At our previous meet up we hooked up our Cattle Feed trailer for the first time and tried to do the Hungry Cattle challenge. The number of times our trailer broke down and fell to pieces can’t be counted on your hand (it was six times so it could be counted on two hands). But we powered through and after each hiccup we rebuilt stronger and more optimal versions of the robot.
We also learned that if we were going to win this thing, we needed to get moving (If I were Colm I would have said moooooving but I'm not him thank goodness because he is OOOOOLD).
Today we decided to pick up things where we left off last time, and catch up on time. We needed to do Hungry Cattle TODAY if we were going to get everything done on time.
When doing the actual challenge we opted for the remote control as time was not on our hands. We planned on going back and doing it autonomously if we can, but time is not on our side. We only have time for one more meet up and that's going to have to be the obstacle course.
Our three biggest recurring problems in this challenge:
The grip of the wheels
The weight of the rice
Our dispensing mechanism.
While rice isn’t all that heavy, we have a large capacity in our trailer - I suppose anything is heavy when there's a lot of it.
Here's an example of our basic setup:
Solutions below (and we use the word "solutions" in the most tenuous sense)
1. The Wheels. We solved the wheel grip problem with something called Glove Glue. Charlie's brother is a goalkeeper and this stuff makes his gloves stickier so he can catch the ball (don't worry, it's totally legal). It made our wheels stick to the floor better, but nothing can help you power through a floor that's covered in rice.
To mitigate any problems for our puny little wheels we had a professional cleaner sweep up any rice spillage that would interfere, when the robot was back at the start point being refilled.
2. The Weight. Our fragile wee trolley wheels were buckling under the weight of the rice, but they were all we had. So after many wheel adjustments and adding extra trolley wheels to balance the rice perfectly. we got it pretty stable. The weight of the rice meant we build up a lot of momentum, which made steering much more difficult and causing the robot to slide around the place.
3. The Dispenser. Our trailer basically consists of a box to hold the rice and a chute at the bottom that opens and closes with a motor and of course the wheels. We had two different buttons for opening the chute and closing it. There were two problems with this design. Sometimes rice got jammed in the gears, making the motor have to struggle to close the gate. When it did close it, rice went everywhere.
Also, there were no limits programmed into the gate, so pressing the close button for too long caused the flap to break off spilling rice everywhere and making the trailer implode.
I don’t like to brag or boast but filling the rice and emptying the troughs was done by me and I was quite good at it. I was like this guy but with rice.
THAT'S ONE VIDEO IN THE BAG!
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