Mrs. Naughton returned from vacation and continued the project effort for half the team while the other half worked on their missions. They brainstormed about what specifically can be improved at Highlands and what recommendations we might make. The groups switched half way through the meeting.
Mr. Emge's engineering secret was "Don't Believe in Magic". When things don't happen like you expect, there is a reason why and you can figure it out. We discussed how we can use critical thinking, experiment and ask others to help us think it through and solve the mystery.
Mr. Emge and Michael segued directly to a repeatability problem when deploying the solar satellite. After some close observation it was determined that the robot was losing traction. Michael lowered the power level and it became more repeatable. They further analyzed the problem and found poor weight distribution.
During the meeting summary, Joey demonstrated his rack and pinion front-steer robot design concept. The team discussed the pros and cons of the two types of steering and as a group agreed that they would like to keep the differential steering mechanism of tri-bot. The robot traction problem was also discussed. Mr. Emge presented the issue with front-wheel drive vehicles and their weight transfer during acceleration. The team suggested re-designing the robot for better traction and that is the goal for the next meeting.
As we discussed the re-design, Michael had a very good question, "why did we build this robot if it doesn't work well"? The answer, that they didn't know then what they know now, really shows how far they've come in understanding what is important for their robot. The coaches are extremely proud of the progress they've made in the missions.
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