Final Fixes

While reading this, open up our YouTube page in a new window and let some of the videos load. TONS OF UPDATES!

Today was mostly spent doing some last minute fixes on the robot before we box it up tomorrow. It's incredible to think of where the team was last year (working crazy hard, stressing, sweating, barely making it) and where we are this year (refining, finishing, working on nice but not necessary additions). Our main accomplishments today were autonomous, the new horn, chains, and movies.

Days Like These Are Awesome

Saturday was a GREAT day! The team was able to test their robot in a real environment, they got some awesome help, and they had a ton of fun! Especially after the trouble we had on Friday, Saturday meant a lot. Check out YouTube videos of our performance!

It's So Cold!

The team went out to the Ice Fishing Challenge on Lake Le Homme Dieu today. We did it as a fundraiser for the team. We presented to the Sertoma Club last fall. Usually, the nordic ski team does this fundraiser but opted not to this year. So Sertoma Club offered the position to us which was awesome!! Dominos Pizza came up with an arrangement where we split the profits 50/50. Also really awesome of them to give that help to the team. Of course, one of the coldest and windiest days of the winter was today. The team powered through though and worked together to sell the pizzas. We sold a ton and there were points where we didn't even leave the area around Jenna's dad's car. We had a line of people when the pizzas got there. Other times, we split up into teams and walked around the pizzas to all of the ice fishers. Two really big outcomes of this event. More community awareness of the team and fundraising. Both of these things are big goals of the team so, again, thanks go out to Sertoma Club and Domino's for setting up this arrangement.

After the tournament, we took the leftover pizzas and hung out at school. We played Rock Band and relaxed after a tiring and extremely cold day. We did do some work. We tested the horn on the bridge and shot some baskets. It is so exciting to see the robot make baskets, even when just testing. A huge accomplishment for all of the team members. We can't wait to really finish the robot and show it off to the community at the girls basketball game on Friday night!

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!

Around the Horn

The biggest excitement for the team today turned out to not really be that exciting after all. The dead line for paying for your second Regional Event (Duluth for us) was Friday but we got it extended to today. We had a bunch of discussions on whether we wanted to go or not. The pros were: more opportunities for advancing to Nationals, another trip to hang out as a team, and another chance to improve the robot before the U of M. The cons were: it costs a lot of money (for individuals and the team), we probably wouldn't be able to bring everyone, it would leave us in a pretty sad state next year and this off season financially, and there would be more school missed. Ultimately we decided against it. The cons really outweighed the pros. We are trying to build something great in our school and community and we want to keep that going rather than take the selfish route and go to Duluth. The U of M is still really awesome and we are doing everything we can during the build season to make a great robot for it.


As far as actual build advancement today, we got quite a bit done. We finished the prototype of the "horn" on the front of the robot. This will allow us to push down the bridge to go to the other side of field or balance on the bridge at the end of the game. Ryan, Tyler, Brandon, and Bydlon worked hard on designing, machining, and mounting the components. Bryce explains in this YouTube video how the mechanism will work. We can't test it quite yet but the concept and execution looks great.

Bryce worked on re-making the electronics board. Our original idea was to have the board vertical connected to the gatherer. Our plans changed last week when we turned the shooter around. So we needed to re-think the board. Our new idea is to mount the electronics in the middle of the bot right in front of the gatherer. We will have two levels of electronics. Bryce made quite a bit of progress. All we have to do is re-mount the components and build the second level. This will be completed tomorrow.

Ryan re-worked the shooter and gatherer connection so the basketball will not get stuck in between. 

Jenna's projects for today included many things. She made a handout about the U of M competition reminding team members we are asking for some monetary contribution to help pay for hotels. She also made some photo collages for new posters (example below). Jenna, Megan, and Colin worked on budgeting out hotels and transportation for the U of M regional. Lots more to do tomorrow.

It was a good day where the team accomplished quite a bit. The sense of accomplishment was back and the energy level was definitely better. Crazy what a day off can do. More excitement tomorrow.

Stumbling Blocks

After so much success with prototypes and so many things working out with the team, it was inevitable some challenges would happen for the team soon. Unfortunately on Saturday, we ran into (literally) a big challenge: the bump in the middle of the field. We spent the past two days working on a wheel system that would get us over the bump and it didn't work. We also started working on vision processing (for finding the hoops) and an arm to push the bridge down so we can drive over it. Luckily, those went a little bit better.

First off, there are a couple visual changes to the blog. You probably noticed the new header visual (thanks Jenna). We will also be adding the Team Members page and a page describing our team and the mission of FIRST in the coming week or so. So look out for those.

In case you didn't know, the field for our competition is divided into two halves. Dividing these halves is a 4" tall by 6" wide bump and 3 bridges. Traversing these obstacles is essential to playing the game. Brandon, Ryan, and Tyler worked their butts off making a system to lower the bridge the past two days. It is really sweet! It's an arm with an angle piece coming down. It will rest on a platform with an L shaped plastic piece that is connected to a spring. At the beginning of the match, we will drop the arm and the spring loaded L shaped piece will keep the arm down during the match. I will upload some pictures on Monday which will make it easier to see. We haven't tested it yet (gulp) but we will do that on Monday. It looks awesome and it follows the big rule of KISS (keep it simple stupid).

The major project we worked on though was the wheel system. On Friday, we took the whole bot apart and started changing the wheels. We had to drop our wheels down so that the frame could fit over the bump. This is a much bigger task than it sounds. It requires cutting and drilling new axle holes in 12 pieces of extrusion. Then we had to put new chains on each gearbox and make new spacers for each wheel. This is a LONG process that we spent literally 9 hours on Saturday working on. Bryce's dad came and helped get the chains and spacers ready which was really nice. So we were feeling really good after getting the entire robot back together and the wheels on and working. Until... we tested it. There is a YouTube video up of the test. We were all so tired that you can't really tell how disappointing it was. However, the team is resilient and will think of another mechanism to go over the bump. No worries.

Colin and Megan worked on getting the image processing for the camera going. The LabView programming has the power to recognize shapes and colors including the metal rectangles behind the hoops. This will allow us to program the robot to find the hoops and aim for us. 





Our energy was still really low after working for so long during the week. Plus, the team members are still students and involved in many other things (including work and church and speech and homework). They're commitment is incredible and inspiring. We are half done! That's both awesome and scary. The challenges presented to us will be overcome though.We ended the night by playing some Rock Band to relieve stress.

The Wheels on the Robot Go Round and Round

Today was not the best day ever. After working really hard the past three days and having a ton of success picking up balls and shooting them, we finally started to tackle our other issues. Those being: bringing down the bridge (so we can drive over it) and changing the wheels (so we can drive over the bump). The problem is that these issues are not as easily fixed. We also fixed some programming issues, worked on the mascot some more, and finished up getting ready for the Ice Fishing Tournament fundraiser.

Before we started working on the robot again, the team got together and had a meeting. During the meeting, we discussed some important upcoming dates. The dates included the ice fishing tournament, a team movie showing (Real Steel), the last day of build season, the Duluth regional visit, and the U of M Regional. We also discussed a media release form and, in general, how the team is doing. Good times and lots of laughs also occurred.

After that, we moved down to the robot room to start working. Our first task was the completely take apart the bot. This was necessary to fix our wheel situation. Initially, we just threw the kit wheels on but they have a 3" radius. The bump in the middle of the field is 4". This will not work. Our plan is to put 4" radius wheels on stilts and then have two of the 3" radius wheels at the very front of the robot. The small wheels will help the big wheels get a little bit off the ground and then the big wheels will push the rest of the way (that's the plan anyway.........). The mental fatigue of build season definitely showed. Bydlon and Bryce took off and put on the big wheels about 6 times because they kept forgetting to do something or how something would change. For example, the wheels got put on but then they had to make a new hole for the smaller wheels. Then they put the frame pieces on backwards. Then the frame was too low so that had to fixed. We think we finally have a plan that will work which will get done tomorrow.

Ryan and Brandon worked hard on getting an arm mechanism working for pushing down the bridge. We have called them "tusks" in the past but the new mechanism looks remarkably like the minibot arm deployer from last year. It's an arm that swings down with an angle on the front to slide the bridge down. We will test it tomorrow.

Colin and Megan worked their tails off fixing programming issues. We are learning as we go and the new thing we learned today was how to program in a spike relay so we can make a motor got forward and backward. Awesome work by them. 

Jesse and Gabe worked on the mascot some more. They finally an upper body piece that seems to work. Jenna worked on sending out emails to the PMMC and arranging the Ice Fishing Tournament. She also started editing the video for student profiles on the website. Sertoma Club in Alexandria puts on an Ice Fishing Tournament every winter. This year, they asked us to sell pizzas during the tournament. We are working with Dominos on this fundraiser. We get some of the profit for selling the pizzas. It is a really good opportunity for us to make some money and to get some more community exposure.

Tomorrow will be better after a good nights sleep.

Balancing Act

We finished so many projects yesterday that today was a restarting day. Some of the projects we started on were prototyping ideas for lowering the bridge, prototyping a roller for the front of the robot, making the body for the mascot, and practicing balancing.

The biggest excitement was that we got the robot driving. Colin came and did a really nice job fixing the programming for the robot. It was a very proud moment to see what we have so far driving around the shop. Bryce spent some time getting use to the new tank drive system (last year we had mecanum wheels). He balanced the robot on the bridge a few times too.

The big build projects involved scraping the gate concept. Originally, we made a gate that would hopefully stop balls from coming in to our robot and lower the bridge. We got a lot of comments on our youtube page advising us in a different direction and we saw some other ideas so we decided to scrap it. Instead, we are going to have these things we call tusks that bring the bridge down and a pvc pipe with surgical tubing acting as a sweeper pulling balls in. We are half way there on both ideas. These should be finished by Monday or Tuesday.

The PR team started working on the body of the mascot. The other big project for the PR team was making interview videos to put on a member profile page on this blog. These should be very interesting.

After an awesome day like yesterday where we finished so many things and had so much progress, inevitably there will be a little bit of a let down. The team still worked hard and started some big new projects today. We are meeting on Saturday to work some more and then hang out with some Rock Band and pizza.

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.

It's Allllive!!

Braaaaaaaains

Another great day of work for Team 3313 Mechatronics. The team worked on a bunch of different projects including: brainstorming the connection of the gatherer and shooter, making the vertical electrical board, putting together the bridge, making the robot drive, and writing the business plan.

The biggest excitement of the day was that we FINALLY got our KitBot to drive. Hard to explain how exciting this development is. As our team tweeted, "I wonder if this is how Dr. Frankenstein felt." Getting the robot to drive was a big undertaking by the programming team (kudos to Colin and Megan) along with the electrical team (among them, Bryce, Spencer, and Jordan). Getting the robot to drive allows the programming team to test out how their code works and also leads the electrical team to fix problems like gear boxes not working or chains being too loose. One funny moment while trying to accomplish this was that we lost a key for a gear box (a very small piece of metal that allows the motor to connect to the sprocket which turns the wheel). The team walked around and dragged their feet like zombies to find it.

Vertical electrical board almost done

Once we got the robot to drive, we were able to take some of it apart. This may seem strange but some of the pieces from the KitBot need to go on our new vertical electrical board so we had to take those off once we knew they worked. Bryce and Bydlon ran power cables to all of the components on the board and all that is left for tomorrow is putting on the walls and running data cables. The layout is very compact and the team did a nice job of wire management (not a strong suit of Mechatronics in the past).

The other big project for today was putting together the bridge that we can practice on. Brandon and Tyler did an awesome job of getting started. All of the wood was cut last night but they still had to organize it and figure out where each piece fits. It should be finished tomorrow which will be a great asset to use once we have our actual robot together in a week or so.

Tyler and Brandon working on bridge

We started to think about how the shooter and gatherer will connect. We facilitated the brainstorming by shortening the shooter and gatherer so they actually fit together. We had to bring a couple parts over to Alex Tech to get shortened. Not much progress on this other than putting them on top of each other and staring at it. Still good to get started.

Lastly, Jenna kept up her work on the team Business Plan for the Entrepreneurship Award. Her perseverance on such an arduous and tedious piece is amazing.

More excitement tomorrow when we have a vertical electrical board and a bridge to stand on. Thank for reading!

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!

The Gate Keeper

Stupid chain...

Today was yet another prototyping day. We kept working on the prototype robot base and built a prototype gate. There were a lot of things going on for people so we did not have the full team today. Jenna and Megan were not there and, luckily, the sky did not come crashing down. The joke(?) around the shop is that they, not Bydlon, are the brains behind the operation. Todd, an instructor from Alex Tech, stopped by to check on our progress. It was great to see him and the Tech College's continued support and help with the team. Speaking of which, we brought the motor mount for the shooter prototype over to the Tech and they are machining a bracket for us. When that is finished, we will be able to test our shooter (finally!).

Claire, Jesse, and Steph kept working on researching items to give away at competition. They researched buttons and wristbands. They also researched more items to commemorate the season for the team which included headbands, wristbands, and dog tags. The big development is that we found an AWESOME mascot costume. Like completely and utterly cool. So excited to see it come together.

Almost there!!

One of our big goals today was completing the KitBot. Tyler and Ryan worked on getting the electrical board mounted to the frame. He also got the motors mounted on to the frame. This is where we hit a snag. We bought the wrong chain breaker so getting the chains on the motors was a long and, ultimately, unsuccessful endeavor. We got one of the chains on the bot but still have one to go. Bryce borrowed a chain breaker from his dad which helped a little. We have one more to go then we should be able to drive tomorrow (this was said yesterday too but this time it will happen). Colin also worked hard to get all the computer aspects ready to drive. We had to format our drive computer, re-image the cRio, and upload all the programming. 

Only need to add the pulley.

Brandon worked on the other big project today which was a gate prototype. There's a video of our idea on YouTube. We have three reasons for making a gate. One: rules say we can only hold 3 basketballs so we need a way to stop extras from coming into our bot. Two: We want to force the basketballs into our gatherer so we want to keep them in the bot once we collect them. Three: We need a mechanism to bring the bridge in the middle of the field down. The idea is a spring on the front of the gate keeps it up whenever we need it. A window motor connected to a pulley will close the gate or bring the bridge down with our gate. Smart idea and the prototype will be finished tomorrow. All we need to do is add the pulley and we are done.

Chandler and students.

A shout-out is required for the presence of Jimmy (Bryce's brother-in-law) and Chandler (Alex Tech Student) for their continued assistance with the team. That's one of the biggest parts about FIRST Robotics, people with expertise working with and teaching the younger students. Really great to see.



Overall, a good day of work for the team. So many exciting things should (key word: should) come together tomorrow. The shooter and gate prototypes will be finished, we will have a moving practice bot and we will get the materials for the practice bump and bridge. That's a lot of goals but the team has shown so far how many things can get done they set their mind to it.

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!