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.

Nothing Ever Goes As Planned

Today was one of the busiest days that Team 3313 has ever had. We had the local TV station come in and video tape us, we performed a halftime show for the public, and we packed up for a competition (until 12:30am). All this after being at school working until about 11:30pm on Thursday night.

Pictures Are Worth A Thousand Words

So much excitement to be had today! We finished the practice hoop set up. We refined the gatherer and shooter. We made a bunch of baskets. We totally finished the mascot head. We built supports for the gatherer and electrical board. We got a story posted in the Echo Press Newspaper. Todd (Alex Tech professor) stopped by.  We finished the business plan draft. We got the camera to work. So super awesome. I'm too excited to type. I'll just post pictures instead. Click on any to see them bigger. Also remember to check out YouTube for videos from today.

Moustachioed.

SO AWESOME!

MAKING BASKETS!

We have a messy robot room...

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.

YouTube is Our Friend

Research

We went to the GO FIRST post kick-off event yesterday. During the presentation, they told us that the best way to design is five steps:

1. Make a requirement/objective list. We did this at the post kick-off. This is a list of what we need our robot to do and then what we want it to do. 
2. Do historical research. This is what we focused on today. 
3. Conceptualizing. This is what we will focus on tomorrow. Each team member will use the information we learned today and then create a design.
4. Critical Design Review. We take all the designs we created and then pick one or two that will like based on the R/O list we created at post kick-off.
5. Prototype. We build pieces of the final design(s) and make sure they work. 

Programming Team in Robot Room

This seems like a long process and it is. However, this part of the build season is probably more important than any other part. If we start building and some part of the robot just CANNOT work, then we are out a lot of time and effort. It is much better to focus on getting it right first, then building it.

So, like the title says, today was spent looking up previous games and robots that worked really well at those games on YouTube.

• 2001 had a speed bump sort of thing and a bridge so we looked at robots that could go over the bump and how robots got the bridge to come down. 
• 2006 had a shooting game but the hole was vertical and 30" as opposed to our 18" wide horizontal basketball hoops. Still some good shooter designs.
• 2009 had ball collection from the ground, storing of balls and then dispensing them. The big difference here is that we can only 3 balls, in 2009 there was no limit. 

While the electrical and mechanical teams were working on YouTube, the programming team started setting up the programming. Apparently, if we actually had a robot to drive, the programming is all done for driving. That's awesome.They also started setting up the Kinect to be our eyes on the field.

Colin says "Hi"

Last but not least, the PR team focused on the Kit of Parts. They got it all out, inventoried it and then organized it back in the robot room. They also did more research on getting a video camera for the team to use. That way we can also post more videos on YouTube and create a video blog as well.