SASHA 4.1--Major Announcements

SASHA 4.1, the miniature mine-sweeping robot, completed it's first successful run today.  Although this project is not quite done, it is definitely on it's way to excellence.  The competition for the mine-sweeping robots is scheduled for this Friday, the 17th, and we plan on excelling at (if not winning) this competition with our compact robot, designed to get the job done in the safest way possible.  Today, we started out by putting the finishing touches on our robot, and then we began testing it.
At first, the wheels worked arcade style, so we had to change around the ports to get them to work tank style which is the style we prefer.  The following images show our tests of the robot, including small adjustments made to better the robot, such as a small plate added in the bottom to hold the battery better.

This driving shot of SASHA 4.1 displays the front area.  In this area, we are considering adding a robotic arm for the purpose of mine sweeping, our goal for this new project.  This arm will most likely be adopted and taken from SASHA 4.0, because of it's versatility and ability to pick things up.  While we are still researching mine sweeping, and have a lot to learn, we believe it is in our best interest to use this sort of arm based on other groups' excursions and our experience.  The area in between the two gray wheels is where we would put this arm, and it would be securely balanced on the opposite end while it moving around to pick up mines.

This decision being extremely important and innovative, we'll keep you updated as time goes on so that you can stay informed on our decisions.  And of course, more pictures will follow to tell the story of SASHA 4.1s development.

Finally, we're announcing that consideration of SASHA 4.1's name is taking place.  Since 4.1 is having such a major impact on our group's work, and since we have not had time to build another robot to sweep mines, we're thinking of making SASHA 4.1 into SASHA 5.0.  This miniature robot is paving the way for future success for our group, and we want to recognize the impact that it's had on us respectfully.  However, it does incorporate a lot of elements from previous robots:

• Special turning wheels from 3.0
• Moving arm from 4.0
• Possible small variety of Lego parts from 1.0 and 2.0
• Live video streaming capabilities from 3.0

The reason we gave SASHA 4.1 it's name is because it takes elements from all of our 4 previous robots and combines them into one, making it somewhat of an unoriginal design.  However, the purposes for SASHA 4.1 are unique, and the method of creation that led us to the small body is entirely new--so why not make it SASHA 5.0?  We'll keep you updated on this decision, because although it seems minor, it will affect our future robots in every way.