Initial Drawings
The drawings on the left represent the very first design ideas that we came up with during the Fall 2012 Semester. There were many other sketches, but many were discarded due to our dissatisfaction with the design features.
Design Comparisons & Choice
Towards the end of the Fall 2012 Semester, we compared the different features of the two designs shown below. Ultimately, it was design 2 that turned out to work better for our project. It had higher speed and was able to pick up and store items much faster than design 1 - this was a huge deal due to the fact that the competition we are in allocates a ton of points towards the speed of completion. We had to make some trade-offs in terms of traction and cost, but design 2 proved to be much better. It also had a slightly simpler software setup - once again this is important considering that complicated software leads to tougher troubleshooting and therefore more time wasted building the actual robot.
Building & Testing
When we started the Spring 2013 Semester, we began working two-three times a week and were focused strictly on building and improving our model. We had some challenges with missing parts, but overall the process has been going well. We are using an Xbox 360 controller instead of the initially planned PS3 controlled - it proved to be simpler and there already was a software diagram template online. All of our components are working correctly; now it's just a matter of making sure everything works well together and fine tuning the rest of the software/hardware. Our final design drawing is shown below. It is followed by actual pictures of the robot