In week one, we met the team we would be working with for the next few weeks as well as getting all the accounts set up in the IDE. After that, we learned the rules and timeline of the competition. We also learned aerospace concepts such as yaw, pitch, and roll that are associated with the movement of the Astrobee satellites. We then went over the basic functions for moving, collecting, and duplicating and discussed ways to get 24 samples. We also completed exercises using the basic functions. This included debugging the distance between sites using the Pythagorean theorem. We then started collecting time and distance data for movement to optimize our code. At the end of the week, we split up into small subgroups. Each subgroup made flowcharts and worked on their own code.

Week two was shortened due to July 4th. When we came back, we created a metric table with data concerning battery and time loss. Overall, we focused on data collection involving time and battery loss of the different permutations which later helped us determine a formula for optimizing the best possible score.

Week four was very exciting for us because we learned that the code we had submitted as a team, had gotten 6th place!!! In addition to this, the week was also very important because this was the week that alliances were formed. 10 alliances were made, each including one of the top scorers who were responsible for code submission. Our alliance was made up of the teams, Quark Charm Jr. (us), Little Singer Team 2, Mid Valley Family YMCA, Team Eureka, and  O'Maley. On 7/20, we had a meeting with our alliance about video making, code submission, alliance names, and the internal competition. Besides the alliances, we used the week to collect more data, which eventually helped us decide which code would be sent to the ISS.

In week 5,  all members were given the options to work on one or more of the following 4 tasks: 

1. Team Portfolio:

   • to summarize and reflect our entire journey of this ZR 2023 participation. 

   • to contain a summarized version of our 5-week journey.

   • to embed the 45-secs video per required as part of the last week activity, and our technical presentation slideshow. 

2. Internal competition: 

• the entire alliance team was invited to participate in an internal competition.

• the competition was aimed at getting the greatest amount of samples, with battery and time multiplied by 1.5. Essentially for the entire week till Aug 4th,  we have the option to work on the internal competition

3. Technical presentation slideshow. 

4. 45-sec video per required as part of the last week activity

August 3rd, Thursday - ISS FINAL.  (pending schedule)

More about our internal competition - See  here .