The Freshmen were back coding this week and working on the electronics guides. They are moving swiftly through the guides, which shows they have a good appetite for the work. We love to see that!
Sophomore Sumobots continue to progress towards working models. Most teams have a chassis, wheels, caster, and electronics platform in place. Next step for the teams is to test the sensors and motors. We should be seeing some of that testing happening next week.
Senior Grace Kallberg is working on a gripper redesign for the Robotics Team’s underwater rover. While her design last year was already incredible, she is working on making the new gripper even better. She writes on her blog;
This week I researched seals for the gripper. Last year, I had a few problems waterproofing it. The biggest problem was that I used a seal that only worked one way for a part that moved two ways. I found a seal that should work a lot better to use as a replacement for that upper seal. Another problem I had was that the seal was difficult to fit exactly into the casing. This year, if I can’t get a sufficient press fit, I might try curing resin around the seal to hold it in place. I also had a hard time holding the lower seal in place last year. I looked into different types of rotational seals, but have not found a great replacement yet. On Wednesday, I took a break to solder some metro-mini’s for the shop. On Thursday, I was not in school because I was sick. Today I am going to find a seal to replace the old lower seal and begin to edit the gripper CAD to include the new seals
Read more on her blog here.
Junior Isaiah Bell is working on creating a lighting effect for the steel Engineering logo located on the wall outside our shop. He is currently coding an LED strip, and discusses the process on his blog:
This week I was reworking my code for the LEDs on the longer strip. The problem kept uprising how different the code looked on the short neopixel to the longer strip and it was certainly becoming problematic. The next thing that I need to work on is having a material for the platform of the LEDs. I found a plastic acrylic that is flexible enough to bend around the sign and still provide a sturdy plane to hold it as well. The continuation of this project is going to be simplified as I try to progress quicker because I do want to have an array of projects to look back upon. On the other hand, I cannot rush anything else. If you scroll down, you will see a gallery of photos that I took for this week.
More photos of his project can be found on his blog here.
MVTHS Engineering 
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