Today we all met to discuss our plans for this season from 9:00 am until 12:00 pm. Everybody made it, so we got a lot done.
First, we talked about what the game was this year, and re-watched the game video (link in the previous post). We talked about what kind of things we were interested in doing (design, engineering notebook, programming, and building), and then Adelaide and Rachel worked on building the robot while Izzie, Isabella and Ava worked on our team outfits for about an hour. Once we had come to a general conclusion on what type of things we wanted to wear, we all joined and worked on building. This section of the building instructions (pages 34 through 44), was by far the most challenging part of building the robot. Although the pictures were relatively well taken compared to other parts of the booklet, putting the pieces taught proved a challenge. Izzie, we found, was remarkably good a putting in the screws in from awkward positions, such as having an inches worth of room to screw it into the keep nut. By far the most difficult part of this whole process was attaching the arm to the robot, pictured below.
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Today was the FTC kickoff! Adelaide, Isabella, and Rachel all came, and we had a lot of fun! We decided to primarily follow the rookie team track, which consisted of three classes by other teams.
The first class was called Building Your First Robot which team EPIC covered. They talked about everything from picking Tetrix vs Matrix, to what way to design the robot, and even a bit of what an engineering notebook should include. It was a great class, and certainly the easiest to understand, but we had already done most of the things that they talked about (if you have been following the blog, you know that we are mostly done building our robot). The brief part of their talk about the engineering notebook was interesting, and Isabella has volunteered to do most of the engineering notebook, such as compiling all of these blog posts, a description of our team etc. The second class was the only one we split up on. Adelaide and Isabella went to Making your Robot Move presented by the Motorbolts, while Rachel went to Java Programming presented by the Ponytail Posse. Java Programming was a bit confusing as a rookie team, although it was on the veteran track, so we expected that. After reading over the presentation a second time when we got back home, it made more sense, although a lot of the presentation was talking about RobotC (the programming software used in previous years) compared to Java, which is what we will use this year. One thing that we learned was to use Source Code control so that we don't have to re-do our code multiple times. Making Your Robot Move was a very educational class, especially to learn how to download and access programs, as well as good websites to use to begin learning Java. While this class had a lot of good information for us, a large amount of it was new information which caused a fair amount of confusion among us and others in the class. However, after going home and researching the topic a little more, it all began to make sense. The final class, which we all went to, was called What to Expect at Your First Competition presented by the Motorbolts. This was a mixture of a few things that we already knew, as well as some new information that was very helpful, such as what type of things you do when scouting, and how to present your team to the judges. After we had done all three of the classes, it was time for the game reveal! This years theme is RES-Q. It entails putting debris into goals of various heights, climbing up a steep ramp covered in bars, releasing people from a zip line, pressing a light color of your alliance, and showing and "all clear" signal at the end of the game. For more details, watch the full video here. Next, we picked up the sample pieces (debris and a person model), and headed over for the game demonstration. There were a lot of questions, but it was very useful to see it in person. Finally, we headed back and discussed our plans in the car. We are all super excited to start the FTC 2015-2016 season! Although it seems challenging, it'll be a great learning experience for everyone. Today Isabella and Rachel met from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, and built the left and right chassis. We are excited that we are almost done with the individual pieces of the basic pushbot, but we still had many challenges. For example, while building the left chassis, we realized that many of the pictures in the instructions were taken from angles and zooms in which you could see some things well, but not a lot of it. We would put something, such as a wheel or a rail, on the way it looked like in the photo graph, and then go to the next step and realize we put it on wrong, and so we would have to re-do it. This took up most of the time, but we eventually learned to look ahead several pictures/pages. This way, the construction would be viewed either from a better perspective for what we were trying to accomplish, or multiple angles, which allowed us to get the full picture more often than not. For example, in the picture above, from step 1 of the right chassis rail assembly, it is difficult to tell the rail farthest to the right has the "gap side" facing towards the wall, or towards the ground. We solved this by looking at step 3 of the right chassis rail assembly. Bushings were also difficult to tell where they were needed, but we solved this by spinning a the axle/wheel. If it was spinning fine, it did not need a bushing in the controversial area.. If metal was rubbing against metal and the wheel was inconsistently moving, we would add a bushing or spacer.
By the end of the session, we had completed all of the individual parts. We are super excited for the kickoff this Saturday!!! Today Isabella and Rachel met at 6:00 pm to build the robot. We built the right and left chassis today.
When we started building the left chassis, we had trouble understanding which direction the channels and wheels would go, because the pictures in the instructions were zoomed in and taken from certain angles that didn't show the full perspective. We learned to look ahead several pictures so that we can see the pieces from multiple angles. Another thing that we had problems with is knowing whether or not to put bushings and spacers in. It was sometimes difficult to tell, but we ended up learning a lot from this because we now know how to build something without necessarily needing exact pictures. We, by the end of the meeting, finished a large amount of the robot individually. We are super excited for the kickoff! We finally got to build today!
We met from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm and decided to begin to build the basic Push bot robot. Adelaide, Rachel, and Isabella were at the meeting. None of us had ever built something like that before, so it was a learning experience for all of us. For example, we spent a long time trying to get the axle hub to fit in. First, the screw that holds the axle in place was in the wrong way, and then we put the axle hub in the wrong way. However, we learned from that and now remember what we have to do next time. We also discovered that sometimes the instructions in the booklet are not very specific, and some of the details are off. It allowed us to be able to learn in a hands-on way to experiment a little bit and to learn more about the pieces and what they do. All in all, we ended up building somewhere around 1/4 of the robot. Today we met to organize and take an inventory of all of the parts. We used an organizing box with compartments for all of the materials. First we had one person (usually Adelaide, Izzie, or Rachel) read off the part's ID number, piece name, and how many there were. Ava wrote this down on a table, and also the coordinate of where the piece number was. This way, if we are looking for a particular piece, in the future, we can find the name/ ID number on the list and know the coordinates of where it is. We set it up where L(1,1) is in the bottom left corner on the lower compartment. Isabella also wrote down the ID number on a piece of tape which we stuck onto the side of the compartment where the piece was going. It ran very smoothly and we are excited to start building this Tuesday!
We also set up a TeamSnap account, so that we can coordinate amongst ourselves about times that we can meet. We are all very busy with other extracurricular activities, which means that we get a lot of awesome, smart, well-rounded people, but we are also busy a lot, and there is not a time outside of Sunday mornings that we can all meet, so we are trying to make sure everyone can meet at least twice a week, (once on Sundays and one time during the rest of the week). Today we met around 9 o'clock. First we hand wrote thank you cards to FTC for their rookie team sponsorship and Satcom Direct for their generous monetary sponsorship.We quickly got to work. Rachel, Ava and Adelaide found the models with the same numbers (the matching pieces), and read them to Isabella and Izzie. Then, they crossed the models off from the index. We found out that we are missing a couple pieces; which we will have to contact FTC about.
Today we started working on our bios for our Engineering notebook. At first, we looked through the bios of two other accomplished teams, the Lightsabers and Got Robot?. We identified some things that we liked, and things that we would change. We then began creating a title page, and then each wrote our bios. We wrote down how long each of us were in FLL, that it was our first year in FTC and activities we like doing.
Today we also decided to send our sponsorship proposal out to two local companies, a museum called the Bakken, and a hardware store called Stegreans. At the end of the meeting, we decided that we wanted to create a meeting plan for our next meeting so that we would make sure we got specific things done. Today we downloaded the MIT app inventor onto our android phones. We got familiar with how the app works, and we made fun short games. This helped us learn the program better, and decide if we thought it was the best option for us to use for programming throught the year. While some things about this we thought was nice, were things like programming in a format like scrtach, with blocks to drag in, and the fact that it was very clear what the robot was doing. With this however, we foudn a couple disadvantages, like for some programs, you can not do multiple tasks at once, and also there were some programs that were unable to be completed.
We talked a lot about outreach, especially mentoring younger teams at our old school, Lake Harriet. While the robotics program there is quite successful, more and more younger students are joining every day, which causes an overload of students for the coaches to teach the basics. We decided to split into groups and volunteer our time twice a week to help mentor younger teams, focused in October and November when the main programming for the school competition is beginning. We also decided to volenteer our time at other FLL tournaments, to help judge and spread the word about FTC. Today we met to prepare for the 2015 season.
Our ZTE phones came in the mail, and we prepared them for the ability to program. We bought 3 phones so that we have a backup. While exploring the phones, we discovered many interesting features we didn't know about. We continued to edit our proposal and send it on to other companies, with the hopes of getting more funding or in-kind donations. We are sending proposals to Settergrens for monetary donations or an in-kind donation of free or reduced- price tools, and the Bakken museum for a monetary donation, two local companies. We all registered online for our team (9890) and the season. We also ordered materials online for the season (robotic kits, board sets, and other materials). We are looking forward for the season kickoff in September! Today our team (Izzie, Isabella, Rachel, and Adelaide) got together to sell water at the Edina Art Fair. Izzie, Isabella, and Rachel started a bit after ten, and Adelaide joined at noon. We ended up selling all 48 water bottles for one dollar each, and with that and some donations, we ended up with a profit of $58.
It was great to know how supportive the community is of our robotics team and how interested in these kinds of things they are, We also had a great bonding experience and shared a few laughs, and it was a lot of fun to spend the day with the rest of our team. Today, we were focusing on preparing and submitting grants to try to increase funding. We also talked about future teammates, and scheduling.
Today we are finishing up our proposal to companies. We finished editing our powerpoint that we are going to present to a company soon, and we also filmed a video that we are going to present with our powerpoint. We hope to get a sponsorship from this company. All of our team members are here today (Izzie, Rachel, and Isabella). We are also discussing what other people to add to our team. We are hoping to have at least 5 team members on our FTC team soon.
Although we didn't get a chance to blog yesterday, Isabella and Rachel worked on the script for what we filmed today. When Izzie came today we used her input to edit the script. Yesterday we also edited the powerpoint |
This blog covers details about our outreach events and other events that are important to our team, and our season.
AuthorHi, we are the Rubies, FTC team 9890. To learn more about us, visit the "About Us" page Archives
April 2016
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