After a short break, we have resumed pool testing with the summer pool test crew! Throughout the summer, we plan to test on Saturdays and Sundays leading up to the competition. We will be focusing on getting much-needed testing in for Crush and preparing other items before August.
06/07/2025
First day back to summer pool testing! We worked to unpack the necessary items that were packed at the end of the semester and checked the status of Crush. Once at the pool, we re-tested buoyancy and added 1 buoyancy block to help level the robot at the surface. We then tested the static power found in the previous test, and then worked on PID tuning. We noted that the robot surfaced at a high rate when the thrusters were not operating. We also attempted to test out barrel rolling with pre-existing code from Oogway, however, we noted a bug in the code. With limited time remaining, we successfully used the joysticks to manually barrel roll the robot.
06/21/2025
We refined our PID tuning values for Crush and worked to ensure accurate movements in a variety of cases (depth and position). After working out the previously mentioned bug in the barrel roll code, we tested it at a depth of -1m. We noted that the robot rose dramatically in depth during the rolls, surfacing by the time the second roll was complete. In the previous pool test, we noticed that the robot was too positively buoyant, and we deduced that the sheer number of buoyancy blocks attached to the robot on all sides was pulling the robot up due to the absence of the high downwards thrust normally provided when depth-holding. Due to a limited number of charged batteries, we ended the test early to work on removing buoyancy blocks.
06/22/2025
We first tested Crush by removing 8 external glued buoyancy blocks, and 2 of the larger side buoyancy blocks which were attached through screws. We found this setup to cause the robot to sink, so we added back the 2 larger side buoyancy blocks as well as an additional 4 smaller blocks on the bottom of the robot. With these changes, the robot returned to a state of positive buoyancy, albeit less than the day before. With these changes, we worked on retuning PID values for a majority of the pool test, facing drifting issues from the robot overcorrecting errors in position. Once the tuning was in a satisfactory state, we were able to complete 2 consecutive, autonomous barrel rolls.
Future Plans
- Check and retune static power as needed
- Ensure stability when doing barrel rolls
- Test IMU data drift on Crush and Oogway
- Re-attach the front mono camera on Crush