#1 is alive!

/ Jessica

After our number 1 had to suffer a long, serious illness due to a singed mainboard, we were finally able to reassemble Glados and put him back into operation on wednesday thanks to a hastily obtained replacement mainboard.
Four Bit-Bots, one of them inactive, one on the subs bench

We were so happy about it, that we completely forgot to immediately upload a video proof. For compensation, we now have added some music. “Believer” really is a fitting composition, as the moment of the resurrection of Glados took us back in believing in a successful World Cup. 🙂

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A tidy house, a tidy mind

/ Jessica

…this is true even for computer scientists.
As of late every component has its own defined place. All small parts are sorted into boxes, with one box for each robot, so that we know exactly which part of the casing, which screw and which cable belongs to which robot. This is especially very useful for the storage of temporary removed parts.

picture of the newly organized locker in the lab
Now everything is sorted into boxes and "idiot-proof" labelled.

We have sorted the screws (there are wisely a lot of them included in delivery as replacements) into screw-boxes, labelled each screw-category with one of our inventory numbers and added that into the database. The boxes are labelled too with an added print-out of the overview of screws from the “Assembly-Manual” next to a table which translates the Darwin-classification for screws (S1-S17 + N1) into our inventory numbers.

Our screw-box
Now it shouldn't be hard to have the right screw at hand in the right moment
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Backup from WTM

/ Timon

Yay we got reinforcements! The Knowledge Technology Group (WTM) has kindly lend us their Darwin for the World Cup in Mexico. This marks the first time for us to have an external substitute.
3 Bitbots, 2 of them are inactive, another robot joins the 3
With a little bit of luck it could be that GLaDOS and maybe Atlas too will be fit again, which would mean that we would have 3 or even 4 robots we could take to Mexico.

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Oh oh…

/ Jessica

First the good news: Suddenly we have all the replacement motors we wished for.
Now the bad news: This is due to the fact that we only have one game-ready robot at the moment.

3 Bit-Bots, two of them damaged

Originally we had planned to work on the “animations” and on our “walking” today and therefore had met at 10:00 this saturday. But as soon as we realized that we could not boot Atlas, we knew that the day would not be as expected. We do not want to speculate about the exact reason here, but by now we suspect that the mainboard from Atlas does not want to play along anymore. Unfortunately this is the second-worst part that can break on a Darwin, just right after the even more difficult to obtain subcontroller.

All this comes at the most inconvenient time one could imagine: only a few weeks before the World Cup. With 2 of 3 robots it would still be possible to compete against another team, however with only one player we could have the best program and would still not stand a chance.

Of course this is no reason for us to give up! Currently we are feverishly working on the fast acquisition of the required replacements and are confident to get them (with support through the department) in time for the World Cup.

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First training for the Throw-In Challenge

/ Timon

Recently “Wheatly” was working hard to train for the Throw-In Challenge.
Currently he still has some trouble with his footwork, but the responsible physician Dr. Olli is confident that he will be fine after some loosening-up exercises.
Initial the throwing range was just about one meter, but after a few exercises and support by his trainers the range could be increased to more than 2.5 meters. Some exceptional throws even rolled just outside the field.
Of course we secretly filmed the training:

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