Scouting Ahead

At one of the team's first meetings of the year, we all came together and decided on season goals. The big question: What did we want to accomplish this year? Some answers included:

• Make it to the elimination rounds of our Regional Competition(s)
• Go to two Regionals (Lake Superior and 10K Lakes)
• Recruit more team members (Have at least 15 people on the team)
• Expand our community awareness
• Compete in various awards (Entrepreneurship, Website, etc.)

We have worked really hard for almost 5 months straight now to complete all of those goals. Unfortunately, we did not fund-raise enough money to attend both the Lake Superior and 10K Lakes Regionals. It costs $5000 to register for one and an additional $4000 to attend another. We did not want to miss out on the opportunity to scout and research however. So the team attended the Lake Superior Regional as spectators. 

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!

Final Push

Today was the FINAL PUSH before a lot of really exciting things happen this weekend:

• We are going to be visited by the local TV station tomorrow morning. 
• We are performing as the halftime show of the girls bball game tomorrow night. 
• We are going to a scrimmage on Saturday at Eagan High School. 
• Lastly, the robot has to be boxed up next Tuesday. 

SO! There were a lot of things to do today!

Too Excited to Type

OUR ROBOT WORKS! WOW! Check out YouTube (tab above or this link). I wish I was a better writer so I could describe the feeling of accomplishment and pride that the team members felt when they watched the robot shoot and make baskets. So much hard work and dedication went into it. All of the same goes for the mascot. Both huge project that are so close to being done. We still have some work to do though.

 

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.

Conveying Our Excitement!

 WE GOT SO MUCH DONE TODAY! The day off on Sunday seemed to really invigorate the team. That or the fact that we only have one week left to finish...

 

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!

Recharge Our Batteries

The title of this post is a double entendre. We stopped early tonight because we accomplished pretty much all that we could. This allows us to kind of take a break after three straight late nights. Also, we had to charge our batteries for the robot. More mascot progress was made along with more poster work.

Pulleys and Bearings

Apologies for the kind of lame blog title and post tonight. It was a late night of working. The main projects for today were the conveyer, cleaning the robot room, and the mascot feet. A slightly frustrating day because we did not get the parts that we needed to really continue our work. So there was kind of a lot of time spent looking around for something to do.

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.