Electrifying Results

The team worked on lots of different projects today. Bryce, Bydlon, and Miranda worked on Murphy's electrical board. Brandon and Tyler worked on Rover's pneumatics. Carson created more posters. Taylor worked on apparel. Kacy researched more PR activities. Allen and Dalton worked on image processing for the camera. Our overriding goal for October and November is to get everyone (especially new people) around to each different mini-team so they can make an informed decision about what they would like to do.

Bryce, Bydlon, and Miranda worked on the Electrical Board on Murphy. When we originally designed the electrical board, we decided to do a "stack" which turned out to be a really poor decision. It left us no room to work and was always a complete mess. But you learn from your mistakes, and this time we are making a really wide open, spread out electrical board. We made a stand for the cRio near the back of the robot, next to the conveyor. The victors were put on stands above the wheels to side of where the original electrical board was. Miranda, Molly, and Hadley went to Alex Tech to make the stands for the victors and cRio which was a huge help. We twisted the wires for the Victor fans which looks really cool and clean. Now, the only items in the actually middle of the robot are the Power Board and Digital Side Car. It looks much cleaner. All that's left to finish it is wiring all the victors up, mounting the router, and the battery. Then we're done! We should finish by next week.

Brandon and our college mentor, Tyler, worked on pneumatics. Pneumatics is using air pressure to control cylinders. Our team does not have a ton of experience in this area so having a mentor like Tyler around to help is a really great thing. Our plan is to put pneumatics on Rover for the time being. We just want to give everyone experience with programming, wiring up, and mounting pneumatics equipment. Brandon and Tyler got an idea on what to do the next steps are turning that idea in a reality.

Up in the computer lab by the shop, lots of activity was happening. Kacy made task lists for everyone so they knew what they needed to accomplish. She also looked through some presentations by other teams. Taylor researched some new "swag" items or apparel for the team. During the Regional, teams pass out items to other teams to advertise. We could also use the swag items to advertise in our community as well. Carson made another really nice poster for the Bydlon Beard Off, our team fundraiser in November. Gabe watched a bunch of Chairman's Award videos and took notes on what he liked and didn't like from each video. He also made a list of shots and other things he will need to do.

Allen and Dalton worked on the vision processing component of the programming. Eventually, we want our robot to automatically adjust depending on how far away it is from the hoops. They can do this with our camera and Java programming. They also worked on Kinect programming as well.

Practice Makes (Almost) Perfect

Once upon a time, in the land of FIRST Robotics, Team 3313 was excited to have their "FIRST" day at the 10,000 Lakes Regional. Bydlon played two Rock Band songs while the rest of the team was waiting for him in the hall. But he Gold Starred "Fix You" by Coldplay--so it was okay. Everyone was up and ready to go on time, which is a feat in and of itself! Despite encountering a bit of traffic, the team still managed to arrive at the arena half an hour early. The excitement filled the lobby where they were waiting, so much so that some team members had to run around outside to calm down.

Ride The Roller Coaster

Tons of excitement today! The biggest development of the day is that OUR ROBOT WORKS AGAIN! YES! We also got our new shirts in! They look sweet! We have a new drive station laptop! We got more pulleys in so the whole bottom level of the conveyer works! Exclamation points!

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!