Week 4

Hey, I’m Sean, and this is my 3rd year on the Horsepower 4991 team. This week the programming team has been testing a new method of controlling our robots: an Xbox controller. It’s proven itself to be very different from our typical control scheme of two clunky joysticks, and hopefully it will be a major improvement for our drivers. They can just think it's Mario kart or something.

The game design team has completed their prototype model for their game, and is now preparing to assemble a final model. They’ll be using much better materials in place of those on the prototype, but making the parts hasn’t been easily. More specifically, the laser cutter in our school’s shop isn’t cutting out pieces of the fence properly, and it’s driving the majority of the team insane. (yup - Mack)

The design team has created their prototype for the t-shirt cannon, and the results are very promising. It’s powerful, loud, and launches shirts a great distance, it’s everything we could have hoped for, and it’s only a matter of time before it is finalized and placed onto a completed robot. 

In other news, a new member, Amir, has joined our team, and we hope to see more in the future. Additionally, previous members Jack Shobb and Morgan Carroll, who left the team in 2020 after graduation, have come back to help in our endeavors. Considering we have no clue what's happening this is a good thing.

Shane and Jack trying to figure out how to use the 3D printers

Morgan helping coding figure out the Xbox controller for the robot