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.

Loving Chicago

Brandon, Bryce, Tyler, and Bydlon left for Chicago today to attend and present at Pack Expo 2012. Today was really the "tourist" day while Monday will be a big "work" day.


The four travelers met up at JHS to pack up the van at 5:30am. It was an early start but led to more time exploring later on in the day. It was a tight squeeze, but all of the stuff some how fit into the back of the van. The drive was very uneventful. Great weather, easy roads to drive, not too bad of construction. The 8 to 9 hours passed by very quickly given the circumstances.

It took a little bit of work but we found our way to the hotel. IT IS SO NICE. WOW. Big thank you to PMMI and Massman Automation Designs for setting up our stay and PackExpo tickets. This is for sure the nicest hotel any of us have stayed at. Everyone rested for a little bit before going out to do tourist activities.

Our original plan was to take the Elevated Train to the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower. Unfortunately, we couldn't figure out how to get a ticket for the train so we walked. The Willis Tower is amazing. We took an elevator to the top and even went out on The Ledge. The Ledge are some clear boxes that jut out of the top of the tower. It makes you feel like you are floating 103 stories in the air. Chicago looked amazing at night.

Then we ate some Chicago Style Pizza at Giordano's. It was incredibly delicious, especially after a long day of either sitting in the car or walking all over Chicago.

Tomorrow is the big day! We will present about FIRST Robotics and our team from 9am to 1pm in the Lakeside Center. We cannot wait!

Massman Automation Designs

Team 3313 Mechatronics went to Massman Automation Designs in Villard, MN today to do some presentations. We had two different presentation times, one in the morning and one in the evening.

Check out a video recap here.

In the morning, some of the team members met at the Robot Room when school started. We headed down to Massman to present to Minnewaska High School students that were touring. On Monday night, we brought down all the supplies so all we had to do on Tuesday was set them up. The presentation went ok. We did not know how much time we had to talk so that made the first presentation a little disjointed. We recovered for the second presentation however. The morning was a fun experience and Team 3313 welcomes the chance to excite other schools about STEM education and FIRST Robotics. It was a natural progression, talking about high school robotics and then all of the cool stuff Massman makes. The team members headed back to school for the afternoon.

After school was over, a bunch of team members headed back down to Massman for their Open House. Massman opened up its doors for the evening to community members, employee members, and our team. We had the same area set up. The team estimated that we presented to well over 200 people. It was a great experience. Just like the morning, the more presentations we did, the more comfortable we got and the better the experience was for everyone. The team members who came with did a great job of dividing up speaking responsibilities.

The highlight of the night though, was the tour of Massman Automation Designs. Basically, Massman manufactures assembly lines. The assembly lines they build often deal with food products being boxed up and packaged. We saw a line that takes ground turkey packages and boxes them. Then the machine puts the boxes on palates and shrink wraps the palates. It was awesome. Another machine takes 40 lb. blocks of cheese and puts them into packages. A microwave popcorn bag filler that was destined for the country of Hungary was also exciting. It can go up to 200 bags a minute!!! Woah! All the work, time, and care that goes into each machine was really impressive.

Massman is part of the PMMC, one of our major local sponsors. Obviously, we also appreciate the support Massman and the PMMC provide us. It was fun to finally get to see what they do and how it connects to our group. Can't wait to visit our other sponsors!!

Goofing Off

Some of the team members met today after school. We did not have a ton to do.

The build team took off the back chains and tried moving around our crazy wheel arrangement. It didn't really help but at least we tried.

Allen from the programming team started making Java tutorials. You can view the first one here and the second video here.

Gabe worked on a script for the Chairman's Award. We made a presentation for our trip to Massman Automation Designs.

Everyone who was at the meeting went up into the computer at some point. We made a Gmail Chat and goofed off in there. Eventually, Gabe and Allen worked together to make this happen. Please click that link and laugh. That's our head coach's face repeated. So funny.

Sometimes it's good to just have a pseudo day off. We worked hard on Saturday at fundraisers and have a presentation on Tuesday.

Fair Play

As usual with our team, we never have just one event in a day. It has to be two or three... The team always stands up to all the excitement though and provides a great experience at each event. The team presented at the Club Fair, visited our big sponsor group, the PMMC, and had a team meeting.

The Club Fair at Jefferson High School is a nice place to show off the work we do and recruit new members. It was nice that so many of the current team members were so eager to help out and hang out at the table. We had Rover out and about driving around. Potential recruits were able to drive the robot and talk to current members about the work we do, how often we meet, and how awesome we are. We got around 10 potential names and contact information which is a good start.

The PMMC meeting went well. First, the team talked about the Homecoming Parade. Most of the rest of the meeting was spent discussing the team budget and fundraising opportunities for the rest of the year. One of our biggest events coming up is an Open House at Massman, LLC who is part of the PMMC. We are looking forward tomeeting potential mentors and showing off all of our hard work.

Lastly, the team met up after school to continue our off season work. Kacy and her crew worked on purchase orders for new parts, posters for the Bydlon Beard Off, and emails to prospective new sponsors. Bryce and his team worked on the electrical board for Murphy. Molly got some parts made over at Alex Tech. Allen and his "students" spent their time continuing to learn Java while also programming Kinect. Finally, the team reminisced about memories from last year.

Bydlon... well he was weird like always.