Minne Mini- T Minus Nine Days

Hello from Team 3313!

Today was another pretty slow day.  We ran our robot from last year, to get back into the swing of things and get ready for the Minne Mini!  We have quite a few new recruits, and they're just as excited as the ones from years past, if not more, to get started and learn new things! 

We had a brief meeting to discuss fundraising ideas and sponsors and are well on our way to being ready for build season!!  The next time we will meet will be Tuesday, the 15th of November!

The Minne Mini is on November 19th and we can't wait to interact with other teams and explore this experience!!!

Halloween's over! Robotics begins!

Hello from Team 3313 Mechatronics!

Today was our first official meeting with the new recruits, and it was a pretty slow day. The newbies were trained on blogging, we organized our space, and had a chairman's meeting. The team discussed outreach, fundraising, promo, and sponsors. The majority of the team was focused on really cleaning up our space and prepping for the Minne Mini!! We are ready to kick bot, already having new experiences and we love what we've seen in the recruits. 

Our new and old team members are super excited for the Minne Mini-Regional on November 19th! 

The next meeting will be on Thursday, November 10th and we can't wait!!!

Team 3313's Club Fair Extravaganza!

Hey from Team 3313 Mechatronics!,

Hope all of the teams have had a fun off season. The game reveal is a couple of months away, but I'm sure that everyone is getting pumped for what the season's game is going to be. Who know's maybe the game will be that water game that we have been wanting for years!

On Thursday, September 29th 2016, the Alexandria Area High School held their annual club fair. At this club fair we were able to show off what FIRST really means. During our 3 lunches, Highschoolers were able to see some footage from last year's game as well as see the kinds of awards you can earn on the team. From the information that they acquired, they decided to sign up to be on the team. We are excited to welcome the new recruits in our journey to building an epic bot for what I hope will be an epic game.

Speaking of new recruits on our team, we are excited to be going to the Minne Mini-Regional hosted by 2169 King TeC. This event allows our new recruits to get hands on experience with what we do on the robotics team.

We can't wait to see all of the teams at this event! Keep Calm and Build a Robot! :)

Ready, Set, Go!

Hello from team 3313!,

After a long 6 weeks the time has come. Teams have bagged up their bots and are ready for the steady transport to their destinations. Team 3313's destination? Duluth! Yup that's right we are going up north this year! We are so excited to see new and old teams there! We can't wait until we get to compete against the other robots and see what others have built. After a successful Week Zero we can't wait until we get to start up our bot and play it on the rigorous field. Thank you everyone for your support and help with everything that we needed. Again, we leave wednesday and we can't wait until we get to see everyone at the Northern Lights Regional!

Team Mechatronics assemble!

Hello from Team 3313 Mechatronics!!!!

Sorry for the delayed post, but i can assure you that we are a bit late on our posts for a reason since we have been very busy and engaged in many different activities. Hopefully, now that we are further in our build season, there will be more frequent posts being put up because of the amount of things that we have been doing.

First off, we finally, after a long anticipated 2 weeks, got our tank drive tracks. We hope that these new tracks will be able to drive ourselves to pretty good standings in week zero and the other competitions that are coming up. We hope that these tracks will also allow us to get over most defenses in the game. To further prepare for the defenses, we have been building some of the ones that we believe that we can go over.

Another highlight that the team has had was being able to create a shooter that seems to work very effectively. We have decided to use this prototype for our actual robot. For the most part the robot is built. All we have to do is attach some wires and start programming the brains of the bot so that our creation comes to life. So far with the shooter that we have, we are going to be able to shoot the ball into the high goals very shortly after we get over the defenses. In conjunction with being able to shoot the ball we have managed to make an intake system where we can pick up with the ball. As mentioned before we have started the wiring and the programming on the bot. That's why we have been training some of the students on the team how to program.

Everything seems to be working out great. All we need to do is do some wiring, some programing, make some adjustments and figure out what we are going to name the bot. Also, something is coming back to our team. Hint: Something to cheer the team on and show team spirit. That's right. Some students from our team have been assigned the job of creating a new mascot. So far, the mascot looks good and hopefully we can have it done by the time that week zero comes along. If not, then the mascot for sure will be done by the time that the regionals comes around. This year, our team is going to the Northstar regional in Duluth.


We can't wait until we get to see all of the teams again. If anyone needs help feel free to contact us. Thank you so much to everyone for your support. See you all soon. Keep calm and robot on.

Day 6: Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Hello from team 3313 Mechatronics!

Today started slow as we wait for certain parts to come in for our bot. Until then, we keep on perfecting the ideas that we have elaborated on. Our prototype, with time, will be in our midst very very soon. We can't wait.

In addition to the topics discussed today, we are thinking about having some fundraisers and meeting with our sponsors again. Hopefully, very soon. Right now we are confirming what we need to start to do so that we can have a successful season this year.

We can't wait until we get to see the other teams at week zero. Most importantly, thank you to all of the people who have supported us. That includes our mentors, the parents who have been helping us, other teams and our important sponsors.

Day 3, 4 and 5: The Wonderful Topic of Chairman's and Prototypes

Hello from Team 3313 Mechatronics!

Today, team members discussed the important topic of Chairman's and what we need to do over the next 3 weeks. We got the executive summary done today which is a good start for what we want to accomplish. As for the other parts of today we still continued to revise part of the final plan of the robot. We ordered some well needed parts for the bot today and when we receive the parts we can start building the prototype. As for right now we have started to build the shooting part of our bot, making sure that our idea is working.

We will keep on working, but for now.... have fun and build a bot! Can't wait to see all of the other teams at week zero! The team will be making sure to keep the rest of the robotics world updated.

Day 2: Shaping and Melding the Metal of Ideas

Hello, from Team 3313 Mechatronics,

Today was another productive day for the team. We all partnered up presenting even more ideas for how the robot might look and what we need to get to achieve our goals. Everyone worked together nicely. For now all of the teams are going to be working together until we start building our prototype and then from there after making the adjustments needed start building the real deal so that we can get ready for the busy season ahead of us.

Many ideas were presented. Even today we have come up so many ideas and can't wait to see what we get when we put all of them together. Today was super productive and everyone looked like they were having a whole bunch of fun. With the help of our sponsors and our school i bet that our team will be able to achieve great things.

Well, that's all for today. A big thank you to the teams for being fun and our sponsors who have helped us so much over these years. From Team 3313, we can't wait see the other teams at until week zero! Have fun and build a bot!

Day One: The Blossoming of New Ideas

Hello from team 3313 Mechatronics!

The long wait for the game reveal is now over. Yesterday, all the teams watched the interesting and amazing live stream that FIRST presented. Now, the real fun begins. All the teams will start to meld their ideas together to create something amazing. There are so many possibilities. Also, when it comes to the field there are over 10,000 possibilities. There is no expecting the unexpected. All the teams can do is build a bot that can handle certain challenges that is put before it. This game is a game of the mind that is most likely challenging all of the minds in the FIRST robotics league. No matter how hard something seems to the minds of individuals in each team, there is no giving up. The reward that you get from all of this hard work is the satisfaction that each person gets when they complete their robot.

Team 3313 has started off the meeting by reading the game manual and other regulations that is concerning the way our team can build the bot. Later, we started to discuss what we would want our bot to do as well as what we need to do to achieve these goals and create a really awesome bot. The chalkboard is written all over and chalk dust is flying as we get really busy writing down all of the ideas that members have presented. When we have presented an idea we discuss what is good about it and then we illustrate the weaknesses that the bot might have. From there we can change the bot to what we need and start building. We do our best to use a little part from each of the ideas to create the bot so that everyone can have a say in how the bot is going to be built.

Soon, we will be splitting up into different parts of the team. We will have the PR team, in charge of outreach events and our fundraising. We will have the programming team taking control of the "brains" of the robot so that our creation can come alive. Lastly, we will have our building working on the frame and the structure of the bot so that our creation can have a solid skeleton since having a strong bot is necessary for the roughness of the field. It may seem that we all work separately, but as the season starts pass, all of the teams will come together and create the team creation of our bot.

After ideas have been given, the Chairman's Team has started talking about some ideas of our own. Such as what costume theme we want to use and what we need to write to show the other teams that we did something awesome this year.  Today, we might build the prototype, but only after a couple hours of brainstorming. The team feels that we are going to have a pretty good bot this year. Team 3313 cannot wait until we get to see what all of the other teams are going to have built for the season. See you all at week zero. Most importantly have fun!

Anticipation

Hello from Team 3313 Mechatronics!

After a fun break we all came back together to start thinking about the busy adventure that lay in front of us. As of now many teams are excited about the game reveal that is happening tomorrow. Team 3313 is also excited about the season that lays before us. We are ready for the challenge and cannot wait until we get to see the full picture of the game this year. 

Everyone is teeming with excitement for tomorrow. We have been busy teaching programming and also teaching building strategies for what our robot might be. When we find out what the game exactly is we will start to fuse our ideas together to overcome the obstacles that we might face. We know that we will fail, but without failure there is no success. Failure only means we have something that we need to fix so that we can get better. 

On a further note, students have been learning and have been enjoying their time on the team. Soon, after we get the game we will start training certain positions for the drive team as well as some more programmers so that the work isn't put on one person.

Most importantly, i would like to say thank you to our wonderful sponsors that have been helping fund us these past few years. Without their support i don't know where the team would be today. I would also like to say thank you to all of the fantastic and amazing teams out there. Thank you for showing newcomers what it is like to be in this super fun and educational sport. Also, Team 3313 would like to thank you for being so helpful when we needed it. 

For a final note, Team 3313 can't wait until the game reveal tomorrow and we can't wait until we get to see the rest of the teams there. Have fun and robot on!