Today, we were working on our cars and websites once again. I, along with Hunter, set up the ramp that the cars would be going down and tested our cars. My car had a groove running down the length of the underside that I had added as a bit of a design element, and it worked really well as an iron sight of sorts to align my car with the ramp. When I got home, i was able to make the templates for a mechanical hand that I wanted to add onto the robot costume that Ian wore last year. In addition, I was told that there would be no uniform wear this week for ROTC. which meant that I would have more time to work on the robot costume arms.
Today, I started working on the idea that I had last Thursday for FRC robot costume. I wanted to make working hands, and improve on the feet of the robot, to make it easier for the wearer to interact with the environment. After making a simple sketchup of the layout of the hand, I started cutting pieces out of foamcore during 5th period and the FRC meeting. I printed a couple of copies of the template, and then used them to size out the pieces. The hand would work much like a marionette, in that pulling strings at the bottom of the hand would make the fingers move.
Today, we had a Wednesday Challenge, the object of which was to improve on the handout that our group had come up with in the previous Wednesday Challenge. Since we were the winning group of the initial FRC handout Wednesday Challenge, Connor, Erin, Keilah and I werer the judges this time around. While the various groups got to work, I worked on continuing to cut out pieces for the FRC robot costume hand. After the groups finished working, they presented their ideas to us much like what everyone did in the previous Wednesday Challenge. We got through most of the presentations, but we were just barely out of time, so we will have to haver more presentations tommorow.
Wednesday Challenge 4: FRC Handouts Part 2Today, we finished listening to the presentations for the improved handouts. After listening to the rest of the presentations, we had time to deliberate on what the best idea was to improve our handouts, and to start refining the handout design ourselves. By the end of the period, we decided that the winner was the group that had a beyblade-esque design, but since there wasn't enough time, we couldn't anounce the winners today.. During today's FRC meeting, I had brought some 1/2" wooden plank, and I cut some palm shapes with a jigsaw for the robot costume hand. Afterwards, I worked on finishing the individual fingers of the robot costume hand.
Today, we started the period by announcing the winner of the Wednesday Challenge, which was the beyblade-esque design. Afterwards, I worked on my robot costume hand some more. I finished making the individual fingers, and then glued a piece of styrene to the backs of each finger to give it a more refined look. After glueing on the styrene, I attatched a single finger onto the right palm piece, and managed to make the finger move just how I had envisionedi it. During today's FRC meeting, I continued to add fingers to the hand, ending the day with 3 fingers on the right side palm piece. I was able to play rock paper scissors, pick up various objects, and make some creative hand gestures in good spirit.