ENTRY
06

September 21, 2026

Chassis Rebuild & Drive Code Setup
Attendees Josh, Torin, Sarah

Meeting Summary

Our robot didn't drive correctly, so we took it apart and rebuilt the chassis. The build team connected and squared up the frame, started the intake wheel, and mounted the electronics. On the code side, we set up our programming environment and got basic mecanum drive code running. Testing showed the chassis still needs to be stiffer and the drive controls need to be remapped to match our robot.

Build: Chassis Rebuild

Starting point: the chassis was just the motors inside a metal frame, and our two sets of wheels were not connected to each other.

  • Connected the two sets of wheels. The frame was twisty and would not sit square.
  • Worked on squaring the frame. It's better, but still not as square as it should be.
  • Found the mounting poles were crooked and in the wrong spots, so we took the whole robot apart and reinstalled them correctly
  • Mounted the Control Hub and batteries
  • Started building the intake wheel

Build: Test Results

  • Strafing does not work correctly: it twists the robot around instead of moving sideways
  • The chassis needs to be stronger and more rigid

Code: Environment & Drive Setup

  • Set up Claude Pro and GitHub for our code
  • Gave Claude a detailed starting prompt, allowed it to access apps on the computer, and asked it to check with us whenever it was unsure, making a decision, or thought we should do something differently
  • Claude set up our development environment, added FTC code libraries, and created TeleOp and Autonomous programs
  • Generated basic drive code for a mecanum chassis, which drove correctly once everything was set up

Code: Problem Found

Our robot's layout is different from a standard mecanum chassis: the motion the code calls "strafe left" is actually "drive forward" on our robot. We renamed the motors and switched the controls around to match, but the robot still didn't drive in the right direction.

Next step: get the robot driving in the correct directions at the next meeting.

Homework / Action Items

  • Josh & Torin: secure the robot chassis, researching fixes as needed
  • Sarah: write this notebook entry and dig deeper into the code

This notebook was created with the assistance of Claude AI and Handy dictation software.