The rest of the team went to Kristin today for practice (Rutherford went along too). I decided to go to Massey instead as I still had more building to do. I lengthened the basket by making a hinged back pulled in by rubber bands, that when pushed on by balls, will be pushed out. I tested it, and it looks as if it can store 3 white balls :) and an orange, or 5 or possibly 6 orange balls. I am really happy about it, as being able to suck up a whole row of orange balls in programming or robot skills will help immensely. I also mounted the rest for the sucker on rubber links, so balls will not get stuck on it, but just push it aside (only the right side is done so far). I have put a longer slide rail on the left (I will do the right side tomorrow), so now it sticks out slightly more than the leg-wheels, which enables the robot to go right up to the wall without the leg-wheels climbing up it. This will also be useful for autonomous.

Today I installed the missing gear, and mounted the sucker assembly - lengthening the arms so when raised, it would go up more rather then back. This will help with fitting more balls. I spent hours mounting two pneumatics pistons for the sucker to rest on which, when they were actuated, would lift up the sucker to help eject the white balls. After I had finished I found that with the design changes I had done, It didn't need it! I took them off and instead mounted an angle gusset for the sucker to sit on.

Today I moved the lifter motors down lower so that the basket can fit above them. I am still missing a gear for one side which I will have to get tomorrow. I attached the basket to the lifter, and also replaced a lot of the tank tread with high strength chain and a few rubber track upgrades in an attempt to shed some weight. It still remains to be seen if this will work well. I also mounted the pneumatics cylinder, tap and pump connection.