The first task for this year was recruiting new members and future leaders. As we strive for our ambitious goals, our team is in a position where several of our current leaders will be moving on within the coming year. This has caused an urgent need for new potential leaders. In addition, our teams have shrunk over the years making it hard to progress quickly. Given these challenges, our team leadership prioritized recruitment for the start of this semester. We have welcomed many new members, with our team now 28 members strong ranging from first year to graduate students.
Figure 1: Build Team’s preliminary chassis design
After each team developed their plans for the road ahead, we have begun incorporating our new members into the various roles necessary to reach CIRC in the Summer. The Build Team has developed a rough structural design for the rover and are working on developing a solution to mount the rover’s motors and gearboxes to the wheel hubs. In addition, several members from both the computer and build teams received metal shop training in the UD Maker Space, shown in Figure 1.
Figure 2: Members after being metal shop trained
The Computer Team has shown the largest growth this semester and thus has made great progress. Custom cables have been made for the rover’s motors and code has been written for precise motor control. The team will continue to iterate on the motor control until a robust control system is complete. The necessary code to receive GPS data has also been developed and is in the process of being integrated with the rest of the electronic system. LiDAR and camera implementations are also in progress to allow for future autonomization and control of the rover. Finally, a user control interface concept has been drafted for the rover base station.
Figure 3: Computer Team Network Topology
The Science Team consists of an entirely new set of club members this year. The new team has been diligently researching necessary rover tasks for CIRC and the methods for performing such tasks. In the coming weeks, they plan to develop thorough testing procedures before experimenting with the implementation of the various scientific tasks.
To ensure that we are on track to reach competition in Summer 2024, the business team has laid out plans for all of the necessary components to ensure a successful trip to Alberta, Canada. The Business Team has begun planning for several aspects of the trip including travel plans, funding and more.