| In a lot of ways, manufacturing the final product was the most challenging part of the entire process. It's easy to forget that the design that works perfectly on paper has to be made of actual parts which have a thickness you never accounted for, that need to be connected with bolts you never left room for, and of course the fact that nothing is ever going to work exactly the way that you planned. Towards the end of the semester, my friend Adelaide and I dragged all of our junk (the kit of parts, our drills and batteries, plus our robots) over to the FIRST team's shop in Builing E60 and had a marathon robot-building session. Here's Adelaide as she puts some finishing touches on her machine. |  |
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I was a little bit farther behind. I had serious motor issues throughout the entire term. The problem seemed simple enough- there were two different sets of motors. At the beginning of the semester we were told to examine our parts and figure out which motors we had, which would determine which set of instructions to use. I must have gotten it wrong right from the beginning, and then used some weird hybrid of the instructions anyway, because I could never figure out what was wrong with my motors. It was an epic struggle. Here's a picture of me intensley examining the output shaft, trying to figure out how many washers I need for this particular motor. |
| I spent several hours that day alone taking apart and putting back together those motors. It became a joke that whenever Adelaide touched them, they would work, but whenever I touched them they would break again. Finally I manage to assemble a full collection of motors in good enough condition that I moved on to other things. (If I never have to see the inside of one of those things again, I'll be very happy.) |
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 An impessive collection of random, non-assembled parts |
 I try to make sure things will fit before I start drilling holes everywhere. |
 Orange! |
 Now things start to take shape... |
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 Okay, how cool is that? |
 Some finishing touches... |
 I'm really proud of my awesome battery holder. |
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