Archives for December, 2008

Harpo and I have been considering applying to become a nonprofit organization. The LC(A) has a bright but expensive future; we plan to upgrade to the NXT system eventually, and there are other costs such as pneumatics that might arise. There are twenty eight kinds of 501(c)(3)s, and although they are the most common kind [...]

We’ve created an experimental implementation of the new bevel “gears”. As of now, the car is in two large pieces; Will had to remove one of the ends, including the shock arms, wheels, and steering assembly, in order to install the new system. It looks like it may work very well, but we will need [...]

We may have found a way around the looming potential redesign. It is too early to tell for sure, but we are hopeful. We may be able to use some rather odd pieces which may or may not have been originally intended as gears to transfer torque instead of the older bevel gears. There will [...]

Well, we’re having some problems. To say the least. After installing the new steering systems at either end, we had a lot of problems with the gears not locking correctly in the drive train. When under a lot of force, the motor would stall and the gears would skip repeatedly. We reinforced and consolidated the [...]

We have successfully incorporated a worm gear into the steering rack. We used one of the weird double-beveled gears to achieve the right clearance. We are about to duplicate this system to the other side of the car, and then we will start working on the touch bumpers again.