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!!

Air Power

The team met for the second straight day. It seemed that there wasn't much to do initially. Partly because no daily agenda was made. The reason for that was the Facebook group was very busy Wednesday night. Anyway, it seemed there wasn't much to do but we ended up accomplishing a lot!

The big accomplishment down in the shop was that we got pneumatics to work with the Java programming! You can see video here. It was a big moment. That moment started with Demian, Molly, and Hadley mounting the air compressor and air tank on Rover. Meanwhile, Alicia, Vincent, and Bydlon switched out the routers on the robots so that Murphy will have the regulation one. Brandon put down the pencil and paper got to work just throwing some pneumatics together. We hooked up all the wires and tubing just to try it out. Allen set up the programming. AND IT WORKED! Pneumatics are incredibly useful but we have never had the time or ability to make it all work. Luckily, all the lessons we have learned in the past helped put it all together today. FIRST Robotics is really awesome for days like today.


While we were blowing air in the shop, up in the computer lab some more work was being done. Kacy proofread through the website bios that Gabe created yesterday. She also started working on a power point presentation for our trip to Discovery Middle School on Tuesday morning. Carson made a more informational poster for the Bydlon Beard Off which is happening at the beginning of November. He also updated the team logo. It looks so awesome now. He made it symmetrical and changed the color to more of a darker blue. Love it.

Great day for the team. Adding pneumatics to our tool box of abilities is a HUGE assest. That cannot be overstated. Also, continuing the PR and logo work is really helpful for our team image. Fun day!!

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!

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!