We’re still chugging away at getting the prototype climber built. Initial testing showed promise, but the geometry needs to be tweaked a little. The elevator and intake team has also finished mounting the elevator on our test chassis and will be installing the intake in the coming days. Once that’s done and tested, we’re going to prep material for manufacture. This year, we’re going to be a little more organized and prepare a “cut-list” of pieces so that multiple people can work on fabrication.
Meanwhile, while all that was happening, the software team was laughing manically. Not for any malicious reasons, but because they managed to get auto-docking working! We’ve been using a Limelight camera this season, and it has definitely made the vision aspect a lot easier. In addition to automatically docking with the hatch area, we’ve also implemented a method to automatically hunt down cargo and get it in the right position for intaking. This should greatly help with our ability to rapidly pick up and score game pieces.
Look ma, no hands!