Below are the updates and experiences from a few of our members!
Member: Jack Viebrock
During my first semester participating on the iRobotics MRDC team I have had the chance to expand my skill set in the area of programming and electronics. And as an aspiring electrical engineer it is a extremely beneficial environment to explore real applications of electronics with hands on experience. These experiences include working on the Tinkercad platform with Arduino circuitry and programming to explore the skillset and build the knowledge needed to work on these robot components. I also had the opportunity to attend a PCB workshop in which I was able to learn about the components, designing and software that go into building a PCB board, this will no doubt help me in my college education. This semester, with its isolation, allowed for an exceptional opportunity to meet people and socialize on a regular basis. It has been an overall beneficial experience that I recommend to others.
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Member: Jonah Tetzeli
This semester in iRobotics has been an interesting one. Right before school went online last semester I had been working more in the ESPL having gained ESPL access, and was ready to work on assembling and manufacturing the robot. However, none of this was able to happen and this semester has ended up being more of a theoretical one. Nonetheless I have learned a lot from the discussions in meetings. The robot we are building this semester has a horizontal spinner, and many of the meetings I attended this past summer and this semester were focused on the optimal way to design this spinner. I learned how to analyze and account for the center of gravity and moment of inertia of a part using CAD. I also got to discuss how these parameters affect the spinning of the spinner. For example, because of the parallel axis rule, it is ideal to have a center of gravity at the axis of rotation to reduce MOI. This is just one example of the robot theory I have learned this semester in virtual meetings, but is by no means the only one. While there hasn’t been any hands-on experience for me, I can confidently say that this has been another semester that iRobotics has made me into a better engineer!
