Project SAHSA : The best and the latest

As promised, here is the presentation of the best and latest of project SASHA Vex, in blog entry format.

 Project SASHA Vex started out at the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year.  In a brand new robotics class, teams were formed and given the task of creating a complex robot using Lego Mindstorms.  Team 6 immediately started searching for designs.

 Pretty soon, a machine gun robot was discovered and instructions for this robot were printed out off the internet.  The basic structures were built, and the very first robot built by Team 6 was complete.  This robot was capable of firing Lego parts used as ammunition in quick succession by using a spinning arm to strike the "bullets" and send them flying forward one after another.

The first design is seen here.

However, pressing the trigger and watching about 10 Lego pieces fly across the room wasn't quite enough.  At Project SASHA, we strive to improve the robots we use constantly, and this was our goal from the beginning.  Although no official documentation was created at that time, we extended the clip (the straight up piece seen in the image that feeds the ammunition) so that we could shoot for a little bit longer.  We also created a set of wheels so that SASHA could drive around, and an automatic firing mode.  Finally, to top it all off, we added a rolling clip that would say "Shoot!" every time we shot a round.  This was mainly for amusement purposes, but it also put on display some of our early programming capabilities.

 The next task of Team 6 was to create a robot that could play soccer.  The robot built by Project SASHA was completely original, using absolutely no outside influence to create the structure and mechanics of what soon became SASHA 2.0.  Although we were just getting into the business of creating digital portfolios and website documentation, there is only a limited amount of media and information on SASHA 2.0, our second and final Lego project.

SASHA 3.0 was designed for the purpose of wireless streaming.  We wanted it to be very fast and extremely versatile, while having streaming capabilities that allowed it to hold a camera in a safe way and travel long distances while maintaining reception (for the remote and for the camera).  

Recently, we started building a miniature robot named SASHA 4.1, paying respect to all of our robots who have contributed to the design of this new machine.  This robot's project goal is to sweep mines, as seen in the Vex mine sweeping challenge.

All the latest on this robot can be found on our blog, because it's one of our more recent projects and we will have every detail on the digital portfolio.