March 2nd: Robotics Meeting

Today was alright.

Today I focused on trying to get the beam break sensor working while others worked on the tower, intake, and our algae cannon. While we should have a robot already, we keep iterating and working hard, still in the early stages of our robot. I hope we don't have to stay too late.

For the beam break sensor, we wired it using the step down module. While this worked, it was delayed and wasn't a good solution since the step down module is used for powering electronics. We also had a prospective mentor come in to help us, and helped us notice that the pins were always held high on the DIO of the roboRIO.

Next, we tried using a MOSFET, which basically acts as a gate that opens when a signal is received. The primary problem was that we had to put a 5V signal into the roborio DIO when the 12V signal was held high, which was when the sensor was engaged. While the MOSFET worked on the multi meter, it didn't do anything when connected to the roboRIO. We'll have to keep trying tomorrow!

In the latter half of the day, the seniors colluded to initialize our senior meeting to help improve and dictate the next year. We begun many discussions but we still have a lot to decide on.

Thank you Julio's family for serving delicious tacos and quesadillas for lunch! It was very yummy and I was sort of craving tacos.

Congratulations, Daniel L, for winning 2nd place in your debate tournament!

Thanks for reading,
Issac