The halfway mark of the build season has arrived. The chassis is driveable, the final prototype for the arm has been built and programmed for running both the chassis and arm have been designed and implemented. The team is ready to really put their noses to the grindstone to finish off the robot in the next few weeks. Back in the fall season, team members built a practice chassis to hone their skills and techniques and train new team members. This practice has paid off since the team was able to successfully implement the mandatory wheels into a functional chassis extremely quickly. The fast progress enabled the programming team to write up a drive control system and the team can now practice driving and test out strategies. Meanwhile, this year's game requires a ball launcher/manipulator that is being developed by the team. The past weeks have been spent prototyping and brainstorming for this integral and diverse function. The team has settled on a design that incorporates rollers to pick-up and propel a ball through the turret on top of the robot, which has a 360-degree radius of firing (It can fire in every direction). A final prototype for this idea has been built. The programming team has also developed a colour sensitive camera that can lock on to other team's robots trailers ensuring much greater accuracy for the turret.
The marketing team has been writing newsletters and a letter to the editor was published in the local paper, The Oakville Beaver. We have been overjoyed by the community response to both article and letter and would like to thank Lapp Canada and the Optimist Club of Oakville for their contributions in these difficult economic times.
