forgor about like an hour ish of work from lapse lol
this was from the day before provs where i just fixed shit idk
including reducing friction on the hood (it was squeaking as you moved it because metal was rubbing on metal lol), fixing the matchloader (it was cracked and then proceeded to get cracked again at provs :[ ), and then just testing the intake over and over a bunch til it didnt get stuck anywhere anymore
also cuz of doing this we missed a bus and got to provincials 30min late 💀
oh yea also changed the positioning of the piston to giv more leverage when putting down the matchloader so it would actually fuckin work and changed the plastic’s shape to allow the edge of the tube to slide into the right spot yk
i also actually dont have any images of this (kinda left in a rush) so ima just take some screenshots of the timelapse

ok provincials just ended and we 9th out of ~70 in our province (we were first for a lil while tho during lunch before we lost a couple matches lol)
got eliminated at quarterfinals but had fun :p
anyway since the last devlog i made a bunch of different auto paths… only a couple work and they barely work 😭
ill add more images and videos and shit later but heres a ss of our performance at the end of provs and

okay so basically this is like 90% just doing autonomous coding
im stupid i think cuz this is taking WAY too long but erm it liek kinda works now idk
ignore the people in the background and my teammates and me saying stupid fucking robot in the background pls thx

ok so i forgot to devlog.. my bad
basically what i did:

• tried to make the triple state work better for quite a couple hours (spoiler: it sucks and doesnt work)
• decided to scrap the triple state mech (woo i wasted so much damn time!) but kept the bottom part so i can still score middle goal… but the plan is to just make the hood AND the bottom move so it doesnt need two pistons taped together or whatever lol
• before i could start doing much i fixed the drivetrain cuz somehow it started falling apart after some use 😭 so that took an hour or two (the axle was rubbing on the aluminum so hard it drilled out a hole LOL) (also added an IMU at this time for better tracking during autos)
• then basically removed everything of the last stage of the intake
• i then left it like that cuz i had no clue what to do next :p instead i changed the rubber banding on the intake to be less aggressive, changed how the wing was mounted cuz it was lowk really flimsy and kept moving which made it impossible to use, moved the air tank to the back so theres more space in the middleish of the bot and lowered the aligner so it basically hits the ground (lol) and helps us not tip
• then i decided the BEST idea EVER would be to chain the entire intake together and put both the motors behind the brain with a long ass chain for center of gravity or something… (spoiler THIS SUCKED SO BAD IT HAS LIKE 5x MORE FRICTION AND JUST KEPT GETTING STUCK)
• also created a hood for the last stage that just flopped there and had nothing powered but it helped w compression and keeping the blocks in so its good ig
• erm i also added some string attached to a piston with a bunch of spacers to stop the blocks at the end when u want to hoard them and not score but it worked SO BAD
• after this i also added some mesh onto the second roller of the intake because blocks kept getting stuck on it and breaking the bands of the roller… but it didnt help lol
  prolly more i dont remember

basically made that four bar thingy that i kept yapping abt ykwim
also started doing the actual code for the robot while simultaneously learning rust and vexide because i want to be special and not use pros like literally everyone else who codes for vex bots lmfao
anyway the four bar doesnt really work very well, tuning it is still wip
oh yea and also worked on mouting wing better + making alginer for wing and fixed matchloader cuz it was slightly too high so it kinda fucked up every other time we used it

i forgot a couple things in the last one
u have to reverse the direction of the top set of flex wheels :p i didd that with a couple 24t gears
also shifted everything around a bit to make it do the hoard thingy better and have less chances of jamming + actually fit
and also that flex wheel on the bottom that is clipping w the axle is gonna be cut suuper small so it wont actually hit trust
im just not bouta do all that

cadded this less shitty midgoal mech
its not like fully fleshed out in cad but ima build it irl tmrw
anyway its just like a four bar lift on the last stage of the intake that has 3 states
u cant really see it in the vid cuz it just goes smoothly but the two pistons can be in one of 3 states
1:

• both pistons retracted
• all the way down at the end
• scores on mid goal
  2:
• one piston up, one down.
• in like a straight line from where the ball comes in
• scores on long goal
  3:
• both pistons extended
• the end is like straight up lmao
• balls cant leave, this is just for hoarding balls
• the flexwheels make them spin at the end so they don just get stuck

btw i actually spent like 2hr 30min on this i just had to use a lil time for the other devlog

jan 4th

(this devlog is for the last devlog’s time but uhh i reached char limit there so i just did 15min of cad and im gonna make this devlog seperate)

i 3d printed those sleds i made for the sides and they work :sickbro: but 3d printed parts arent allowed so this is just temp and iw ill fix them later when i have access to a cnc or cutters cuz i aint tryna do what i did yesterday again and etch out that poly
anyway after that i spent quite a while tryna tune the later part of the intake cuz when we have ~6-7 (not a joke) balls in the intake it begins to jam and get stuck
took off 2 of the flexwheels from the hood and it seems to work but scoring has less power, so ima prolly redesign the top of the intake
also did a bunch of other tweaks like rubberbands in certain places to ensure theres correct compression everywhere and balls dont do smth that makes them get stuck
oh and also i told my teammate to take off the entire midgoal thingy he did cuz it lowk sucked 😭 i redesigned it w the help of another teammate and it works better although its still JANK asf soooo thats maybe getting changed
anyway its more of a trapdoor now and it doesnt get balls stuck and stall the motors when u try and have like 6 balls in the intake anymore
also shortened the wing (bcuz it was out of size limit) and changed the mounting but the way i did it kinda sucked and we prolyl gonna make it even shorter + work on the mounting a bit more too

btw dont min d the yappening at the end of the videop

i realized i can track building time using lapse so i did that
uhh we worked on the robot for a total of like 10hrs but lapse was being buggy so only tracked 6

5hr on dec 26
5hr on jan 4th

dec 26

on dec 26 i worked on making those side pieces that i cadded last devlog
but erm i kinda completely forgot that its out of size which i realized while i was there after i had 3d printed the pieces as a test
so instead i painstakingly etched out a better thingy in polycarbonate using an exactoknife and used pliers to snap off the bits that were on the outside which was annoying asf but wtv
and anyway that actually works well asf cuz we also have a rubberband on the top that makes them tilt inward and basically funnel the blocks to the center and down into the roller
its also only 1 piece per side instead of two now cuz instead of making it go all the way across i just bridged the gap with some 1 wide plate which is jank but like it works fine and helps out in not going over the plastic limit so i take that
i also helped my teammate with the pneumatics for the mid goal mechanism he made ( i didnt actually make the thingy i just helped with the pneumatics :p )
also realized that one of our solenoids is broken :pf: but its ok we can just steal from the wing
btw for context the mid goal mech is the thingy that has 2 pistons connected to a standoff. it just pulls it down and then balls can go down there and go into the goals that are lower down
we realized this was dogshit and changed it later

btw all the attached images are from dec 26

i pushed jan 4 to another devlog cuz this one reached char limit

made this piece that is gna hold on the mesh and make sure blocks dont fall out the sides
we tried fixing this with other thingys before but they all were dogshi so ig we gotta use four whole pieces of plastic for ts
anyway i swear it took so long cuz i had to make sure it wasnt too tight on the mesh and it didnt interfere with any of the rest of the bot and everything 🙏

i made some gussets and skirts for the CAD
gonna 3d print them and put them on the bot tmrw prolly
dont judge how long it took me lmfao
i swear its more complicated than sketch -> extrude u have to make sure its within specs for vex and i also had to look at some other ppl’s work for reference yk