Mercury _ Pluto

2019-2020

Result:

**Captain: **Sarah Brown
**Vice Captain: **
**Mechanical Lead: **
**Electrical Lead: **
**Software Lead: **

Challenge Summary

Successes

Failures

Things we learned

2018-19

**Result: ** 2nd highest scoring (but due to robot wiring, did not start during assigned time and did not place)

Captain: Kevin Robb and Tyler Julian
**Mechanical Lead: **Dalton Newport
**Electrical Lead: ** Sarah Brown
**Software Lead: ** Noah Zemlin

Challenge Summary
The robot had to navigate a course while being controlled from at least 50 miles away. Throughout the course the robot had to pick up a ball, navigate with it completely under control, go through a tunnel, load the ball, shoot the ball, navigate through a slalom, and complete a sprint.

Successes

We had very low lag on video stream, our shooter was consistent and worked really well, and the scoop that was redesigned in last week before competition worked and kept the ball stable while moving.

Failures

Our team built a driving robot within the first semester, but after that progress slowed down. During the beginning of Spring semester all of our 3d printers broke and instead of prototyping with wood or finding another workaround our progress halted until we could 3d print again. This resulted in last week changes to prints and electronics. We tried to modularize parts and this worked well until time to integrate the different sections.

The failure that doomed an almost winning robot was not properly diagnosing a wiring issue and when it seemed to be fixed we ignored it. This issue occurred because our wiring got squished in the bottom chassis and the wires connecting the motor controllers together frayed and eventually snapped.

Things we learned

• No magical solutions. If you don't know what caused the issue, the issue is not fixed
• Keep iterating designs and prototype with wood before even touching 3d printers
  • Just because a design works does not mean it is the best design
  • Iterated shooter and that worked really well
    • Didn't iterate drivetrain and that could have been better
• Leave room for electronics
• Don't use treads with a camera based system as it will bounce the camera feed whenever the robot moves
• Modularization is good, just make sure you know how to integrate it all in the end

2017-2018

Result:

**Captain: **
**Vice Captain: **
**Mechanical Lead: **
**Electrical Lead: **
**Software Lead: **

Challenge Summary

Successes

Failures

Things we learned