September 14, 2021

Date: Sunday September 17th, 8:30 - 9:30pm EST

Attendance:

Anna (Business)

Caleb (Team)

Cindy (Firmware)

Clare (Science)

Ethan (Mechanical)

Farris (Electrical)

Grace (Science)

Orson (Software)

Topic 1: Caleb’s transition

• Still awaiting logins/admin access for things

  • Update team webpage

    • https://www.uwaterloorobotics.com/ 

    • Will possibly need photos of everyone

Topic 2: New Rules are out! 

• Everyone please read through it, and encourage your sub-team members to read it as well

• https://urc.marssociety.org/home/requirements-guidelines

  • Drone? (probably not, it's optional and no time)

  • Pointing out differences and anything new

• PDR guidelines not updated for 2022

• SAR guidelines not updated for 2022

• Science Plan not updated for 2022

Topic 3: Bay Stuff (COVID Safety Guidelines, bay access, software tables)

• Max will be the safety captain

• Waiting on Graeme for safety plan guidance

• If you want bay access you need to go in person to the machine shop and ask to sign out a key fob

  • Key fob tracker: https://wiki.uwaterloo.ca/display/UWRT/Key+Fob+Tracker

• Updated safety information: https://uwaterloo.ca/safety-office/

• Looking to get a new table for software and firmware to work on

Topic 4: Lance has left the team

• Explaining why he left

Topic 5: Sub-team Updates

• Admin

  • Where do our shipments go?

    • Anna's missing package

  • Safety plan

  • New table for software

    • Sent email to victoria for that

  • Get new shelving units, organizational things

  • Monies

    • Ask Farris about how much money it will cost

  • Ask Melvin about Antennas

  • Order USB 3.0 cable for gimbal

• Mechanical 

  • Jasmine - Antenna

  • Ali - Science by himself (Maybe get more people on that)

  • Ethan - getting rid of design tasks to focus on lead stuff

    • End effector, issue with it being too loose

  • Medina 5/6

  • Austin 1/2

  • Mathieu 3/4

  • Need overall $18,000 distribution 

    • So mech knows how much money they can spend with the rover

  • Drivetrain, needs differential bar corrected

    • Emily might not want gears

    • Drivetrain is pretty strong

  • Two new members

    • Joe - looking into battery selection

  • Biggest problem so far, nothing is concrete yet

  • Motor selection

    • Anna buying a motor

    • Olabisi making motor mount

• Electrical

  • figured out rough design of power architecture (next week/two working on PDB)

  • motor shortage with mechanical

    • 48V with drivetrain

    • 24V with arm

  • Science board (Chelsea)

  • PDB (Farris and Cindy)

  • BMS (Ari)

  • Gimbal/Arm 

    • unknown if a board is needed (probably just O-Drives)

    • Taylor's on gimbal

  • New members, no beginner friendly board

    • Have an experienced members guide them through something difficult

    • Can't really shadow PDB board design

  • Wiring up the claw

    • Mathieu I think wired the arm

      • Farris talk to Ethan and Mathieu about wiring the claw

        • Then, check with Orson and Cindy to see if testing on old drivetrain is okay

        • (this is so FW/SW can get started on testing)

  • ODrive firmware needs to be written (Aidan Gratton)

• Firmware

  • Getting new members started on training

  • Continued development on 2021 improvements

  • Will start planning 2022 initial codebase bring-up

• Software

  • Helping newer members with software training

  • Try to get drivetrain up and running (get things to Melvin)

    • Delays (other stuffs)

  • Get a table! (Caleb)

• Science

  • Outreach, getting new members (from science faculty, funding from sci-soc)

  • Working on mechanical on things

  • Grace researching Utah soil, getting a sample maybe (soil analysis)

  • Get relationship with profs (Clare)

• Business

  • Going through team's finances confirming all the orders that have been placed/how much has been taken out of the team/week account.

    • Weef is tricky, they know how much we have left

      • They can't tell us

  • Orders that aren't on the tracking list, but need to be tracked down

    • Asking teams about orders that have been placed

  • Can't make budget until we know how much we have

  • $10,000 in team account

  • Looking forwards, no deadlines for WEEF and EngSoc so far

  • Get more external sponsors (more $)

  • Sponsorship package updates

    • reconnect with sponsors

  • Reimbursements

Next leads meeting: 

• Updates

• Discuss intention/feasibility of whether we can compete

• Talk about budget

Comments from the meeting:

• Range testing of rover comms

  • Need wiring diagrams (how does everything connect up?)

• Need to test gimbal functionality 

  • Electrical (moving the motor)

  • Software/Firmware (controlling the BLDC and the servo)