As a team we have spent a lot of this week collaborating on the Design Review Presentation and searching for essential components (Oak-D Camera, motor board, Raspberry Pi) for our launcher. Our biggest risk we think this week after more design is the tilt adjustment. We realized that adjusting the vertical angles ties to our stretch goals of launching different curves/launches. To mitigate this, the vertical tilting is now a stretch goal and the launcher will stay at a constant 45 degree angle for now. To adjust distance we will instead adjust the power, RPM, and torque of the motor. Because 45º is the optimal angle, at max motor power, it will get us our max distance, and if we want to shoot closer we can decrease the parameters of the motors. This overall is a minimal design change, and if anything it simplifies our design. If we in the future want to add the tilt back in, it will not be a major change: just implementing a rack and pinion mechanism.
We are still on track with our schedule, so no changes have occurred.
Below is a still WIP but more complete CAD diagram of what our launcher is now like. Some of the parts are to scale placeholders for our actual parts(motors, rollers, etc.)
