – The prototype for the kicker was built which demonstrated that rolling the ball over the bump was actually plausible. However, there were often other problems or cons to this design. As someone pointed out, rolling the ball could easily be obstructed and throw it off its designated course. Neil still wanted to calculate the force needed for the prototype kicked. They took known masses and lifted the kicker so the mass would pull on the kicked. They figured out the force using F=mg, or force equals mass * gravity. The mechanical team changed their design from being wide to being long. A wide chassis does not allow for too much height and the center of gravity has to be watched closely. It has to be very low to the ground for it to be able to go over the bump. The long chassis allows more mobility in height. For this we took apart part of last year's robot to reuse the c-channels to build the chassis.