PhyXTGears First Video Blog of The Season

               


Our first vlog of the season! We are getting ready for our upcoming season. We have students learning CAD, working on the animation award, programming and more!

Cage Match 2014

This past week several of our team members headed to Southport highs school to participate in Cage Match.

Here's a sneak peek from this years Cage Match! This is Pac Man, the robot we used during Cage match. In one of our qualifying matches we ranked 5 of 30! We were seeded 8th.

Here they are getting ready for a qualifying match. We also made it to quarter finals. 

Post by Rob Cartwright.

Robotics Open House

Have you ever wondered how we build a robot? What our workshop looks like? How our team works? We'd love for you to stop by and chat with us! Save the date and come visit our team on Tuesday, October 28th, 2014! 

We'd also like to extend a special invitation to our sponsors and community leaders curious to see what we do!

PhyXTGears Open House

Printable Open House Flyer

LEGO Mindstorm Robotics Workshop for 4th - 8th Grade Students

If you are a 4th - 8th grader interested in learning about robotics, our team will be hosting a 4 week workshop during the month of November.

Our high school robotics team will be hosting the workshop at 5:00 - 6:00 pm on Tuesday evenings in November. We will be using LEGO Mindstorm NXT/EV3 robotics kits to teach:

• basic robotics
• engineering
• teamwork
• structural design
• programming
• and more!

If you are interested, download the forms with a $25 payment by October 20th, 2014. If you have any questions, feel free to send an email.

Download the forms here

NXT LEGO Workshops Fundraiser

Last year our team hosted a LEGO Mindstorm workshop for students in 4th - 8th grade. We had such a great turnout that we've decided to expand the program and possibly present it multiple times during the year! In order for this to happen though, our team needs to own 8 NXT kits. Would you consider partnering with us to reach this goal? Our first workshops are scheduled for November! You can donate via our Piggybackr fundraising page. Hear our thoughts in our NXT video below:




Thank you for your support! Any donations received above the amount needed for the kits will go toward our team's build season.

Highlights from our Robotics Presentations this Summer

This summer our team had a blast sharing about robotics at three libraries , Camp Invention and the Meridian Fam Fest! This was a great summer to hone our presentation skills, spread the word about robotics and meet many new people! Our team developed a 45 min. program and learned how to be flexible. :)

Part of our program showed various sensors using our LEGO NXT robot. That was a huge hit as John programmed it to shoot a rubber band at him at the end.

We also played a little game of "robot not a robot." We printed off various things and the children had to categorize them as a robot or not a robot. This was harder than you think! We had several good discussions on if something would qualify as a robot or not.

We showcased a couple of our own FRC robots, passed around parts (such as the mecanum wheels, battery, sensors) and had students assist us in driving or passing balls to our robot.

We hope we inspired the students consider learning more about robotics either through FIRST LEGO League or FIRST Robotics!

At the Meridian Fam Fest we had a booth along with an area to demo our robot. Children had fun trying to drive it! 

Free Robot Coloring Sheet

Since we were talking to children of all ages, we created a coloring sheet for younger students to take home. Feel free to print it out for your own use! Click the link below.

Download Our Robot Coloring Sheet

Gearing up for our 2015 Year

This fall we will be working hard to get ready for our new 2015 robotics challenge. In the months ahead we will be doing training, recruiting and trying to find individuals and businesses who will partner with us in this new season. You can find our sponsorship information here.  

Save the date! Our annual Open House will be Tuesday, Oct. 28th

Thank you to our sponsor:

2014 Boilermaker Regional!!!

Our 2014 Boilermaker Video!

Scrimmage with the TechnoKats

Thanks to the TechnoKats for opening up your shop to let us scrimmage!

We enjoyed talking with the TechnoKats team members. They have been a part of FRC since 1992! They had quite a few cool relics in their shop including the very first robot they ever built.

This was the first time we got to see what our robot was able to do on the game field. There were several other IN FRC teams there too:
Penn Robotics
PantherTech
Avon, IN Robotics

See the video below to see how our robots worked together to play Aerial Assist.

We were pleased with the results and are looking forward to regionals in March.

Week 5 - Review

Learning the basic controls of the robot!

Worked hard to set up the gym. Driving station ready and working!

-Jacob

Navigating through cones in obstacle course!

The programmers have modified several wheel directions after testing, since some of them were driving backwards. They also have re-imaged the the cRIO and got the robot and drivers station to communicate. Also, they have done a lot of testing of the motors since they are now working on the robot. This enabled them to do some modification in the code.

-Jordan, programming team.

Over the course of this week, we the programmers have succeeded in re-imaging the cRIO after it mysteriously lost its image, getting the robot and driver station to communicate, and performing general troubleshooting of drive motors, vision, ball catching rollers, and other such things.

-Madeline, Programming team. 

Mentor Mention: Gary

We are so thankful for all the mentors who have helped PhyXTGears over the years. Recently we cornered Gary and asked him a few questions about FIRST and working with our team.


 

One quote from the clip:

 "FIRST team program helps the students learn a lot of things that they would not learn in school. I've helped young people use the electric drills, drill presses, band saws, table saws--- these are thing that don't often get opportunities in the school systems to learn how to use. And they're scared to death when they walk up to it or when I hand them a drill and say, "Drill this hole."  But I'll drill one or two holes and then I'll say you drill hole 3 and 4. And they'll do it and in the future I can give them a drill and they can take care of the holes without any problems. Giving them the opportunity to overcome those fears of the equipment has been a real plus mark-- it is a growing experience for them."

Thank you Gary for all you do!

Week 3 Aerial Assist Build Week

I am the head programmer of team 1720, and I have been setting the controls of various parts that the robot will have. Today, The programming team researched robotic vision that our team hopes to use in autonomous to determine whether the target we are aimed at is "hot," ultimately deciding when we will shoot. More research shall be conducted at our next meeting.


~Madeline

We are working on the motor for the reflector tape for part of the playing field. Still trouble-shooting the flap of the retro reflective material.

-Asher and John

A short video of this week's updates:

Week 2 - PhyXTgears Build Season Progress

January 16th 2014 we began building prototypes and parts of the Aerial Assist arena.

We built the low goals to test our kicking prototype for the robot.

This is the kicking mechanism we had come up with.

Constructing The chassy for the robot.

Small weekly chores:

-Lots of CAD drawings

-Lots of videos/interviews

-Lots of progress with the robot design

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Week 1 - Aerial Assist Robot Build

On January 4th, 2014 we found what our new challenge would be -- Aerial Assist! We spent the rest of that day reading through the manual trying to get a good grasp of the game rules, possible strategies, and what type of robot we might like to build. Just as we were getting inspired to start working--- a snowstorm hit. After being delayed a few days, we started build season week 1.

Highlights from Week 1:

- Sloppy Joe's for lunch  on Saturday

- Good progress on the game field

- Good progress on the prototype

Ringing in the New Year 2014 ~ Muncie New Year's Eve Ball Drop

For over five years, Team 1720 has built and maintained the ball that drops in Muncie's New Year's Eve celebration. This year we added a GoPro camera to the ball to get an aerial view of the crowd. The ball was dropped from a crane timed with the New York City Times Square celebration. The event went smoothly even though it was cold. :)