PMMC Meeting 11/6

 The PMMC Meeting today went great!! We brought 10 team members and Bydlon to present. An incredibly wide range of topics was addressed. You can see the presentation here.

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.

Packing for the Pack Expo

The team met again today. Our main goals for today were getting the tool boxes ready for our trip to Chicago, getting Murphy also set to travel, and working on some press items.

Bryce, Brandon, Tyler, and Bydlon are taking a very short trip to the Pack Expo in Chicago on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. The Pack Expo is a very large convention at McCormick Place for packing manufacturing companies. Alexandria, MN has a wealth of packing machine manufacturing companies (including the PMMC, one of our biggest local sponsors). Due to their generosity, those 4 team members are being provided a van, gas money, hotel rooms, and a presentation booth for Monday. We are SO EXCITED to be able to share the values of FIRST, the evolution of our team, and the fantastic sponsors we have with the over 100,000 attendees of the Pack Expo.

In preparation for this awesome event, we did a lot of work today. Bydlon picked up the van from Massman (THANK YOU!) that will be driven down. Demian and Alex mounted a cylinder on Murphy just so we could demonstrate our ability to use pneumatics. Miranda and Alicia rewired some of the shooter and conveyor components so we had more shooter power. This was a big process because spike relays are really annoying and hard to get to work. We ended up using a Jag instead. Bryce did a total makeover organization of the toolbox so we bring the right amount of tools and supplies if (when) something goes wrong. Brandon helped with that and continued thinking about a bridge lowerer. Allen tested all the code and made sure we were all set to go at Pack Expo. He also uploaded the next Java Tutorial. At the end of the day, Brandon and Bryce took off the ears and shooter of Murphy so we can fit it into the van.

While all that robot work was going on, up in the computer lab, a lot of work was going on. Kacy worked on a press release about our fundraising experiences last Saturday. Carson made a new banner for this website using our new color scheme and revised logo. It looks great! Taylor and Hadley worked on thank you cards for Elden's and 3M. Tyler started working on making plans for a wooden practice field. This is a HUGE project that will take us all of November to complete.

So it was a big day for the team preparing and working but A LOT was accomplished. Great work! Pack Expo will be so much fun!

Keep your eyes on our Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and this blog for updates from Chicago!!

AAEDC Small Business Luncheon

During our monthly meetings with the PMMC (our awesome, main local sponsor), they threw out the idea of having our team be the star of a Area Small Business Luncheon. Of course, we jumped at the idea.

Bryce, Molly, Kacy, and Bydlon brought over all the Robotics Team promotional items to advertise the team. They each did a speech about what the does, what FIRST is, and how it has changed their lives. It was a great experience and even more community exposure (one of our main team goals). Plus, as an added bonus, the team raised quite a bit of money. Some pictures are included. 

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.

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.

Like A Boss

The title is a quote by Bryce about the gatherer prototype we built. For those who don't know, that quote means "it's awesome."

The beginning of today was spent taking our team picture for the yearbook. Luckily, a lot of the team was there to be in the picture. Most of today was spent doing more brainstorming while we finished the gatherer prototype. The gatherer will be able to pick balls up off the ground and bring them up to some kind of hopper which will then dispense them into our shooter. That's the idea any way... To finish the prototype, we drilled the rest of the holes so we could get the wooden dowels in. We also added a belt to make sure it all worked. There's a video of it up above. The video is also on our YouTube Channel which has a link at the top of this blog.

The brainstorming we were doing while working had a bunch of different tangents.

• How do we get our robot over the 4" bump in the middle of the field? Lots of ideas were thrown out: tank treads, some kind of ramp in front of wheels, bigger wheels, more wheels, hovercraft (just kidding).
• What kind of shooter to use? Spring catapult, pneumatic catapult, one wheel shooter. 
• What should the hopper look like? Vertical, ramp, do we need one.
• Do we need a gate in front of the gatherer? What should that look like?

While we didn't come up with many answers, just talking through the problems and throwing out ideas is an invaluable experience. Luckily, Bryce's brother-in-law, Jimmy was able to help us out today. Chandler, a student from Alex Tech, also came over to help. It is great to have their expertise available to the team.

Tyler started working on making the schematics for a trial bump and bridge to test our future robot on.

The PR team worked on getting the Echo Press article all set up. They also sent an email to the PMMC (one of our major sponsors, check our sponsors page!) thanking them again for their support and updating them on our progress. The big PR development is that we are going to get our t-shirts ordered. They are going to look so awesome!!! There is a big surprise for the shirts which is going to be amazing. The team is super pumped.

In general, the team is having a little bit of growing pains. There are more students than in the past which is a GREAT thing. It just makes getting organized and keeping everyone on task a little more difficult. Not impossible, just more difficult. This will come together though. Overall, yet another great day with lots of progress. We already have some good plans for tomorrow. We'll leave you with this picture of Bryce and Bydlon.