Final Team Da Fever Documentation

*If you are interested in looking at the final bill of materials, please click on the picture of the grid and it should come up*

Our final machine was much different than anything we had first conceived. Origianlly we had a set of chopstick-like arms that were deployed, wrapped around a column of balls and then lifted back into the cart or over the center divider

We quickly realized that it would be really difficult to get the arms to only wrap around the balls without getting caught on the walls. We also weren't sure how to make sure that the arms would go around the squash balls without getting stuck.
Then we created a power screw wedge (much like the design today) that would screw down into the balls and supposedly provide enough downward force to push past the squash balls.

The arm was housed in a cart so that we could move the arm around within the arena depending on how the opponent played. We also had to make variations to the arm, like attaching a delrin plate to the wedge to fill up the whole slot and not allow balls to move past the wedge. It was also found that brackets would have to be attached to the threaded rod so that the arm wouldn't fall off the rail.

Towards the end of the manufacturing time, it became obvious to us that we had to do a few more tweaks to the design to allow for more gear ratios within the motor, a bigger slot within the base of the cart to allow for the descending arm, and a reinforced chassis on the underside of the cart to reduce bending and warping of the wood due to motor torque.

The final machine had two individual front axles to allow for the lowering and raising of the arm. The cart had a wood base with a slot cut out of the middle for the arm. The cart itself was large enough to take up the whole arena, it was used as a defense mechanism in case there were projected balls. For the back axle, there was a motor attached to allow for movement. The motor to move the arm up and down was housed in the back. The motor to move the wedge up and down within the rail was housed on top of a plate, which moved with the rail up and down. The rail was used to keep the wedge in the arena and provided resistance against the wedge so that it could be used as a power screw.

Our machine wasn't very successful in the final competition, but I believe a part of it was due to a loose motor, one that had been loosened during the grading portion the night before, as well as some other loose screws and failing parts after the grading. It was also due to the fact that we needed to have a motor with less torque but much faster than the competition.