TODO (unsorted)

• Figure out how motors will fit together
• Finish designing robot
• Figure out how to move the arms up and down with one motor (as well as opening and closing them)
• Improve design of arm (once we figure out the lift part of it, that should guide the design of the arm)
• Decide what kinds of sensors we'll need to make our robot autonomous

Description
This robot will be an entrant into the Jerry Sanders Creative Design Competition. The official rules of the competition can be found at http://dc.ec.uiuc.edu/ . Currently, we are designing a platform.

2008-10-14
This week, we did a few mock up designs in inventor for the base of the robot. See attachments sanders001.ipt and sanders002.ipt.

2008-10-28
Discussed and made rough sketch of design for arm. The idea is to have two arms to "hug" the balloons. The arms will be attached to the rest of the robot via posts that can move up and down so that we can lift the balloons into the boxes (kind of like a forklift, but much more awesomer). We also discussed how we would position the motors and how the arm would move up and down.

2008-11-4
Discussed more about the arm and sketched up an approximate location of the posts that will raise the arm and approximate locations for floor sensors. The idea for the arm is still a forklift-like design. Right now, we are talking about having one motor to move both posts up and down, and one motor to rotate both arms, since both sides will need to move simultaneously anyways. We also discussed, on the autonomous side of things, placing sensors on the course for locating balloons and goal boxes. We need to figure out how to deal with the different levels on the course (i.e. if the robot tries to go to the corner on the upper level from the lower level, how does the robot know that it needs to go up a ramp?). Possibilities include having a sensors to mark the locations of the ramps and telling the robot that it has to go up/down the ramp first. We may also need sensors for triangulating the robot's position (i.e. so that we know where it is so we can tell it where to go).

2008-12-9
Today we worked on the mechanism for the post that will rotate and move the arm up and down (see armpost001.ipt). A motor will sit on the disk to move the center post up and down (which will be toothed) and another motor will rotate the disk itself (which will have teeth on the outside). The post is notched with the disk so that they will rotate together, but so that the post can still move up and down. We will try to get more of the design hammered out over winter break.

2009-02-10
Kevin did some more designs in the last week and we went over them today. See attached zip file <jerry_sanders_2009_02_10.rar> for all the up to date parts.

2009-02-17
Today we looked into what parts we need to be ordering. A list of what we looked at, and some ideas follow.

• Original Dustin Motor 1-High Torque x4 = $1100 <http://www.robotmarketplace.com/products/DCWD-D03.html>
• Battlekit - Heavyweight (middle weight?) combat robot kit x2 = $3198 <http://www.robotmarketplace.com/products/MAG-BKT220.html>
• Keyed shaft and disk (gear) for arm
• some sort of assembly for the arm
• we had an idea of using rubberized wheels to move the arm shaft up and down (think hot wheels)
• robotmarketplace.com seems to be a good resource, but some of the stuff may be available elsewhere for cheaper.

By next week, we will need to know what we are buying so we can submit a SORF Request. Our assignments for the intervening week is to do the necessary research to figure this stuff out.

Expenses

Item Description	Purpose	Number of Items	Cost per Item	Total Cost	Total Request	Additional Comments
Robotic Platform	This platform will serve as a base for a robot we are building	1	$1900	$1900	$1425	The robot we are building will serve as our entrant into the Jerry Sanders Creative Design Competition <http://dc.ec.uiuc.edu>. This cost includes shipping and handling. <http://www.robotmarketplace.com/products/MAG-BKT120.html>
Linear Actuators	Used for powering the arm of the robot	3	$80	$240	$180	These will be part of the robot we are building for the Jerry Sanders Creative Design Competition <http://dc.ec.uiuc.edu>. <http://www.firgelliauto.com/product_info.php?cPath=110&products_id=130&osCsid=299f8b0027ef831dc2818727c69766d5>
IFI Victor 883 Speed Controllers	Used for controlling motors	10	$150	$1500	$1125	These will be used on the robot for the Jerry Sanders Creative Design Competition <http://dc.ec.uiuc.edu>. <http://www.robotmarketplace.com/products/IFI-V883.html>
IFI 36 Inch PWM Cable	Used for connecting the speed controllers to the main control board	10	$5	$50	$37.50	These will be used in the robot for the Jerry Sanders Creative Design competition <http://dc.ec.uiuc.edu>. <http://www.robotmarketplace.com/products/IFIW-PWM36.html>

Total

Cost: $3690

Request: $2767.50