Shipping again!

With the new hardware rules, I can ship Ace of Sharks again with a new video and get more than the (previously) fixed rate of 5 stardust/hour! (Thanks, Hack Club staff! )
While I don’t have another tournament before Stardance ends, I have some changes in mind to make version 3.3.
So far, I have decreased the thickness of the wheel guards to reduce weight because I was very close to the limit and the wheel guards didn’t really take any damage. They will still be able to protect the wheels from at least one hit, which could still be enough to save a fight.
I will also be looking into liquid latex coatings for the foam wheels, which is something other builders mentioned for traction on wood floor arenas.

I added another day of Bible reading and started 2 Corinthians! I also added a little bit of CSS to have enough time to post this because my sticky streak isn’t updating.

The website is coming along nicely!

Since this website is made to have something to work on daily for the Sticky Streak challenge, I will be working on this project for 3 weeks, with 20 posts by the end (hopefully!)
I have not written any CSS yet, I plan on doing that if I can’t find enough to write about for 5 minutes, but so far that hasn’t been an issue.

Integration nightmare!

The reason the first firmware didn’t work is because the D# pins didn’t map directly to GP# pins, so it was listening for phantom pins that weren’t even on the microcontroller. Then the laptop had numlock on by default with no way to turn it off because it doesn’t have a numberpad or numlock key, so it wasn’t doing what was expected.
After changing the pins correctly, the firmware wouldn’t compile and threw a bunch of errors, so I tested adding layers to the standard firmware QMK autogenerates.
Once that got compiled, I tried to flash it to the board and I couldn’t get it into bootloader mode.
I then tried a different laptop and it worked just fine.¯_(ツ)_/¯ 

I decided what my project will be!

This is going to be a website with a daily paragraph about what I was reading in the Bible today. I will write for 5 minutes every day and see how long of a streak I can keep.

I’m mostly done assembling, flashed my firmware to the macropad, and it does nothing. I plan on flashing the standard QMK firmware it creates and checking if that does anything to make sure that the assembly was done correctly.

The button works!

Currently, I have a button under the list of robot names that updates the list by moving each fight up one position. That button is working!
It took me a little bit to figure out that I was missing parentheses when calling a function, but this is my first project using JavaScript.

It doesn’t break anymore!

I brought Ace of Sharks to a tournament and it held up way better than last time.

• I made the nubs a separate piece so that it won’t break along layer lines anymore, and the weapon assembly never fell of!
• The wheel guards worked and I broke 0 motors.
• The rubber cement coating on the wheels worked decent with a new coat after every match. I asked other builders and liquid latex over rubber cement is common.

I tied four other robots for 5th place and had a great time talking with and learning from other builders :)

Wheel guards!

I added new wheel guards to Ace of Sharks (don’t mind the bright red, it’s just a test with random filament) and tested a bunch of wheel combos.
The wheel guard print worked the first time (!), and seems ready. In the Duramic PLA+ filament, Ace of Sharks should be underweight and ready for a possible tournament next week!
I tried rubber cement coated wheels to try to improve traction, and it worked really well. I also added rubber bands wrapped around the rubber cement, and that improves traction as well. That is probably what I will do in the tournament, and we will see how it works in a fight. Rubber cement does pick up dust, but a damp cloth will wipe it off and not significantly reduce stickiness. (I forgot to lapse the testing and chassis swap during the Stardance huddle, oops… )

Well, I forgot to devlog, so here’s an update of all that I have changed.

• Added a page explaining The Four, which I will now link to from my Ace of Sharks stickers
• Added a portfolio page of all my combat robots
• Added mobile and desktop optimization
• Add navbar to all pages
• Add custom 404 page

I will continue to update these pages and I only have a draft of each of these, so hopefully I will remember to devlog more frequently :)

Started trying to improve the user interface

Quite a few of the reviews I got on the last ship said that I should add more of a UI, so now I started trying to do that. So far, I have tried Tkinter to create a GUI (Same as in my other project Bible Clock), but it is harder than I expected. I have dropdown menus working so far and am (sometimes) able to get the unit into the code, but the number input fields are not doing what it seems like they should.
I looked at creating a website, but I don’t know JavaScript and I will need that to create a dropdown menu and do the math.
Maybe I will end up learning JavaScript instead of learning Tkinter :)

Ready to ship!

Since the last devlog I:

• Change price layout to a table
• Added a section for add-ons
• Moved balloon animals into add-ons and the Gospel presentation into the kids show section
• Added a favicon to make the site feel more professional and polished

Next iteration: Ace of Sharks 3.2

So far, I have:

• Strengthened the weapon assembly
• Added wheel guards
• Changed the shape of the shark arm to hopefully reach over drum spinners

I also decided I want to improve wheel traction (the grippiness of the wheel) to hopefully get more pushing power. I don’t have time to get funding, design, and iterate a cast polyurethane wheel for this tournament, so I decided I will get rubber cement and experiment with gluing rubber bands, electrical tape (sticky side out), and latex balloons to the foam wheels and see what works best.

Finished!

Since the last devlog, I:

• Centered text veritcally
• Made the window stay on top
• Created a fixed window size
• Completed the README and all ship requirements

Ace of Sharks 3.1 Tournament! Shipwrights, please read the note at the end of this devlog.

I brought Ace of Sharks 3.1 to a tournament and it went pretty well! I defiantly found some bugs that need fixed (like the whole weapon assembly falling off) but I was still able to lift other robots and the concept worked great.
There was no four wheel drive for this iteration, but that will come soon as well as wheel guards and a stronger attachment point for the lifter assembly.
I am ready to ship, with the tournament highlight video as the demo video for Ace of Sharks.
Stay tuned to Ace of Sharks as I will continue to improve Ace of Sharks 3.2 to prepare for another tournament before Stardance is over!
Edit for shipwrights because I can’t edit the ship post: I hope bonuses will retroactively apply as well as payout increases. I have a logo I make into stickers to give out a tournaments (a new one for v3 and I have three other Ace of Sharks logos I wish I could show you but I can’t add more pictures to a devlog), I edited a highlight video myself (that’s the demo video) and I designed the poster myself. I worked really hard on making this project do well in voting, so I am disappointed at the fixed 5 stardust an hour payout rate. The fixed payout makes sense with the way Stardance is formatted; it’s just disappointing because of how hard I worked on this project, trying to get 15-20 stardust an hour.