Team+5

Daily Log 2/25 We finished all of the exercises through Switch Exercise. We have this cool contraption holding both the touch and light sensors on the front of our robot. Tomorrow we will finish the Switch Exercise and start working on the Golf Ball Challenge.

Daily Log 2/26 We finished the exercises and began working on our Golf Ball Delivery challenge.

Daily Log 2/27 We have successfully tested our original hawk's claw design, and it masterfully holds and carries the ball as the rest of the robot moves. We have been tweaking the movement part of the challenge, accommodating to the massive length of our robot and the miniscule desk space allowed, by using spins to turn instead of pivots. We will test the full challenge with our tweaks tomorrow.

Daily Log 2/28 We tried to add another touch sensor in order to prevent a sort of "middle-hitting" syndrome, but this only intensified the issue. Because it will be pushing against a flat brick, the touch sensor should work. We did trial #1 and were embarrassed that we had forgotten to adjust the "hawks' claw" from the height when we were using two sensors.

Daily Log 3/1 We balanced out or robot and made the claw more stable. We did away with the second sensor due to complications in the structure of the robot, and moved the hawk's claw further to the side to allow us to move the robot closer into the desk when we run the trial, giving it smaller risk of falling off the table.

Daily Log 3/6 We have been having trouble with the "hawk's claw" talons colliding with one another as it attempts to grab the ball. We have sacrificed our robot's structural integrity for functionality. Hopefully we do not regret this. We also added 2 wheels on the back as a sort of decoration and counterbalance. Again, structural integrity was not a priority. We added an additional section to the code at the end where the claw rapidly opens and closes, with our goal being to push the ball into the goal using the claw. Daily Log 3/7 We successfully tested the new design, with the ball being delivered perfectly into the box. Subsequent attempts did not work as well, and when we attempted trial 3, we made every part except for the final ball delivery. We continued to test different methods but none worked better than the other. We are happy with where we are currently and will make a last ditch effort to complete it tomorrow.

Daily Log 3/8 The robot was tested and worked successfully, and was prepped for the fourth and final trial. The video of the trial is below. The robot did not respond to the touch command and kept moving, pushing the brick and golf ball off the edge of the table. The test was aborted. media type="file" key="MVI_1313[1].AVI" width="300" height="300"

The traditional hawk's claw, much like the wild hawk it is modeled after, soared gracefully, high above the competition, before crashing and burning like a shuttle returning from orbit. It's poetic, really.