Keep moving forward

Major announcements!!!
1) There will be a 1720 robotics open house on November 13th!
2) Donations are still needed for Cage Match so check your e-mail for the list of what to bring.
3) We will be meeting at 5:30 pm this Friday (the 19th) to pack for Cage, then we will be leaving early Saturday morning.

In other news, the workshop tonight was on the physics of gears. Here are a few of the notes.

Gears
-Driver - Gear with power turning it
-Follower - Gear doing something useful
-Idler - Gear turned by driver and turning follower
-Gear Train - Many gears in a row
-Geared Up - Large driver, small follower to speed gear train up
-Geared Down - Small driver, large follower to increase torque
*Note: You can not have both speed and torque you have to choose which one you need more.
Speed = RPM or RPS (Rotations Per Minute/Second or other time unit)
Torque = Inch-oz or Foot-pounds

In the computer lab today The Andrews and Maddy were working on building code for the robot. Anna and I have been working on team media and blog projects. That's about it for this side of the building.

On the other side in the mechanical room, several things have been happening. Several people helped Gary to get rid of an old vice that we can't use any more. Robot drive team practice has also been going on tonight, in preparation for Cage Match this weekend. The programmers also worked to put the robot back into tank drive.

Jessica Bennett
Mechanical and Media team

It's time for some changes!

Today a lot of progress was made in the machine shop trying to convert it to a partial playing field. So far most of the equipment has been moved and carpet has been moved in to it's place. Hannah and Madeline did their part by cleaning and making sure things stayed organized. Ashley was the photographer for tonight. Anna has been working on a sponsorship video, while I have been making sure our Twitter is up to date and the blogs are getting written. Also in the computer room the new set up is complete, with wires that are neatly zip-tied in place.

The workshop for tonight was on the Digital World. Mike talked about different kind of digital buffers (also known as gates) and Micro Controllers.

Also, in other news
1) If any one is planing on going to Cage Match all of your membership forms must be turned in ASAP!!!!
2) We need a volunteer parent to coordinate food and transportation for Cage Match so that we can get there and back and so that we have food for the day.
3) Heads up for planing people, so far we are going to be meeting here at Morison Mock at 5:30am Saturday October 20th to leave for Cage Match all together no later than 6am.

Meeting Updates

This wees workshop was on Basic Electricity, if you missed the meting and would like to know more about this topic you can ask any of our mentors at the next meeting.

In the meeting we also talked about the upcoming cage match competition. We need to know at next weeks meeting (By 10-9-12) if you can or can not go. It is highly encouraged that any and all new team members attend and that all of the veteran members come to show the new members how things work.

There were also some other announcements about cage match:

The home page for everything cage is http://thecagematch.com/main/

  1) There is going to be some money available for senior scholarships this year from cage match. One of the ways they raise money for this scholarship is through a silent auction. Here is a link to the scholarship application and a donation form for the auction. http://thecagematch.com/main/?page_id=260

  2) There will be several contest that teams are encouraged to participate in this year.
     *The most blood donated to the Indiana Blood Center
     *The team that donates the most to the Ronald McDonald House
     *There will also be different things happening on Facebook and Twitter as well.
            You can see those here: Twitter Live Feed Facebook (for the Facebook link it will take you to a    
                 log in page first.

  3) There are also flyers that you can print and pass out to your friends and around your school. If you would like the flyers I will send you the pdf file.

Today some changes were made to the computer lab. We moved all of the computers to one side of the room and organized them. It gave us more space to work and made everything look much nicer. Some of the team also spent the evening working to fix Marvin (our robot this year) for cage match. He should be fixed and ready to compete just in time!

In other news we are also converting part of our machine room into a partial playing field. That way we can practice with our robot and fix it all in the same room. Before we would have to take our robot to the gym and pull out carpet there to practice anything. Then when something wouldn't work we had to take everything back to the other side of the building to fix it, and so on. This conversion is planned to happen next week after the workshop. So from 7:17-8:30 on October 9th we will be moving machines, laying carpet, and setting up the playing field!!!

First Meeting of the off Season!!!

This was the first official meeting of our off season. If for some reason you were not able to join us or you are just checking us out for the first time, here is a overview of what we talked about.

~1720 Handbook

~New sign in sheet

     It now includes time in and time out slots to keep a better count of how many hours a student put in during off season and build season.

~Parents are now needing to put in 10 hours of volunteer time now through December to keep the team running and every thing in order.

~The amount of time a team member must commit during build season has been changes from 12 hours a week to 8 hours a week.

~Projects for next week (10-2-12)

1) Read handbook (both students and parents!)

    Students, be sure to study! There will be a test!

2) Fill out team application

3) Have parents fill out hold harmless liability form

~Every Tuesday until December we will be meeting from 6-8:30

     There will also be a workshop scheduled into every meeting from 6:15-7. Today was a workshop on safety.

~Announcements: 

     Cage Match is coming up! The date is October 20th with a sign up (yes or no commitment by October 9th)

     There will also be a boyscout open house on Tuesday October 2nd!

Projects to be worked on before build season starts

1) Finish fixing Marvin for Cage Match

2) Work on New Years Eve ball

3) Re-wire battery charger

4) Convert space to mini playing field

5) Re-make computer lab

6) Clean up (and keep it clean!)

Jessica Bennett

It's Announcement Time!!!

The date for Cage Match this year is Oct 20th (which is a Saturday.) To get all the info see http://thecagematch.com/main/ We will be talking more about this at our meetings and have a sign up sheet to pass around eventually.
 
Another major announcement:

What: 2012-2013 season start-up team meeting
When: Sept. 25
Time: 6-8:30
Place: Morrison Mock Professional Center
Address: 3620 W. White River Blvd (West entrance)
B there or B square!


Also, from now until November 1720 will have regular meetings on Tuesdays from 6-8:30 PM