Our final machine could not have come together any better. After many early hours in the machine shop, we were able to construct our machine to the exact specifications that we originally intended, and we are all thrilled with the overall capabilities of "Bot."

The building process definitely tested our capacity as engineers and problems solvers. We had issues with all three components of our mechanism: the driving mechanism, the front tray, and the arm. These problems ranged from press-fitting the axles into the bearings to finding a way to start with our arm extension bent and to have it expand, and even included bending the metal and the assembly of our front tray.

In terms of a description of our machine, we have:
-The driving mechanism: Our machine's driving mechanism works with a dual gearbox motor that control the front two wheels, which have an almost 4" diameter and a foam surface. In the back, a ball caster functions as a third wheel.

-The front tray: Using the water jet to cut out our front tray pieces, we bent these to make sure there wasn't too much friction between the tray and the balls. We then assembled these pieces by using 1/16" sheet metal bent into 90˚ brackets and using sheet metal screws. It is used to collect the balls and transport them to our scoring hole.

-The arm: The arm is just tall enough so that it doesn't exceed the 18" height limit, and it has an L-shaped piece attached to a spring hinge that expands after our machine starts moving. It is used to knock balls of the perches of the tower.

Finally, as you can see in our pictures, we painted the machine to make it look "nasty." The orange and black design is sure to scare away any formidable opponent.