Float-ing On Air

Today was, yet again, spent preparing for the Homecoming Parade. The parade is Saturday at Noon on Broadway in Alexandria, MN. Come check it out!! The team accomplished so much today!! Wow! Click on any picture to see a large version.

As usual, the team met in Bydlon's room to begin. We discussed our ideas for a West Central MN FRC Get Together. We would like to host many of our other regional teams to gain more knowledge and make some bonds with teams close by. Then everyone learned their jobs for the day.

Molly and Bryce went to Menard's to buy plywood for the "stage" on our float. Rover will be on the float with Molly and we want everyone to see Rover so we made a stage out of chip board and palettes. Brandon and Bryce worked on making the whole stage. It looks great! Molly and Bryce also picked up some steel rod to make a harness for our drive station. Molly took it over to Alex Tech and they made the steel rods into mounting brackets. Look Ma, NO HANDS!

Allen was alone today programming but made a TON of progress. Gabe brought in an XBox controller for Allen to start programming with. It will replace the joysticks we have used in the past. Allen also worked on the programming for Murphy (Rover programming is complete in JAVA). He got the drive train working and the fly wheel. Spike relays were causing problems so Bydlon switched the conveyor into a Victor controller. And it worked! Allen even got the fly wheel and conveyor speed to be adjustable. WOW! Great job Allen!

Kacy, Alicia, Taylor, Gabe, Vincent, and Carson worked insanely hard on getting the trailer transformed into a float for the parade. THEY DID SUCH AN AWESOME JOB! It is incredibly tedious work putting all the tissue paper into the chicken wire and streamers on the trailer. But they had a positive attitude and worked hard. Bydlon tried to help with the tissue paper but didn't do a very good job. Oops. The decorations look soooo good! All that's left is the other side of the trailer and we are done. Kacy worked on the back ramp part of the trailer. It looks great too!

Eddie and Jesse worked on making Rover all pretty. They hid the nasty wires that were cluttered all over the top of it. Black wire covers are awesome.

The team worked so hard today and did such a fantastic job. Our float is going to kick everyone else's float out of the water!

Kinect-ing People

Three big developments today. The new (and hopefully final) electrical board is complete, the mascot head is fully painted black (only touch ups left), and we started programming with the Kinect.

The electrical board was fully completed. We took the final step and made the board out of lexan. The extrusion pieces were brought over to the Tech and cut and tapped. All the cords are plugged in and it is ready to go. The only missing part on the front half of the robot is the metal piece to hold the horn for the bridge down. This piece is being manufactured at the Tech and will be ready tomorrow. Their help has been invaluable to the team this year. Cannot thank them enough. The only build aspects left are finding lexan and making the shooter and gatherer out of it. Other than that, we are basically done with initial design. After that, it's testing, testing, testing and refining, refining, refining.

Colin and Megan started fiddling around with the Kinect. Colin got the program (FAAST) to work last night and showed off today. He could use his hands and arms to guide the mouse on his computer which is sweet. The next step is transferring that information over to LabView (the software we do our programming in). One of the team's big goals is to be well rounded and be able to do as many aspects of the competition as possible. This includes, balancing on the bridge, Kinect driving, autonomous mode, picking up basketballs, shooting basketballs accurately, etc.


The other big development is that the helmet of the mascot is pretty much complete. Jesse and Steph finished spray painting both the helmet and the body today. The next step is adding the other color elements.

I said this yesterday but tomorrow we will drive again!! I promise. We will also get plexiglass and start making the gatherer and shooter final parts. The team will start making the bumpers, keep Kinect programming, and post the team member videos.

The Chains That Bind You

The high school team members did not have school today so the energy level and focus was really good. There was a lot accomplished on the bot and in other areas. There is a new addition to the blog, we got the wheels chained onto the bot, and we are juuuuuust about done with our new electrical board. We also continued work on the mascot and started fiddling around with Kinect driving.

The big advancements on the robot were chaining the wheels and being very close to finishing the electrical board. Damien and Tyler worked hard on finishing the spacers for the wheels. This is a tedious and annoying process but they did a great job finishing it. Bryce then finished the job off by doing the chain. Again, this is a really annoying process but Bryce powered through and finished them up (hopefully for the last time). The biggest annoyance with the chain is how many times we have had to re-do them. I believe we are on our third or fourth chain attempt. However, it was a huge relief having the robot on all six wheels again. The other big advancement was with the new electrical board. Jordan, Allen and Tyler worked on this aspect. We mounted and wired all of the controllers. Jordan cut the extrusion pieces for mounting the top layer. All that's left is bringing those extrusion pieces over to the Tech to get them tapped (we broke our tap set). We will be driving the robot again tomorrow. YES!

Jenna worked on the blog some more. The team would really like to win a Website Award at our Regional competition. There are tons and tons of criteria to do this including a summary of what FIRST Robotics is about and a team summary. Jenna is working on both of these things. The FIRST Robotics summary is up. Click on the page at the top of the blog to check it out. The team summary will be up tomorrow and on Friday we will upload some Team member interviews so you can better get to know the team.

Jesse and Bryce continued painting the mascot body with black spray paint. Mechatron is going to look awesome! Colin, Megan, and Gabe spent some time today organizing the robot room which was SORELY needed. Great work by them. Cleaning and organizing is an important and thankless job. Colin and Megan started fiddling around with the Kinect driving software while they wait to test new code on the robot. Every FIRST team got a Kinect this year which can be used to drive the robot for the first 15 seconds of the match. It will also be cool to use when we are demonstrating the robot out in the community.


 Nice work and focus by the team today. Hopefully, we are all back on track to make the second half of the build season the best it can be. We will have a driving robot again tomorrow. That will be awesome. Thanks for reading! ROLL OUT!

Pictures Are Worth A Thousand Words

So much excitement to be had today! We finished the practice hoop set up. We refined the gatherer and shooter. We made a bunch of baskets. We totally finished the mascot head. We built supports for the gatherer and electrical board. We got a story posted in the Echo Press Newspaper. Todd (Alex Tech professor) stopped by.  We finished the business plan draft. We got the camera to work. So super awesome. I'm too excited to type. I'll just post pictures instead. Click on any to see them bigger. Also remember to check out YouTube for videos from today.

Moustachioed.

SO AWESOME!

MAKING BASKETS!

We have a messy robot room...

Three Exciting Moments

Another awesome day for Mechatronics. We got a lot accomplished. I realize I say that a lot but it is amazing how much the team accomplishes every day. It is a testament to their dedication and ingenuity. I am continually impressed. The biggest excitement today was that we picked a ball up off the ground, made some baskets with our shooter, started on the hoop apparatus, and made a ton of progress on the mascot head.

The frist big moment of the day was that Brandon, Bydlon, Bryce, and Tyler brought the shooter down to the gym and made 5 (!!!!) baskets in a row. It was a very exciting feeling to actually see the shooter accomplish the goal we set out for it. We tried shooting the ball with the wheel above (opposite of what we planned) and kept missing the hoop. Finally, someone suggested we switch it up and it worked! The whole idea of trying this came from a student in Bydlon's class 7th period. The fact that this never even crossed anyone's mind is slightly embarrassing.

The next super exciting moment was that we picked a ball up off the ground and got it to the top of the gatherer! Two weeks of hard work paid off in about 5 seconds. Super exciting! Damien and Molly brought some parts over to the Tech to get them cut for us. These parts were obstructing the path of the ball. We originally had some issues with the buttons on the drive station and the gatherer but Colin worked his butt off and fixed them. Our next goal is to fully refine the gatherer by having five belts. This will get finished tomorrow. After that, we need to add on the shooter.

The third super exciting moment was seeing the helmet of the mascot come together. Jenna and Jesse worked so hard on the mascot helmet today. The tedious nature of the project cannot be overstated. However, the end product will be well worth it. Great job by Jesse and Jenna on the project today.

Bydlon and Bryce bought and cut all of the wood for the Hoop Apparatus. This will come in helpful when we are testing our shooter on the real game hoop set up. The tests today in the gym were good for our confidence but as far as actually proving we can succeed... We need the real thing to work on. This should be completed tomorrow.

So many exciting things still coming up. We already checked off about 4 or 5 goals for the week which is amazing! More to come tomorrow.

Don't Worry, It's Just A Prototype

The title for this post is our team's motto so far this year. Whenever we're building anything and someone raises a concern, we jokingly say that line. Then we brainstorm ways to fix it. Today was another really awesome day for the team. So many things started and finished. So many laughs and positive energy. One of those days that makes FIRST Robotics awesome. Everybody was on their game as far as keeping busy but still having fun. Our projects included: mounting the electrical board, mounting the gatherer and shooter, finishing the bridge, starting the mascot helmet and beginning out team member profiles.

Remember to check YouTube for 4 (!!!!) new videos.


We finished the bridge!! That's two out of three game pieces completed. The only one left is the hoop aparatus. Brandon, Molly, Tyler, Connor, and some others really worked hard on getting the bridge done and it looks awesome. We put it through its paces by having some people walk and balance on it. Pretty soon (tomorrow) we will be able to drive our robot over it. We finished the other piece of the middle of the game field, the bump, on Monday. These two elements will be crucial for testing our design next week.

Another huge project for today was completely mounting the prototype robot. We finished the electrical board box by adding a bottom and a side. The box looks great already (go wire management and zip ties!!) but will look even more awesome when we make it out of lexan and put the red and blue LEDs in it. Our first step was putting the gear boxes back on the frame. Then, we mounted the electrical board and battery. Our last step was to mount the gatherer and shooter. Tyler had a great idea for mounting the gatherer and many others on the team helped out with this process. We finished by mounting the gate mechanism and testing it out. SO COOL WITH IT ALL TOGETHER! The feeling you get when a group has an idea and finally sees that idea in a real life way is impossible to describe. So proud of the team so far. This is MILES ahead of where we were last year. Still a lot to accomplish, however.

The PR team started working on the mascot. They first step is creating the helmet. Already looks pretty cool. Jesse and Bryce modeled the helmet throughout the afternoon. Hopefully, the helmet will be finished by tomorrow or Saturday. They also came up with a name for our mascot... Mechatron. PERFECT!

Megan, Jenna, and Allen came up with some questions to ask team members for youtube videos and member profiles for the blog. There are some really funny questions and the profiles should be entertaining. Check back some time in the next week or so for those.

We finished the day with a clean-up/dance party to LMFAO. Great times. 

Having a prototype together makes troubleshooting and brainstorming much easier in the coming weeks. Our big goal for tomorrow or Saturday is to drive the prototype and pick up a ball and shoot it all in one motion. This is ambitious but the team can definitely do it. Fantastic feeling leaving the robot room and seeing all the checks on our weekly goals.

Material Shortage

The team did not meet for long today (only about 3 hours) but still got some more projects started. The main reason for the shortened day was that Bydlon had a meeting and he controls the material buying power. Some projects that were worked on were the ball path prototype, electrical board, bridge, and mascot. No pictures tonight because the camera was taken home by another team member. Photos will be uploaded tomorrow.

The electrical team finished the plywood electrical board. They put all of the data cables on and put plywood sides on. The final product will be made out of lexan and will be a fully enclosed case with a hinge door on the front. It will be vertical on the back of the gatherer. The plywood prototype only has two walls but it is obvious where we are going with it.

The build team worked on putting the ball path prototype together some more. They connected the shooter to the gatherer and started putting together the gatherer belts up to the shooter. Another section of the build team worked on the bridge. However, they came to a stand still when they needed longer screws (this is where Bydlon would have come in handy). The bridge will be completed tomorrow.

The PR team finished gathering the cardboard for the mascot. They too came to a stand still without materials. This project will be started officially tomorrow.

The programming team worked on the equations needed to program the robot to shoot the ball where we want it to. This is some intense math and will take some testing so it is imperative that the build gets the shooter done soon.

Tomorrow will be a more exciting day. Hopefully, the mascot head will be started on, the bridge will be finished, and the gatherer and shooter full concept should be alllllmost done. The materials needed for these projects have already been purchased by Bydlon after his meeting.

Bumps In The Road

Our finished bump.

The team got together today after taking a break the past two days. There was A LOT of progress made. The biggest advancements were with the field elements, the programming, and our business plan.

The team finally got the account at Menard's set up. This will help immensely with obtaining supplies to work on. One of the big reasons so many people were frustrated last week was that we did not have the materials necessary to work on other projects. The account at Menard's allows us to allocate money there we can use during our six week build season. After the season is over, the money that wasn't used gets put back into our account. So we were finally able to use this account today. Bryce, Bydlon, and Tyler got a bunch of supplies needed to build the bump and bridge that will be in the middle of the playing field. Having examples of these will allow us to test our designs before the real competition. They also bought some tools and materials the team needed.

Megan and Colin crossing their fingers that the cRio will work.

After returning with the build materials, Bryce and Jordan got to work cutting down all of the wood. Ryan worked on putting the bump together and got it finished which is awesome. All the parts for the bridge were also cut which will keep people busy the next day or two. Great work and focus by the team to get these done.

Another big development for the team was fixing the cRio. This is the brains of the robot. It is how the robot knows what to do during the competition. With this not working, we would not have a functioning robot, so getting the cRio fixed was a HUGE priority for the team. Colin worked hard this weekend to try and get it fixed but had no luck. After reading Chief Delphi (a robotics forum), Megan and Colin tried using the official netbook the team was given two years ago.... AND IT WORKED! Woo hoo! As stated above, this is a huge development. Colin and Megan said we will have a driving robot tomorrow which is awesome! Great work and perseverance.

Lastly, Jenna and Jesse went around to a bunch of local businesses to pick up cardboard to start making the mascot costume. If you haven't seen our costume design, check out Friday's post. Jenna also worked on getting our business plan together to submit for the Entrepreneurship Award. Great start to a big project.

Before we all left, we set some goals for the second week and posted them on the door to the robot room. They are ambitious but we are already off to a great start. Personal favorite is "shop closes at 9". Awesome that we need to set a goal to stop working. Good work today team!

Working for Tomorrow

It's kind of hard to believe it's only the third official day of the build season. It feels like it was a loooong time ago that we learned what this season's game was (turns out it was just five days ago). As mentioned at the end of yesterday's post, the team is still experiencing growing pains. We are working hard to fix them however. The team set up an account at Menard's so it will be MUCH easier to access parts to keep building in the future. Thanks goes out to Connie Nelson, Mr. D., and Laurie Cook for setting that up for us. That was one of the major issues of today and last year. We had a lot of ideas but it was hard to get parts.

In general, most of the things we worked on today will be finished tomorrow. That makes today a little unsatisfying but tomorrow will be awesome. 

Tyler did a great job getting everything ready to start making the bump and bridge set up. Hopefully our account will be ready tomorrow and we will be able to get the materials. This will be very crucial once we start building our actual robot. Testing the robot driving over the bump and balancing on the bridge will be very important.

The build and electrical team worked on two separate projects. The first project was starting on a shooter prototype. The shooter we are envisioning will be a wheel spinning on a CIM motor. The ball will pass through an alley similar to the gatherer prototype we built yesterday. The wheel will be spinning at a high speed and push the ball out. Hopefully we will have video of it tomorrow. Brandon (picture 1) and Chandler worked hard on setting it up. Bryce worked on it a little more later on. Jimmy gave us a bunch of pointers which is awesome.

The other big project for the team today was getting a KitBot built so that the programming team has something to test on. A KitBot just means taking the materials given to us in the Kit of Parts and making a test robot out of it. It also helps us get a better visual clue on where our gatherer and shooter will go and how our bot will drive. Much easier to envision these things on an actual bot instead of in our heads. Bryce started by getting together the electrical board (picture 2). We are trying a new drive system this year, tank drive (picture 3). The only thing left on this project is mounting the motors (picture 4). Colin fought through illness to get the drive computer all set up (Go Colin!). Bryce, Spencer, Chandler, and Allen worked on the KitBot.

Tomorrow we have a lot of things to work on and will be able to get the materials for them too. A bunch of YouTube videos (hopefully) will be posted. Thanks for reading!