October 8, 2015

This evening we've worked on some fun projects as well as fixing up our robot "Not Yet." Mike helped the students make sure they knew what they were doing to fix some small issues with "Not Yet." Moriah had worked on replacing clips on the fork, and John worked on the intake wheels for the robot.

As for our fun project, some of the students are working on a "Totebot" which is simply just turning a tote into a remote controlled robot of sorts. This evening Hannah was working on making motor mounts and wheel mounts for the "Totebot." Kaylee, Asher, and Kaylynn worked on "Totebot" as well. An old teammate, Ryan, came back to visit today and helped mentor some of the newer students work on "Totebot."

Anthony and Shawn worked on getting the new tablets to interact with the laptop. The new tablets will be used to make scouting easier and getting all of our information in one place in a quicker and more efficient way.

Velvet was able to make a schedule for our team for our next upcoming event, CAGE Match. This evening, Rob and Max worked on cleaning up the network and Wi-Fi for the robot and driver's station.

EV3 Workshop

  LEGO EV3 ROBOTICS WORKSHOP

for 4th-8th grade students

Saturday, Oct. 31 or Nov. 7

10:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.

Workshop Fee: $25

Limited number of spaces available

Workshop held at:

Morrison Mock Professional Center (drive around to the back of the building)

3620 W. White River Blvd. Muncie, IN

Questions can be emailed to: phyxtgears@gmail.com

This workshop will be led by high school students of the Muncie-Delaware FIRST robotics team.

Adult team mentors will also be present.

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CORI Our First Off-Season Competition

On June 20, our team attended our first off-season competition: the Central Ohio Robotics Invitational, or CORI. Our team uses these smaller competitions to improve our 2015 robot, but also as a learning experience for our younger team members. For example, we have changed out our drive team for the off season. Our previous drive coach is now our driver with hopes of being driver in 2016, our previous driver is now our temporary drive coach before he goes off to college in the fall, and we have a brand new operator who also wishes to make drive team next season.

Our robot performed beautifully at the competition, and got us all the way to the finals. Despite our large scale mechanical improvements not yet being finished, we were able to increase the speed of our stacking mechanism and improve our intake wheels, allowing our robot to score more points every match. But, not everything was perfect. For the first time this year we did not make the top 8 seeds going into alliance selections. We were instead chosen by the fourth seeded alliance. After a set of challenging quarter and semifinal matches we were set to go into the finals. Just like everything this year, this was a new experience for our team.

Despite our best efforts, the opposing alliance won. But it didn't matter, because the day had been great for everyone involved, and it showed us what the future may hold. Next month we will be at IRI, the Indiana Robotics Invitational, and next year, we hope to go back to St. Louis.

The 411 on the CNC Mill

A couple of weeks ago, we received a grant from the Ball Brother Foundation. With this grant we purchased a CNC Mill.

After talking with Mike Koch a head mentor here at PhyXTGears, I began to have a better understanding of what exactly a CNC Mill does and how important it is that we have one now. We have a regular mill here in our machine room, it can cut on three different dimensions/axis' (x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis). And although it has been useful so far, you can only cut on one axis at a time and even then, it may not come out as perfectly as you need it to. Mike described it as an Etch a Sketch, if you grew up using those fun toys you know that you can create some pretty cool stuff, but it's going to come out with squiggly and choppy lines sometimes.

So here is the cool news about the CNC Mill, it has four different dimensions and axis' that you can program it to cut on. ( the x, y, z, and a-axis). They can all be working at the same time to cut away the material you put in. This machine will easily "Make parts that can't be made by man." says Mike. It can make intricate designs out of metal, it can make parts and edges just the way you need them to be with ease. No choppy edges or squiggly lines. Everything is just as smooth and exact as you need it to be.

We can't thank the  Ball Brother Foundation enough for their generous grant, and we can't wait to see the full extent of everything we can accomplish here with the CNC Mill.

Setting up the new CNC Mill

World Championship Series: Part 7 "Reflecting on the Past, and Pressing Towards the Future"

As far as I can gather, FIRST is unlike any other team you might ever find yourself a part of. The community, the atmosphere, the teamwork. It’s all completely unique. No other program encompasses learning, fun, hard work, gracious professionalism, and the lessons taught by defeat like FIRST. I said in a previous blog post that I felt like I had graduated from the team when the final buzzer sounded on the final match we played at state. Then I was mistaken but, now, I really have graduated and I’m getting ready to finish my senior year and pack up for college. Leaving the PhyXTGears will be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done but, regardless, I wouldn’t trade my time on the team for the world.

Happy and Tired after Worlds

In conclusion, because I know this series is way too long as it is, I wanted to point out for everyone reading that our robot this year was accidentally named “Not Yet.” At first I didn’t like the name, despite being the person who named it, but soon I realized it had a deeper meaning. This year our team got further than we have in our entire history. But, we didn’t win. Not yet. If anything, this year showed us that we could. With enough hard work, and a little bit of luck, we could go all the way. And next year, I would like to go on the record and predict right now, we will go all the way again. All the way to St. Louis. And, who knows, maybe all the way to Einstein. Muncie could be home to a world champion robotics team. It wouldn’t surprise me at all. So, just to get it out there early, if this year’s robot was “Not Yet,” I vote next year’s robot should be “This Year.” Or maybe “Okay, Now.” I’m flexible.Thanks to everyone for making my time with the PhyXTGears the best five years it possibly could have been.

Sincerely,

~Ryan Spangler

If you missed Part 6 "Homeward Bound" Check it Out!