Hey, It's Saturday!

Today was a fairly quiet day for us. We worked some more on our prototype robot, so that we can hopefully start practicing with it soon! In the computer room Andrew was working on finishing our autonomous program. Ashley and I got some of our numbers painted on to our bumpers today too. That's really about it for our work day.

Until next time (AKA Tuesday from 6-9)

~Jessica

*NOTICE!!! WE NEED YOUR HELP! WHAT SHOULD WE NAME OUR ROBOT??? We have two robots this year, so we will take the top two name ideas. One will be for our practice robot, the other for our actual competition robot.*

Crossroads Regional Information

Here is a link to the Crossroads web page. This page has all kinds of information about the regionals we will be going to this year. http://www.rose-hulman.edu/offices-services/first-robotics-regional/crossroads-regional.aspx

If you have any questions please e-mail me and I will do my best to find the answers.

Hope you are all having a great week!

~Jessica B.

Post Build Season Update

Despite the fact that build season has been over for a week, we still have much to do before competition.

With the final bot bagged until competition, we've turned our attention to the practice bot. There are several issues that need to be addressed before we can actually practice with it. Tonight, there were two major projects. The shooter was updated, with parts being replaced or reinforced to allow smoother mounting and operating. Before tonight, the practice bot had actually been using bolts as axles, so a couple of students worked hard on making new axles.

In the other room, the programmers refined the autonomous program. Jessica worked on finishing the bumpers for our robot.

- Matthew Shaffer

*TEAM UPDATES*

Game Night ~ Friday night (the 1st) from 5:30 to 8:30 at Morrison mock. Bring your games and $3 for pizza and drinks.

Work day schedule ~ Saturdays 1-5 and Tuesdays from 6-9

Also if you are going with the team to Crossroads Regionals (including parents who are going with us), the $150 per person is due before/by Friday!

Then all team members and mentors need to go to www.usfirst.org > FRC > Registration > STIMS and follow the instructions for filling out the FRC team application.

WE ARE DONE!!!

Our build season has come to a close. We even bagged up our robot early this year! It's a new record for us at 11:30 pm!!! And everything on it was working when we put it in too! Well... there was a Trent in the bag at first, but he managed to get out eventually. *OUR NEXT MEETING WILL BE NEXT TUESDAY (the 26th), SEE YOU IN A WEEK!*

Last Day Countdown

Tonight we have to finish working on our robot completely. Our six week deadline is coming to a close tonight at 11:59 pm. We have to have our robot in it's bag before 12am Wednesday for sure! It has to be in the bag, and sealed with special red zip ties put on by our mentors. The ties have numbers on them so that when a mentor signs a paper they can write which numbered tag they put on.

Right now in the machine shop Tim is cutting key ways in gears. While Trent is supervising team members putting thinner bands on our pick up rollers. In the computer lab I have been blogging (obviously...) and trying to get logo stickers ready to put on our robot, in between working on the robot's bumpers.

We did get our robot to climb some tonight too! It is also driving and moving really well. Now we just have to perfect the pick up a tiny bit and practice shooting a couple more times before we bag it up for the end of our build season.