“What’s happening with the ThunderBots?,” Burbank High STEAM Lab, Summer, Off-season, 2023
For a few months now, we’ve had a nice “not-a-box” box tucked away in controls that we had to ignore to focus on working through the rest of the season with Frankie. However… now we can talk about it as a “box” box!
People… we’ve got swerve drive!
For those who don’t know what swerve drive is, imagine a swivel chair and how it can go anywhere at any time — that’s what our robot can now do. Compared to our standard tank drive, we’ve a major challenge ahead of us when trying to figure out how this works.
No more rectangular frame. Individual swerve modules mounted to corners. And finally an electronics board. We’re now ready to move onto the hard part: coding.
Surprisingly, we already have a name: Prototype-Swervebot 1, aka, PS1.
Throughout the rest of the build space, we’ve been working on a major redesign, using summer to not have to worry about people going in and out during the school year. In Fabrication, we completely rearranged our shop, creating a dedicated storage space and different project tables. Business and Design have switched spaces, moving Design into the newly rearranged (former) Business office and Business into the larger area of the build space. Although Controls has not been the victim of a major redesign yet, there are talks of switching up the room’s layout while they work outside for the electronics board on PS1.
All in all, we’ve had our hands full with getting things done during the past few months as we prepare for the new school year, a more efficient work cycle, and fall off-season competitions.
Next up: Lego Robo Camp!
— Luci, Captain of Team 980