Today was a testing day. One of the most notable testing experiences of the day was testing if CLOEE could climb a steep incline. The building team built us a ramp that was 30 degrees to test her ability to climb hills. At first the team thought CLOEE was having issues climbing up the incline. The first test she almost flipped over.
We continued to test CLOEE on the ramp and then moved onto nearby hills. She was able to climb small hills at about 15 degrees, but the fact still remained that she could not climb the ramp. Luckily, Ms.C came to our rescue. After running errands out of town for most of the day, she returned to our apparent failure and checked our facts. She quickly realized that we did not have to climb a 30 degree incline but an incline with a 33% grade, which is closer to a 18.26 degree incline.
In addition, we tested outside in the sand pit and in the rock yard. CLOEE did very well in the sandpit, despite having problems with communications, cameras, and general latency. These problems caused some long moments of pause that could negatively affect our time during the competition. At the beginning of class, CLOEE had problems with her Qotom minicomputer. These problem was quickly resolved and CLOEE was sent back to testing.
The team has also been developing an arm run by potentiometers to provide an easier alternative to controlling the arm. The prototype for this is near completion and looking promising.
Trinidad State Robotics 