It was almost Complete

I have been working as promised. This is the fruit of my efforts. It has all the parts of a regular chassis except the screws. For some reason, the spreadsheets that I used for the screws kept adding extra pieces and extrusions on to the model. Besides that, everything seen here is in proper working order. Unfortunately it is not complete. My computer froze when I was almost done and then shut down Autodesk Inventor Fusion. After that, Autodesk refused to touch my file with a ten foot pole. It couldn't be read and the progress I had made was deleted.

I finally got AutoCAD to open it, but my computer’s speed was far too slow to handle it. Josh let me use his computer but I was once again lost on how to use the program. I had developed skills in Fusion and AutoCAD was for more advanced. I couldn’t even find the list of components of my piece. I am not sure if it was because the file was modified when Fusion crashed or if I am just that inefficient with AutoCAD. Nevertheless, I finished 90% of my project. The parts that remain have been built. They just need to be placed onto the main chassis. This is where my issues lie. I don’t know how to assemble anything in AutoCAD. I will be working on this over break.

This internship has been a wonderful experience. I did not get to code or program but I did get a new program to play with. I also got to do what I love to do on my free time most, sit around and play with design software all day. If I am chosen to come back in the spring I will see you all then. If not, have a great break. I hope we all performed well on our finals.

Robotics

Last week's robotics cub was far more successful than the first. We are supposed to be competing in the VEX Sack Attack Challenge in March so we must come up with a design for a robot. The purpose of the sack attack challenge is to have your team’s robot pick up sacks and place them in goals. There are two trough goals that are 18 inches high and one goal that is 30 inches high. To place sacks on this goals, they must be stacked on triangle of approximately the size of an adult hand. So, a team’s robot has to be able to stack and/or dump sacks very well. Josh told me not to disclose any information about our robot on the net so I cannot state any specific details. However, we did go with my design for a robot which makes me super excited.

In addition to robotics club I finally got started with auto cad. I installed it on one of the laptops that were provided to me. It, however, couldn’t be installed. Some part of the computer was not sufficient or a file was misplaced. I never figured out the problem. Fortunately, Josh and someone else did though this took up 2 day. So, I was set back. After Auto cad was finally installed, It wouldn’t open any of my files that I downloaded from the vex robot site. I had specific sheets for each component for a vex robot and Auto Cad could not read them or detect them at all. I had finally gotten it set up and it decided to konk out on me. I tried re-downloading the files but all was in vain. Josh looked at this and also couldn’t find the problem. He did notice, however, that there was another program called Autodesk Inventor installed on the computer. This program was able to read all of my files. So, my entire internship has been saved by Josh all week.

This week I will be working with Inventor to build a chassis. I will have it done by Friday, should the cosmos work in my favor. I will post soon to let you know how things have been going. It is also final's week so there is a lot to do. I hope you all have been doing well. 

Our Competition Robot

For those of you who don't know. I am now in the robotics club, along with Yany. We have to build a robot that will compete in the vex competition in March. It has to be able to raise bean bags up to a goal and stack them on a small triangle. Here is a picture of a vex robot. They remind me of the types of robots I used to build when I was small.

Anyhow I'm super excited. I'll be back next week with more news.

Sustainability

This week Josh showed me a competition for robotics. The competition requires that I design a robot that presents at least one principle of sustainability. Josh came up with the idea of building a robot that is equipped with a solar panel. The robot will follow the sun light to optimize the efficiency of the solar panel. I decided to go along with his idea because I could not come up with anything of my own. For this week’s assignment, I decided to look up how basic solar cells work. I found an interactive activity and article on PBS. This is what I learned:

Solar panels capture sunlight using photovoltaic cells. These cells are made of two layers of silicon. Silicon is a poor conductor. To take care of this, one layer has boron added to it and the other layer has phosphorus added to it. The boron layer, with fewer electrons, is placed on the bottom and vice versa for the phosphorus layer. The extra electrons in the phosphorus layer will sink down to the boron layer. This creates an electric field where the two layers meet. As sunlight hits the cell, the photons from the sun knock electrons in the silicon layers loose. The cell is coated with an anti-reflective coat so that the photons are absorbed instead of reflected away. When the electrons that are knocked loose reach the electric field, they are pushed upward to the top of the cell. On the top of the cell lie metal conductor strips. The electrons flow through these strips towards a wire and then to an inverter. The inverter converts the direct current into an alternating current for appliances and other electronic devices to use. Electricity flows back into the cell through a metal backing and the whole process starts again. 

Unfortunately, many of the electrons that are knocked loose hardly ever make it to the electric field. This makes the solar cell inefficient. This along with the lack of power at night and high cost of production make solar panels unpopular. So, for my next article, I decided to look up ways to make the cell more efficient. I found a good number of methods. You could make the cell less reflective, use different materials, and change the structure of the cell so that electrons found their way to the electric field more easily. I found an article on CPV panels.

In all honesty I found methods besides CPV that were much more interesting. I, however, couldn’t find enough information to write enough and share with you all. Concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) panels use lenses and mirrors to intensify the light before it hits the cells. Because of this, the efficiency of a cell increases greatly. Because of the cells efficiency, fewer are needed in a panel. This brings the cost of production down. With this, two of the cons of solar panels are at least identified and made less of a problem. 

I have not decided how to design my robot yet. I was introduced to Auto CAD, a design and modeling software that I found to be similar to Photoshop. I’m decently skilled in Photoshop so I should be moving along pretty soon. Below are my citations and links to read the articles if you are interested.

Chaddha, Rima and Stephanie Chasteen. “Howdo Solar Panel’s Work?” NOVA. PBS, 24 Apr. 2007. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.

Halper, Mark. “Magnifying SolarElectricity’s Future.” SmartPlanet. CBS, 20 May 2011. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.

Let it Begin

This week was busy. I was forced to get into contact with an advisor from the University of Houston for the first time in a long while. If you have ever tried to contact a specific advisor you can understand that this task was daunting. I couldn’t get in contact with my advisor and I had to call someone else. She told me that in order to transfer into the Computer Engineering College I needed chemistry. I am currently enrolled in university physics I because my advisor told me to take it. I asked if I could be admitted with physics and the person said, “The piece of paper says chemistry.”  I said thank you and hung up the phone. I then called three different offices to find my advisor and he sent me an email with transfer information. I could have university physics and I was indeed on the right track to transfer. Texas A&M, U of T, and Texas Tech all run this way as well.  I also found out that the University of Houston automatically accepts students with an associate’s degree. The road in front of me looks good.

I also met with the lab staff for the first time. While they were getting to know me I was asked a series of questions. One went something like, “which state would you kick out of the US and why.” I chose to give Alaska the boot, only because it was already far away and I honestly couldn’t think of any states not on the west coast. That is why I’m a math geek and not a geography geek. They decided that I could join the robotics club and learn to program and build robots with the team. I am a tad intimidated. I will be a “noob” among the more experienced. Hopefully I learn at a decent pace and prove to be useful. I am not completely afraid though.  I was told if nothing else, I can use my Photoshop skills to edit pictures for the team.

All things considered, I’m ready to start this. I am pumped to begin my training in the complex art of robotics and I feel like I am moving forward with my education.

Transfer Information Link

http://bealonghorn.utexas.edu/transfer

About Me

Hello. My name is Kristina Richardson. I am majoring in mathematics. I hope to earn a degree in computational mathematics. I hope to learn how to code and program. I have found that I am a little slow when it comes to learning this but I am not deterred. I am also planning to earn a master's degree so I can teach at a community college as well.