Today was our third day of robotics training in Eilat. After a very intensive building process, the construction of the robot was completed this afternoon. Tonight, the students from Goldwater and CHAT had a chance to go on a cruise which departed from the Eilat harbour. We chatted, relaxed and had a nice Israeli style dinner. There was also a beautiful view of the lit Boardwalk and Jordanian mountains in the distance. Tonight I am beginning to realize how amazing it has been to get a chance to meet the Goldwater students throughout the trip. There are few programs where Israeli and Canadian students of the same age can spend time together and get to know each other well. This experience has made the trip amazing.
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Tuesday was a day filled with a lot of struggles and hard work but in the end, it was very rewarding. We started the day off with a few parts assembled but no mechanism was fully put together and nothing was mounted to the chassis. Once we arrived at Ben Gurion University in the morning, we knew we had a lot of work to do and immediately got started. First, our team finished up the retrieving mechanism by screwing on the final parts and then we mounted it on to the chassis. Next we began working on the launch mechanism, which was the most essential part of our robot. When we began building it we were very worried that we would be unable to finish in time however, we all worked hard and efficiently and managed to finish the whole mechanism in 3 hours. We then had 3 hours to mount everything on to the main chassis. As a team, we accomplished this very quickly and had our robot up and running with time to spare. Then, we began to test the robot and encountered a couple problems, the biggest of which was that we had sharp edges sticking out which led to the ball popping every time it passed through the robot. Luckily, the solution to this was very easy and all we needed to do was cover the sharp edges in duct tape in order to prevent the ball from pooping. Once we fixed those problems our robot was finally finished and we were able to go the boat cruise!
After a good night's rest knowing the robots awaited our return to the Eilat BGU campus, we headed to the campus for the second day of the big build. With the final competition fast approaching, each team got to work, completing the chassis in the first half of the day, and beginning with the actual development of the rest of the bot in the afternoon. Each team worked hard for the remainder of the day, using power tools such as the jigsaw, handheld circular saw, and various drills to piece together the final parts of the robot's physical components. While the "mechanics" built the physical robot, the programming team began to program the robot to take commands from the controller to be used in the competition. By the end of the day (22:15), each team had reached about the same point in the build, with most physical components assembled, electrical components mounted, and programs written. Overall, today was a very physically and mentally demanding, but interesting and educational day.
Today, both teams continued working hard on their robots for the Falafel FRC Challenge. Team A's main task for the day was to finish constructing their shooting mechanism, and to mount their ball-storage system to the chasis. Team B's was to finish their shooting mechanism, and construct their ball transfer mechanism that connects the storage component to the shooting component. Both teams worked from 8:20 this morning until 6:30 this evening, with only a short lunch break. By the end of our workday, both teams had exceeded expectations and had each build a remote controlled robot that stores four balls, and then transfers them to a shooting mechanism to be shot into a net. At the same time, a few members from each team worked on a poster and presentation of our project. Overall, it was a very fun and productive day at Ben Gurion University.
By Ben Eisen |
AuthorThis blog is written by the grade 10, 11, and 12 students from TCK and TCW who are on the ISRAEL MINI-MESTER EXPERIENCE TRIP focusing on Robotics in Israel. ArchivesCategories |