Murphy 3.0

Some of the team members met today to work on a few different projects. You can see video of Murphy 3.0 here.

Bryce and the build team worked on upgrading Murphy for the 3rd and, most likely, final time. The upgrades came about after going to the Pack Expo and seeing designs we liked. It also came about because of the shooter wheel change we made at the Pack Expo. We changed the drive train again. This time we went SUPER SIMPLE. Just gear boxes chained very short to plaction wheels on the front. Omni wheels are in the back. That's it. The CIM motors were reduced to 3 (left wheel, right wheel, shooter wheel). The pneumatics were hooked up again. The programming was fixed so it all worked together. The conveyer was put back on a victor. Basically, we simplified everything and made it much cleaner.

Alicia, David, Carson, and others got stuff ready for the Bydlon Beard Off. David did an awesome job and made signs for each beard design. Carson got boxes for money. Alicia and David made a GREAT poster for the table we'll have set up at lunch.

Brandon worked on learning about AutoDesk. Bydlon emailed Solidworks to see if our team could get some copies.

The best part of the day was driving Murphy to the commons area and filming it. It drives SO NICE. Can't wait to use it the Minne-Regional on November 17!!

Jam Pack(Expo)ed Day

Today was the really big day for our trip to the Pack Expo. We presented our robot, explored the show floor, visited sponsors, and squeaked in a little tourist activities.

We got up early and had Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. We did not know the valet parking rules so it took a while to get the van. However, it was in perfect shape so there were not complaints. The Pack Expo is held at McCormick Place, an incredibly large convention center in Chicago. It was a short, mildy stressful drive.

Immediately after arriving, we unloaded and set up our presenting area. Check out the video here. The FIRST Robotics area was inside the PMMI Education booth. We were surrounded by college booths. It was really exciting getting everything up and running and looking great. Bydlon set up the power point on the computer and the videos on the tablet. Bryce, Tyler and Brandon got the mascot out and made sure Murphy was up and running again. Everything started out fantastic.

But, as usual with Team 3313, Murphy's Law struck. The gearbox we put on the shooter had gears made out of Aluminum. The problem with aluminum is that it can be kind of soft when used at high speeds and a lot of torque. Of course the shooter wheel spins at incredibly high speeds and has a lot of torque. Basically, the gears rubbed down to nothing. This led to Bryce, Brandon, and Tyler having to do a complete shooter wheel motor change while presenting. OF COURSE, this happened right when the Pack Expo news team came over to interview us and film some video. However, the team always perseveres. The guys worked hard and fast and got the job done. The change over was seamless. Plus, it was a major upgrade for shooting.

After presenting, lunch was served in an office overlooking the entire show floor. It was incredible. The team who took over the presenting area was Team 864 Sparky from Richmond, VA. They were really nice and had some interesting ideas for designing their robot. Absolutely, a highlight of the trip was talking to other FRC teams. Learning their methods and practices can teach us a lot. They were very friendly and very knowledgeable 

A former PMMI President took the four of us on a tour of show floor. The Pack Expo had over 1900 exhibitors. That's A LOT of booths... One favorite was Fanuc. They make the yellow robotic arms. They had one arm that could take a picture of random objects in a bin and find a flat surface and grab it. Another favorite booth was where we got wrapped up in shrink wrap. We stood next to a palette and got wrapped up by a machine. Check out the video here.

We spent the last few hours of the Pack Expo visiting our sponsors. We stopped by the Douglas booth. We spent at least an hour at the Massman booth. The engineers were very nice. Highlight of the trip for Bydlon was watching the engineers talk to the students about how awesome their job is. Our last stop was the Aagard booth where we talked to an electrical engineer, Brad V., for about an hour. It was nice of Brad to spend that much time talking to students.

To end the EXTREMELY long day, Bydlon went for a walk to see The Bean in Chicago. The guys went to the swimming pool and hot tub to relax. A crazy, informative, awesome day really takes the energy out of people.

Days Like These Are Awesome

Saturday was a GREAT day! The team was able to test their robot in a real environment, they got some awesome help, and they had a ton of fun! Especially after the trouble we had on Friday, Saturday meant a lot. Check out YouTube videos of our performance!

Too Excited to Type

OUR ROBOT WORKS! WOW! Check out YouTube (tab above or this link). I wish I was a better writer so I could describe the feeling of accomplishment and pride that the team members felt when they watched the robot shoot and make baskets. So much hard work and dedication went into it. All of the same goes for the mascot. Both huge project that are so close to being done. We still have some work to do though.

 

Ready. Aim. FIRE!

 

 Two new YouTube videos!

We finished the entire shooting and gathering system today. What a major accomplishment for the team (one week early!) and a real testament to how hard and dedicated each and every team member is. We also made major progress on the mascot, our practice bot, Kinect programming, and the halftime show which is on Friday night.

Conveying Our Excitement!

 WE GOT SO MUCH DONE TODAY! The day off on Sunday seemed to really invigorate the team. That or the fact that we only have one week left to finish...

 

It's So Cold!

The team went out to the Ice Fishing Challenge on Lake Le Homme Dieu today. We did it as a fundraiser for the team. We presented to the Sertoma Club last fall. Usually, the nordic ski team does this fundraiser but opted not to this year. So Sertoma Club offered the position to us which was awesome!! Dominos Pizza came up with an arrangement where we split the profits 50/50. Also really awesome of them to give that help to the team. Of course, one of the coldest and windiest days of the winter was today. The team powered through though and worked together to sell the pizzas. We sold a ton and there were points where we didn't even leave the area around Jenna's dad's car. We had a line of people when the pizzas got there. Other times, we split up into teams and walked around the pizzas to all of the ice fishers. Two really big outcomes of this event. More community awareness of the team and fundraising. Both of these things are big goals of the team so, again, thanks go out to Sertoma Club and Domino's for setting up this arrangement.

After the tournament, we took the leftover pizzas and hung out at school. We played Rock Band and relaxed after a tiring and extremely cold day. We did do some work. We tested the horn on the bridge and shot some baskets. It is so exciting to see the robot make baskets, even when just testing. A huge accomplishment for all of the team members. We can't wait to really finish the robot and show it off to the community at the girls basketball game on Friday night!

Ride The Roller Coaster

Tons of excitement today! The biggest development of the day is that OUR ROBOT WORKS AGAIN! YES! We also got our new shirts in! They look sweet! We have a new drive station laptop! We got more pulleys in so the whole bottom level of the conveyer works! Exclamation points!

Recharge Our Batteries

The title of this post is a double entendre. We stopped early tonight because we accomplished pretty much all that we could. This allows us to kind of take a break after three straight late nights. Also, we had to charge our batteries for the robot. More mascot progress was made along with more poster work.

Pulleys and Bearings

Apologies for the kind of lame blog title and post tonight. It was a late night of working. The main projects for today were the conveyer, cleaning the robot room, and the mascot feet. A slightly frustrating day because we did not get the parts that we needed to really continue our work. So there was kind of a lot of time spent looking around for something to do.

Golden Horn

A full day of robotics for some of the team members. They had a PMMC meeting, then robotics after school. After school, we worked on tricking out the gatherer, making a new horn, working on the mascot's feet, and the pulleys for the gatherer.

Ghost Robot

The robot is really coming together now! We got all the Lexan we need and constructed the shooter and conveyer out of the Lexan. We also made a new blog page, kept working on programming the servo, and started on the mascot feet.

One of the team's big season goals was to build a robot that not only functioned well, but also looks pretty sweet. To that end, Bryce wired in LEDs to the electrical board today. Our bot now glows blue or red at the flip of a switch! Bydlon and Brandon got the last pieces of Lexan we needed for the conveyer. With those pieces bought, Ryan went to work putting the conveyer together. We are using big aluminum extrusion as reinforcement instead of c-channel because the Lexan is less rigid than chipboard or plywood. Ryan did an AWESOME job and it looks great. Meanwhile, Tyler went to work tidying up the shooter. We put all the pieces together and just have to mount the wheel and motor to the case. The team spent some time discussing how we are going to decorate all the Lexan we are using (sponsors, logos, colors, etc.). The goal is get everything put together by Thursday. A lofty goal but Team 3313 has come through in the clutch before.

Jenna finished compiling all of the team member interviews into sub team compilations. Be sure to check them out on the new tab at the top of the page or click here, Team Members. Great work by her. The Queen songs at the beginning of each are an homage to our constant Queen playlist in the shop (and love of Queen in Rock Band). The team's constant recruitment push is still going on (we had a new potential member hang out with Jenna today).

Megan and Colin kept working on programming in the servo motor to drop the bridge arm. This is being a real pain because no one on the team has ever programmed one before. Lots of research has yielded nothing so far.

Jesse, Spencer, and some other members started working on the feet of the mascot. The base of the feet is carpet and cardboard with shoes screwed into this. Then you build the cardboard around this. Lots of problem solving to figure out how to do this.Gabe took some great pictures today as well.

Another awesome day of build season. It is so fantastic seeing all of the robot pieces come together to form our finished project. It's slow going because we need to be really precise and make sure it all works. ONLY 15 DAYS LEFT!

Working For The Weekend

 NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO OF ROBOT DRIVING!

Sorry about the late posting. The team played Rock Band for about 5 hours on Friday evening and then a busy Saturday and Sunday led to a post being written during the Super Bowl. Anyway, Friday was an incredibly exciting day for the team. We finally got the robot driving and shooting basketballs again! We also made a ton of progress on the mascot.

Jesse and Steph have been working their butts off on the mascot. You can really see the progress that they have made so far. Unebelievably awesome. We are for sure going to have the best mascot at our Regional. There is still a lot of work to do but they are doing great.

As far as robot progress, we finished the new electrical board. It looks great and really saves space and weight. Bryce, Bydlon, Tyler, and many other students worked on this project. Bryce worked on Sunday for a couple hours cleaning up the wiring so it looks good and is efficient. The other project holding up driving was the chains on our wheels which we finished as well. Thanks to Zach from last year, we finally found a place to buy Lexan. Ryan and Brandon started making the final shooter and conveyer out of the plexiglass. We are joking that we are going to be called the "ghost robot" because our bot is basically going to be lexan with some aluminum braces.

It was so exciting to see the robot driving around again with the updated electrical board and horn for the bridge. Speaking of which, we brought the holder for the horn over to the Tech who are manufacturing it for us. Also, Spencer brought part of our angle adjuster to his dad to try and make out of metal.

Jenna continued editing team member profiles which will be done very soon.

Only two weeks left.... So awesome.

Around the Horn

The biggest excitement for the team today turned out to not really be that exciting after all. The dead line for paying for your second Regional Event (Duluth for us) was Friday but we got it extended to today. We had a bunch of discussions on whether we wanted to go or not. The pros were: more opportunities for advancing to Nationals, another trip to hang out as a team, and another chance to improve the robot before the U of M. The cons were: it costs a lot of money (for individuals and the team), we probably wouldn't be able to bring everyone, it would leave us in a pretty sad state next year and this off season financially, and there would be more school missed. Ultimately we decided against it. The cons really outweighed the pros. We are trying to build something great in our school and community and we want to keep that going rather than take the selfish route and go to Duluth. The U of M is still really awesome and we are doing everything we can during the build season to make a great robot for it.


As far as actual build advancement today, we got quite a bit done. We finished the prototype of the "horn" on the front of the robot. This will allow us to push down the bridge to go to the other side of field or balance on the bridge at the end of the game. Ryan, Tyler, Brandon, and Bydlon worked hard on designing, machining, and mounting the components. Bryce explains in this YouTube video how the mechanism will work. We can't test it quite yet but the concept and execution looks great.

Bryce worked on re-making the electronics board. Our original idea was to have the board vertical connected to the gatherer. Our plans changed last week when we turned the shooter around. So we needed to re-think the board. Our new idea is to mount the electronics in the middle of the bot right in front of the gatherer. We will have two levels of electronics. Bryce made quite a bit of progress. All we have to do is re-mount the components and build the second level. This will be completed tomorrow.

Ryan re-worked the shooter and gatherer connection so the basketball will not get stuck in between. 

Jenna's projects for today included many things. She made a handout about the U of M competition reminding team members we are asking for some monetary contribution to help pay for hotels. She also made some photo collages for new posters (example below). Jenna, Megan, and Colin worked on budgeting out hotels and transportation for the U of M regional. Lots more to do tomorrow.

It was a good day where the team accomplished quite a bit. The sense of accomplishment was back and the energy level was definitely better. Crazy what a day off can do. More excitement tomorrow.

Stumbling Blocks

After so much success with prototypes and so many things working out with the team, it was inevitable some challenges would happen for the team soon. Unfortunately on Saturday, we ran into (literally) a big challenge: the bump in the middle of the field. We spent the past two days working on a wheel system that would get us over the bump and it didn't work. We also started working on vision processing (for finding the hoops) and an arm to push the bridge down so we can drive over it. Luckily, those went a little bit better.

First off, there are a couple visual changes to the blog. You probably noticed the new header visual (thanks Jenna). We will also be adding the Team Members page and a page describing our team and the mission of FIRST in the coming week or so. So look out for those.

In case you didn't know, the field for our competition is divided into two halves. Dividing these halves is a 4" tall by 6" wide bump and 3 bridges. Traversing these obstacles is essential to playing the game. Brandon, Ryan, and Tyler worked their butts off making a system to lower the bridge the past two days. It is really sweet! It's an arm with an angle piece coming down. It will rest on a platform with an L shaped plastic piece that is connected to a spring. At the beginning of the match, we will drop the arm and the spring loaded L shaped piece will keep the arm down during the match. I will upload some pictures on Monday which will make it easier to see. We haven't tested it yet (gulp) but we will do that on Monday. It looks awesome and it follows the big rule of KISS (keep it simple stupid).

The major project we worked on though was the wheel system. On Friday, we took the whole bot apart and started changing the wheels. We had to drop our wheels down so that the frame could fit over the bump. This is a much bigger task than it sounds. It requires cutting and drilling new axle holes in 12 pieces of extrusion. Then we had to put new chains on each gearbox and make new spacers for each wheel. This is a LONG process that we spent literally 9 hours on Saturday working on. Bryce's dad came and helped get the chains and spacers ready which was really nice. So we were feeling really good after getting the entire robot back together and the wheels on and working. Until... we tested it. There is a YouTube video up of the test. We were all so tired that you can't really tell how disappointing it was. However, the team is resilient and will think of another mechanism to go over the bump. No worries.

Colin and Megan worked on getting the image processing for the camera going. The LabView programming has the power to recognize shapes and colors including the metal rectangles behind the hoops. This will allow us to program the robot to find the hoops and aim for us. 





Our energy was still really low after working for so long during the week. Plus, the team members are still students and involved in many other things (including work and church and speech and homework). They're commitment is incredible and inspiring. We are half done! That's both awesome and scary. The challenges presented to us will be overcome though.We ended the night by playing some Rock Band to relieve stress.