The date is: Thu Jan 28 17:09:31 MST 1999

     This week the big concern for me, as well as the rest 
of the group has been to work on desighning the base unit.  
We are trying for a track system of sorts.  We thought of 
using automotive belts but those were to big would be hard 
to tension.  We are going to use two o-rings for each side 
and we are going to attempt to use nylon wheels that we will 
have to make ourselves.  I have drawn out some rough 
schematics for how the track system will(should) work.  I 
have been working toward the sound start system.  We got a 
buzzer that puts out the correct frequency.  I have a large 
door opener switch that I am going to try to put everything 
into for the transmitter.  I got a active filter IC from 
National (MF10) I think is the part number) to filter out 
all noise for the sound start.  

    Next week the big goal  for me and somebody else will to 
be to try to start machining the base, wheels, and seeing 
how much of it we can get put together


The date is: Thu Feb  4 17:07:10 MST 1999

This week we decided to change the way the base is going to 
work.  It was decided to use a cog belt and pulley that we 
found in the grainger catalog for the drive system.  For the 
idler wheels we are going to use a bearing with some washers 
to hold the belt in place and a brass or copper bushing to 
keep everything from wobbling around.  we are thinking about 
mounting the bearings on a bolt that we will put into a 
block of aluminum.  
 Next week Dave and I will probably get busy on making a new 
base plate and starting to get everything put together.We 
need to machine some kind of bracket to hold the idler 
wheels in place with some kind of tensioning device.  As far 
as tensioning the current ideas are either just some 
elongated holes so we can manually tighten everything or 
something with a screw and a spring over it to adjust where 
the wheel sits to tension it.   
   On my own I have been working with the sound start 
system.  I have built the buzzer to start already with the 
exception of a tab to connect a 9v battery with the rest of 
the circuit.  As soon as the base is done I intend to start 
working on the filtering system for the sound start.  


The date is: Thu Feb 11 17:27:12 MST 1999

This week the big thing for dave and me was to get the base 
as far as we could..  This week we managed to get the new 
base plate cut out to 10"x10" with some grooves in the side 
for the track to run in.  We also figured out how to make 
the wheels and axles.  for the wheels we are using some 
bearings with a couple of washers for spacing and to make 
the other edge for the belt to ride against.  to hold the 
assembly together we are just using some lock washers and 
nuts on the axle of all thread.  TO solve the problem of the 
inner diameter of the bearing being to big, we used some 
brass bushings that we machined to size.  We are using some 
aluminum angle iron to hold the axles in place on each side.  
  On my own I finished the buzzer for the sound start and 
started to work with the active filter chip(MF10) that we 
got.  My problem is trying to figure out how the microphone 
is supposed to be hooked up. But it is all coming along.
  Dave and me have also been working on flame detection.  
For this we have found the Hamamatsu UVtron.  We have 
managed to get samples of this and the interface board....so 
we are just waiting.
    Next week the big goal is to be to work on mounting the 
motors and tensioning idler wheel, and trying to make 
everything as square as possible.  The only other project 
for next week is preparing for the presentaion on thursday.


The date is: Wed Feb 17 15:58:22 MST 1999

This week the big thing again has been trying to get the 
base built.  Beleive it or not, it is actually built.  We 
have finally gotten all of the idler wheels mounted and the 
motors mounted.  On the top idler we made a slot in the 
angle iron(Al)to make it possible to tension the belt good. 
I can really get the belt very tight.  The only thing that 
remains is to allign the wheels because as it stands now, 
there is a lot of friction with the belt.  Alighning the 
wheels and possibly some mild lubrication of the bearings 
should take care of that.  This will be my priority to try 
and have done by Tues. or Wed. The only thing that needs to 
be done to the base after that is to add the different 
plates for the different layers and to make a covering to go 
around the outside edges of the robot... that is to come in 
the future as we start to get things ready to go on the 
robot.  
  As far as the sound start filter, I was going to use the 
MF10 active filter, but I am starting to think that we be 
more of a pain than it is worth.  One reason is that the 
clock frequency that we would need for an input would be 
very hard to obtain using the HC11.  To fix this I am 
thinking about just using a passive filter.  The setup 
should be basically  microphone,op-amp 
buffer,filter,possibly another op-amp, and then some other 
devices to clean up the signal so it can just be an input to 
the HC11.  I have started to work with this a little but not 
much.  I hope to start on it next Wed. or Thur. at full 
blast.  
   The other part of the robot that I will be working on but 
not for a week or two will be the flame extinguishing 
system.
  We are still waiting for the UVtron to show up for our 
flame detection.
  The only other thing I and everybody in the group has done 
was to get our ideas together for the presentations on Thur. 



The date is: Thu Feb 25 17:43:36 MST 1999

   This week we hooked up the base to both batteries and had 
it run straight and in a flat spin.  It did very good.  THe 
belts did not come off or anything.  Over last weekend Dave 
took the base home and did some revisions on it.  Instead of 
individual brackets for each axle, he made a single bracket 
on each side that both of the bottom axles go through. It 
really made things much sturdier.  He also remounted the 
motors to a slightly higher place.  The tensioning brackets 
are still the same.  Overall, it is much better.  I am going 
to take on all of the base work from now on.  I have been 
putting on all-thread on each corner to hold the following 
tiers of the robot.  The first tier after the base will be 
aluminum and the following two layers will be plexi-glass.  
Each layer will be held on with nuts and lock washers.
  As far as the filtering for the sound start, I am torn as 
which way to do it.  If I go with the MF10 I need an input 
clock frequency of 87.5kHz, this is hard to obtain using the 
HC11 and I also looked at using a clock oscillator.  With 
the oscillator chip I can not find one with the  correct 
frequency and it would be kind of a pain to cut the 
frequency down.  With the passive filter the problem is that 
the freq. response is just a mild curve and will let some 
other frequencies through where with the MF10 I can make the 
filtering much more exact.  I was p0laying with a 555 to try 
to get the oscillation I need for the MF10 and some little 
something is going wrong and I can't get it to work.  So I 
might use the passive just for the simplicity, but i don't 
know.


The date is: Thu Mar  4 17:39:14 MST 1999

This week as far as the base has gone all I did was to sut 
out the Aluminum plate for the first layer above the motors 
and batteries.  
  Other than that, I have been working on the filtering 
system for the sound start.  On Tues. I did have the 
microphone with an amplifier picking up the buzzer sound, 
faintly but still working.  On Thursday I have been trying 
to start to work with the 555 timer for the fclk for the 
active filter chip.  I have done some talking to George and 
have heard about a active fiter chip from Maxim that may 
work even easier(max275 I think)that the present one that I 
am using(MF10).  I put in an order for a sample but we'll 
see if that really works or not.  I also switched the 411 
op-amps that I was using on Tues. to a TI single supply 
op-amp which is what I would have to use anyway with our 
power supplies.  I couldn't for some reason get the 
microphone to work again with it.  
  Next week and over the weekend, I plan to drill the holes 
for and get ready the next two platforms and mount any 
boards that anybody in the group may or may not have ready 
to go.  Also, I am going to get to work again on the 
filtering system and see if I can get it working better 
because when I used the function generator to act as the 
source of the microphone I was just getting a bunch of junk 
for an output signal.  I would vary the signal frequency and 
it wouldn't vary the output any.

That is all I can really think of for what is going on.  


The date is: Thu Mar 11 12:42:49 MST 1999

This week the primary function of me and everybody else in 
the group was to try to get everything ready for the design 
reviews before spring break started. Over the last weekend I 
got 
ready the tiers for the robot so that whenever we get the 
boards ready and tested, we can go ahead and mount them on. 
 I have also found another filter chip that I am thinking 
about using for the sound start(Max 275) I have obtained the 
data sheet and have been looking through it to see if it 
looks pheasable to use. (hopefully it will be easier to use 
that the MF10)  Other than that, I have been just doing a 
little of this and that of whatever has been required of me.

Next week being spring break I plan to do absolutely nothing 
concerned with this robot or school in general. 

The week after though, I plan to resume work on the filter 
and sound start system and work on integrating the different 
parts of the robot with Robert.(mounting boards and 
different peices to the base and whatever else may need to 
be done)  That is all that I can really think of to say 
about what is going on.  


The date is: Wed Mar 31 21:25:09 MST 1999

     This week I have been primarily working on the starter 
again.  I have changed my mind on how to implement this.  
Now I am going to try to use a LMC756(?) low power tone 
decoder.  I went to radio shack and got a microphone that 
seems to be doing a lot better than the speakers that I was 
trying to use before.  With the walkman speakers that I was 
using for a microphone I was only getting 500-600 mV witha 
gain of 47000 roughly.  I have about gotten the resistor and 
capacitor values figured out for the tone decoder so it 
should be fairly easy to set up.  If I can get it to work, I 
can hopefully get the signal so it can be sent directly into 
the HC11.  Basically other than that, I am just waiting for 
the tone decoder to come in.  The only other thing I may do 
is to get an op-amp built so that the microphone input is 
1-2Vp-p.
     Next week I intend to hopefully get the starter wrapped 
up and ready to go.  THis includes prototyping, making the 
PC board, and getting in mounted on the robot.  This is all 
that I will probably get time to do for next week.  


The date is: Thu Apr  8 17:21:18 MDT 1999

The biggest thing I have done is to get my microphone ready
for the starter board system.  I have been playing with two
different microphones.One is a regular microphone that I
tore apart and the other I really don't know what kind it
is.  I have still been waiting for the tone decoder chip
from National(LMC 567).  I have been helping a little with
putting things together ,i.e.help make odds and ends for
mounting sensors.  
     Next week, I will hopefully get the tone decoder in and
get the starter board put together so the robot can go to
nationals.  If the tone decoder doesn't come in, I will
either see if somebody else has one I can borrow till mine
come in or I will have to go back to the old fashioned
filter system that I was going to do a while back but opted
not to do in favor of the tone decoder which would be
simpler.  Thats all for now....



The date is: Thu Apr 29 16:27:09 MDT 1999

This week all I have really done is to prepare for the final 
presentaion on Saturday.  I have spent my time making the 
power point presentaion slides that we wanted.  That is all 
I have really done this week.  We are still trying to have a 
minimum of slides for the presentation but we are going to 
do more that for the preliminary presentation.
Next week I will probably mostly work on the final paper 
that we need to do for during finals week.  That is all I 
can really think of to say for now.  


The date is: Thu May  6 15:12:30 MDT 1999

     The big deal this week has been to work on the final 
paper.  I spent part of Tuesday and a fair amount of 
Wednesday working on the chassis part of the paper since 
that was the big thing that I worked on this semester.  I 
have also been putting the figures for this section of the 
paper.
     Next week I really don't plan on doing anything for 
finals week.  This is all I can really think of to say for 
know.