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Just a few of the team members came today but actually led to quite a bit being accomplished. It was a good day.

First of all, Murphy programming upgrades occurred today. Alicia mounted the green LED light we bought and wired it up. Allen and Dalton, green LED light installed, finished the vision processing programming. They have it so, after pressing a button, Murphy automatically centers itself on a basketball hoop. IT IS SO COOL! Pretty great work by those two. There are still a few kinks to work out but overall, it will be really helpful during matches to not worry about that. The other programming upgrade is that we added autonomous. Funny moment: someone suggested we should add it in, Allen goes "Give me a minute". Literally a minute later, we had autonomous. Incredible. AND IT WORKS! WOOO!

Kacy and Miranda got to work on our Public Relations workshop for the Minne-Regional on Saturday. We volunteered ourselves to host a workshop on dealing with the public. It is a big deal for our team to get our name out there among other FRC teams as a major player. Over the weekend, Kacy and Bydlon worked on a general outline for the workshop. Today, Kacy worked on turning the outline into a slide show. Miranda worked on a booklet to hand out to teams when they attend the workshop. Both of them worked really hard. Carson also contributed by finishing our coloring book idea from last year. Each team in attendance will receive a "Mechatronics Coloring Book" as well. Should be a fun half hour or so!! (That's the plan anyway).

Bryce worked on numerous projects. Dalton, Bydlon, and Bryce got the robot weighed at UPS. It's only 110 lbs! WOOO! After adding pneumatics, we were all a little concerned about it being overweight. Luckily, it's not. Bryce also worked on getting extraneous pieces off of Murphy and switching some stuff around so it is optimized.

Kacy fixed some of the broken or beat up pieces on Mechatron, our mascot. After going to Chicago, Massman, lunches, and many other public appearances, it can look a little worse for wear. Kacy and the others have done a great job of keeping it looking great.

The rest of the day was spent by Bryce and Alicia practicing picking up balls and shooting baskets.

Tomorrow is another full team meeting. Lots more to accomplish!

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!!

Goofing Off

Some of the team members met today after school. We did not have a ton to do.

The build team took off the back chains and tried moving around our crazy wheel arrangement. It didn't really help but at least we tried.

Allen from the programming team started making Java tutorials. You can view the first one here and the second video here.

Gabe worked on a script for the Chairman's Award. We made a presentation for our trip to Massman Automation Designs.

Everyone who was at the meeting went up into the computer at some point. We made a Gmail Chat and goofed off in there. Eventually, Gabe and Allen worked together to make this happen. Please click that link and laugh. That's our head coach's face repeated. So funny.

Sometimes it's good to just have a pseudo day off. We worked hard on Saturday at fundraisers and have a presentation on Tuesday.

Light as Air

The team met today to work on some random projects. The most exciting development was that we put the camera on Murphy and drove it around. You can check out the video here.

Build Team worked on putting pneumatics onto Murphy. After getting pneumatics to work on Rover, we transferred them over to Murphy so we can use them to lower the bridge. Pneumatics is just like hydraulics but with air as the fluid.

We also sent out an email for the Fargo Kickoff. We will host and set up some workshops after the Kickoff.

Allen taught Bydlon and Bryce some basic Java programming ideas.

The rest of the day was spent playing around with weird picture techniques. Not a very productive day but Wednesday was super awesome so it was ok that we sort of took a day off. 

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!!

All Of The Lights

The team met on a Wednesday today which was a slightly different routine than the past few weeks. The energy was really great from everyone as we met in Bydlon's room right after school. The team discussed upcoming important dates and the activities we would be working on.

The build team mostly worked on Murphy's electrical set up. The Victor stands and most of the big components had already been put down. The main thing left was wiring it all up. Alicia and Miranda were a huge help in this regard. Alicia did almost all of the wiring herself (with help from Bryce and Bydlon). The tricky parts were WAY less tricky with all of the room we allowed ourselves. It was no nice to be able to see where we were putting wires and keep all organized from the beginning. All of the victors spinning with their wire tags was pretty cool. The whole system looks great. The team decided to have the conveyor lights stay blue and the logo lights stay red. It looks awesome together!

Other work in the shop included Brandon with pneumatics, Molly gets some parts made over at Alex Tech, and the programmers doing their thing. Brandon continued tinkering and thinking about pneumatics. He worked on some formulas and math to figure out where to place pistons for a potential bridge lowerer. Molly, Demian, and Miranda ran over to Alex Tech to get some parts made for the battery holder at the front of the robot. It works exactly as we envisioned. The programmers (Dan, Luke, Dalton, and Allen) continued to messing with vision processing. They got the computer to pick up a red rectangle once which was exciting!

Up in the computer lab, Gabe started typing up little paragraphs about each team member. This will be better and easier than the team member video interviews we did last year. Also, if there are team member shake-ups, these are incredibly easy to replace, add to, and change. Carson worked on creating a poster for out Grocery Bagging Fundraiser on Saturday, October 20. It looks fantastic! Kacy wrote a few emails to ninth grade teachers asking if we could come into their class and present. She also got a lesson on how to use this website.

Overall, it was a great day for the team. Seeing Murphy glowing again (if only for a little bit) was a promising and reassuring sight. We are making great strides forward and meet again tomorrow!

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.

Parade Projects Completed

The team started and finished a wide variety of projects today. From the float to programming to building small parts, the team had the usual fun attitude and hard work ethic it takes to accomplish our goals.

Bydlon volunteered for some games during the school's Pep Fest today. So he was covered in chocolate sauce and whipped cream when the team met. He went home to change. While that happened, Kacy and Carson went to get more duct tape and tissue paper to finish the float. Then, they proceeded to cut the tissue paper and streamers to fit on the float. It was a tedious but necessary job.

Alicia, Taylor, Brandon, Gabe, Jesse, Kacy, and Carson worked really hard on the float today. Kacy and Carson taped up all the streamers along the bottom of it. Kacy also decorated the chair that Molly will be sitting in. Alicia, Brandon, and Taylor especially worked super hard on the tissue paper stuffing today. Luckily, more hands make less work. We finished the float and it looks so good!! This paragraph seems really short considering how long they worked, but it was a very repetitive process. GREAT WORK EVERYONE!

Allen worked on many different programming issues. The biggest and coolest project he finished was that we can drive both our robots with a wireless xbox controller!!! AWESOME! This is convenient for Murphy especially. We will use this in the parade tomorrow. Also, with Bydlon's help, Murphy is now wireless too which is good. Allen fixed a bunch of issues with programming. Murphy is done in Java, Rover is less sensitive and thus safer to drive. Allen did fantastic work today. So much progress!

Bryce, Brandon, and Bydlon worked on a bunch of random projects. The first one was to secure the laptop stand to the harness. Zip ties came in handy (they are the duct tape of Robotics). The steel rods we made yesterday worked exactly like we planned. The harness didn't stop there... Brandon, Bryce, Allen, and Bydlon worked together to make a stand for the xbox controller. IT LOOKS SO COOL! Check out this YouTube video to see it in action. Brandon and Bryce put a basketball hoop on the back of the trailer for the parade. They also hung up the flag. A project that Bryce and Bydlon worked on was a tower for Rover. We are going to network wire up the robots tomorrow to prevent interference. Because Rover can spin and stuff, the wire gets complicated. So we built a tower to keep the wire under control.

After working so hard and accomplishing so much, the team needed to unwind. So we all played Rock Band for a couple hours. Super fun and good team building. Can't wait for the parade tomorrow!! Team members report at 11am to the back of JHS. Everyone else, watch us in the parade starting at noon!

Float-ing On Air

Today was, yet again, spent preparing for the Homecoming Parade. The parade is Saturday at Noon on Broadway in Alexandria, MN. Come check it out!! The team accomplished so much today!! Wow! Click on any picture to see a large version.

As usual, the team met in Bydlon's room to begin. We discussed our ideas for a West Central MN FRC Get Together. We would like to host many of our other regional teams to gain more knowledge and make some bonds with teams close by. Then everyone learned their jobs for the day.

Molly and Bryce went to Menard's to buy plywood for the "stage" on our float. Rover will be on the float with Molly and we want everyone to see Rover so we made a stage out of chip board and palettes. Brandon and Bryce worked on making the whole stage. It looks great! Molly and Bryce also picked up some steel rod to make a harness for our drive station. Molly took it over to Alex Tech and they made the steel rods into mounting brackets. Look Ma, NO HANDS!

Allen was alone today programming but made a TON of progress. Gabe brought in an XBox controller for Allen to start programming with. It will replace the joysticks we have used in the past. Allen also worked on the programming for Murphy (Rover programming is complete in JAVA). He got the drive train working and the fly wheel. Spike relays were causing problems so Bydlon switched the conveyor into a Victor controller. And it worked! Allen even got the fly wheel and conveyor speed to be adjustable. WOW! Great job Allen!

Kacy, Alicia, Taylor, Gabe, Vincent, and Carson worked insanely hard on getting the trailer transformed into a float for the parade. THEY DID SUCH AN AWESOME JOB! It is incredibly tedious work putting all the tissue paper into the chicken wire and streamers on the trailer. But they had a positive attitude and worked hard. Bydlon tried to help with the tissue paper but didn't do a very good job. Oops. The decorations look soooo good! All that's left is the other side of the trailer and we are done. Kacy worked on the back ramp part of the trailer. It looks great too!

Eddie and Jesse worked on making Rover all pretty. They hid the nasty wires that were cluttered all over the top of it. Black wire covers are awesome.

The team worked so hard today and did such a fantastic job. Our float is going to kick everyone else's float out of the water!

Perfect Parade Preparation

The team spent the entire meeting time today working on different aspects of the Homecoming Parade which happens on SATURDAY at NOON in Alexandria. Be sure to come out and see our float and robots!

The team started the meeting in Bydlon's room. We assigned jobs for the parade which is really good. Everyone has a job and knows what that job is. We will meet at the back of JHS on Saturday at 11am to load up the trailer.

Taylor, Alicia, Kacy, and Carson all went out and about to get decorations for the trailer. They visited a bunch of different stores to compare prices and find the exact decorations we need. They got streamers for the bottom of the trailer, tissue paper to decorate the chicken wire which will go on the sides, and duct tape to attach different other things.

Brandon and Bryce worked on getting Murphy (our basketball shooting robot) in working condition. They did some tune ups and made everything secure. Bydlon uploaded the code to the cRio so Murphy is all set to go for Saturday! We will be shooting basketballs the entire parade route.

Allen and Dalton continued working on fixing the bugs in the Rover code. They are rewriting the code in Java  which is a new language for the team but old hat for them. It was really awesome seeing them work together to fix everything and get Rover going. It works just like it used to (or better even). Really great job by those two. Next up, rewriting the Murphy code.

Eddie, Molly, and Tyler worked on getting the uneven, bad lifts off the robot cart. They made the cart drive weird. We are going to push the cart the entire parade route so we need the cart in top condition. The three of them did a great job.

Gabe wrote up a half sheet of information for people to hand out along the route. It lists some small details of the competition and all of our team contact information.

We will also meet Thursday and Friday after school to continue getting ready for the parade. It will be super fun! and we are soooo excited to continue spreading our community involvement!!

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. 

Check The PWM Cables!

Today was the last day of build season. For a lot of the team members it was bittersweet. It is kind of nice to have the time off again so we can all catch up on homework but at the same time, it is sad to say goodbye to our robot for a while. Of course, with Team 3313 Mechatronics, even boxing up a robot cannot be easy...

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.

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.

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.

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!

Kinect-ing People

Three big developments today. The new (and hopefully final) electrical board is complete, the mascot head is fully painted black (only touch ups left), and we started programming with the Kinect.

The electrical board was fully completed. We took the final step and made the board out of lexan. The extrusion pieces were brought over to the Tech and cut and tapped. All the cords are plugged in and it is ready to go. The only missing part on the front half of the robot is the metal piece to hold the horn for the bridge down. This piece is being manufactured at the Tech and will be ready tomorrow. Their help has been invaluable to the team this year. Cannot thank them enough. The only build aspects left are finding lexan and making the shooter and gatherer out of it. Other than that, we are basically done with initial design. After that, it's testing, testing, testing and refining, refining, refining.

Colin and Megan started fiddling around with the Kinect. Colin got the program (FAAST) to work last night and showed off today. He could use his hands and arms to guide the mouse on his computer which is sweet. The next step is transferring that information over to LabView (the software we do our programming in). One of the team's big goals is to be well rounded and be able to do as many aspects of the competition as possible. This includes, balancing on the bridge, Kinect driving, autonomous mode, picking up basketballs, shooting basketballs accurately, etc.


The other big development is that the helmet of the mascot is pretty much complete. Jesse and Steph finished spray painting both the helmet and the body today. The next step is adding the other color elements.

I said this yesterday but tomorrow we will drive again!! I promise. We will also get plexiglass and start making the gatherer and shooter final parts. The team will start making the bumpers, keep Kinect programming, and post the team member videos.