2021-01-05 Meeting Minutes - First Meeting of Term

Owned by Ethan Cronier
Last updated: Aug 24, 2021
3 min read

Welcome to 2021!

  • I hope everyone had great holidays!
  • Lots of work to be done to get ready for SAR
  • Lock-down in Ontario 
  • Please turn your webcams on for meetings (don’t worry if you don’t have one)

What is SAR?

SAR planning document

Tasks to be done for SAR

  1. Get a working robot!
    1. Finish the e-box
    2. Gimbal Assembly
    3. Arm Assembly
    4. Science mechanism assembly
    5. Base station assembly
  2. Test the working robot!
    1. All mechanisms working smoothly and as expected
  3. Produce the SAR video and required documentation

SAR Milestone Plan Overview

Week of Jan 4-11: 

  • Order all parts that need to be ordered
  •  start planning SAR video

Week of Jan 11-18:

  •  Start arm, gimbal, assembly using parts that have already arrived
  • Continue planning SAR video

Week of Jan 18-25 : 

  • All parts for assembly should have arrived, so finish robot assembly 
  • Continue planning SAR video

Week of Jan 25-Feb1 : 

  • integrate electrical components (e-box assembly, PCBs, wiring, etc) 
  • Test all mechanisms and motors

Week of Feb 1-8 : 

  • Film SAR video 
  • write SAR documentation

This gives us a month of slack to work with in case we run into problems, and also gives the other subteams room to work with..

Beyond SAR

  • Clean the club’s room in the Bay (also take inventory of everything in there)
  • Drivetrain revamp
  • Find any issues with the current design of the rover and start work on addressing them (or look into how to improve current systems)
  • Prepare for competition this summer (June 3-5 in Utah)
  • Documentation of existing systems
  • Look into an obstacle course for the rover
  • Any suggestions?

Update & Action Items

MemberUpdateAction Items

Andrew Tersigni



Alaina Hansen

  • PDR! 
  • Update on wheel hub?
  • Tony cut it 
  • Science Assembly?

Asha Mills Emmett

  • Ordered Assun motors :o
  • Martin!!!
  • Oversee science assembly

Caleb Tseng-Tham


  • Give assistance to assembly of gimbal to people in Waterloo
  • Won’t be as active on the team this term, focusing on co-op, will be available to work on things though.
  • Claw grip
  • Exploded view of the gimbal

Ethan Cronier

  • New battery in progress
  • Figure out where to put new battery (70 x 150 x 125 mm ) - 2022

Assembly stuff - Tasks for someone in person

  • Base Station assembly - parts in the bay
  • Assemble new rover comms bracket when fasteners and brackets come in

(Are all DemTool parts in? - including battery cage (old))

Rehnuma Tasneem


  • Figure out what camera is being used in science for the camera mount

Max Apitz-Grossman

  • E-box baseplate finished 
  • Still need to figure out a quick release system for ease of removal of the e-box
  • Pins probably from mcmaster carr

Medina Colabrese

  • Collected information about wires used for each of the sensors and motors on the arm
  • Cross-reference with diagram from Tony to make sure I didn’t miss anything
  • Determine wire lengths and required harness sizes

Abdul Haseeb

  • Fixed the gimbal mate and removed a repetition that appeared in the other main assembly
  • Removed the 2021 design for the drive train as its no longer being used
  • Small electrical component in gimbo is not able to be deleted for some reason
  • imma do what Asha tell me 

Austin Huang

  • Getting parts ready for encoders
  • Organizing stuff for SAR video
  • Back to campus training
  • CAD maintenance for arm assembly
  • Open for more tasks

Jasmine Milan


  • Mcmaster order for new components inside E-box
  • Picked Up Parts from Lance and Aidan gave to Adriana
  • Coordinated with Electrical Team on all inputs and outputs of e-box (and all components) - Cindy & Lance
  • Created E-Box Tracker (in electrical box folder of google drive)
  • Touch base with electrical team on size of cords going through ethernet connector hole to update strain relief solution
  • Once strain relief approved, update CAD (Message Lead)
  • Talk to Ethan about location of batter/estop connector hole
  • Update Jetson CAD
  • Machine Shop Training

Emily Adam

  • Returning to the team :)

Andrew Zhang


  • Finish arm model
  • Collect rotational inertia data



Lessons Learned in 2020

  • Drafting channel worked well
  • Good grabcad etiquette is important 
  • Reverting grabcad changes is great
  • More comments into the changes when uploading to grabcad
  • Do thorough design reviews
  • Not enough inter-subteam communication

Goals

  • Calculate center of mass in solidworks for new design
  • Maintain everything in metric units as much as possible
  • Solidworks PDM
  • Solidworks workshops for stress analysis and FEA
  • Go to URC

General Notes