This week, after spending many hours 3d-modeling, we managed to complete the robot’s frame design! The picture below on the left is the top part of the frame with brackets to support the motors and on the right a new and improved bottom frame is being printed.
When these two frames are put together, this is the result:
The fully assembled frame looks more like a skeleton, this is because we optimize our designs to be as lightweight as possible. This is important because our robot may only weigh 1100 grams in total.
Not only our CAD designers have had their hands full this week. The builders have made a lot of progress on the bottom pcb’s. In the bottom left picture you can see neopixels and tiny capacitors soldered onto the board. These little components are responsible for emitting light so that the robot can see the lines on the field. Now that our bottom PCB is almost done, we have to get started with our top PCB. The CAD designers are currently busy with creating the schematics and will soon move on to designing the PCB. After much preparation our robot is finally starting to take form!
Apart from the traditional roles of robotics each team member also focuses on designing products for promotion, education and building our website. In preparation for an open day at our school, our graphic designers have designed a roll-up banner and stickers so that we can promote our team to the public.