Bop to the Top

 Dearest friends,

Wow! You will not believe the things that I did today. Let's start from the top. Just like every day, my team came in and started to work on me. Their goal for today was to get my hanging stuff working. But before they could work on anything, they needed to make a little bit more room. My space is so tight right now. They decided to move the lifting motors forward one inch to create the essential space they needed. This meant that my limit switch for the ball had to be moved. It is now above where the ball comes in, and it will stop it if it goes too far. Once everything was bolted in again and all of the wires were lined up, the girls could move on to my hanging mechanisms. For my tape measure, they worked on adjusting it. They made it a little bit shorter in some places and a little bit longer in others. A lot of the time was spent on mounting the Lego wheels and making sure they were perfect. Their angles need to be lined up just right in order for them to grip the tape measure well. Luckily, by the end of the day, everything was running smoothly. Some other girls spent the day testing out my lifting winch. They added in ropes and bolts to hold it all together. Then, the craziest thing happened. The girls lined up my hook, and the motors actually pulled me up! I was hanging! The team was so excited. Seeing me hang also brought up a concern with my hook. It wasn't stable enough, so the girls are working on a new one.

The programmers worked on a few different things today. They started working with some switches that will allow me to have more that one autonomous program. Before each match, the girls will think about what they want me to do. Then, they will put my switches in the correct order, and I will know which program to use. While the girls mounted and wired the switches, the programmers played with programming them. They also spent some time working with an issue that they discovered yesterday. For some reason, if Brother's camera gets unplugged, he stops working. They are doing research to figure out what's going on.

Brother's new frame got some pillow blocks for his wheels today. His wheels aren't in yet, but the girls are getting the frame ready so that when they come in, he can start up. Some girls also worked on my bumpers today!

I have one last piece of exciting news for today. The flag that will fly over my driver station is finished! It is so beautiful, and it makes me proud to be a part of my team. I can't wait for competitions!

XOXO
Robot