The students have made great progress this first week. Learning to CAD with Fusion 360, coding updating hardware, outline done for Animation Award, past robots disassembled, start on shirt design, strategy development, frame CADed, 2D manipulator CADed, and YES amazing progress on the prototype.

The intake is working!!!!

Intake Video

As we come across our final week (the week before competition), we give a tour of our pit setup. It holds what we need and will be at competition. You will be able to come see it for yourselves, but for now, here is a virtual representation you can view at home! The link below will take you straight to the video.

https://youtu.be/aPxh6Ii-lIY 

At this point in the season we have had to take apart the arm because we realized the shaft is bent.

Even though we have a smaller team then last season, the whole team came together and took the arm apart and at present time the arm is being worked on as I type this. 

We also made a bucket of buttons for us to give out at regionals, Northern Lights. 

Part of our marketing team is working on hats that we will wear at our competition.

What: Open House and Demo

Our robot Josephina is eager to show off its moves. 

Who: Friends, Family & Community Supporters

You are invited to come check out what we have been working on this season.
Everyone is welcome.

When: Tuesday, February 28, 2022

Open House 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Robot Demo 6:30 p.m.
Impact Presentation 7:00 p.m.

Where: Chisago Lakes High School - Door 1  -  29400 Olinda Trail, Lindstrom, MN 55045

Questions:

Please contact a team member or Angela Tveit, faculty advisor  -  cell 651-208-0840  -  3038robotics@isd138.org

We use these laminated sheets to more effectively communicate with alliances. Here is a link to the pdf. 

We are so proud of the team. ICE won the second highest team attribute award. The entrepreneurship award celebrates the entrepreneurial spirit and recognizes a team which has developed a comprehensive business plan in order to define, manage, and achieve the team’s ongoing objectives. This team displays entrepreneurial enthusiasm as well as demonstrates the vital planning and business skills to ensure a self-sustaining program. 

The fast functionality of a C-clip mixed with the convenience of a light switch!

These little parts are perfect for securely and quickly attaching the robot’s bumper. A modified c-clip in a slider connects with a notched pin for an effective coupling of the bumper to the robot.

PegasusAutoRacing.com

Part 3009

Dzus 1500 Series Sliding Latch & Bushing

Part 3018

Spacer for Dzus 1500 Series Slide Latch

Where: Williams Arena, University of Minnesota

When: Thursday, Friday and Saturday, April 7-9th

How: We will be leaving from North Branch Area High School. Everyone must ride the bus.

Food: No food or beverages can be brought into the arena.  You can bring in an EMPTY WATER BOTTLE. They will check bags. We will provide lunch on Thur., Fri., and Sat. We will provide supper on the bus Thursday. Big thanks to Wilson Tool for buying dinner on Friday.  We will eat our lunch on the bus or outside depending on the weather.

There are concession stands, so bring money if you want more to eat. 

Uniform: EVERYONE IS REQUIRED TO WEAR A MASK! Yes, FIRST did change it to recommended but our team will still be wearing masks. 

All team members must wear their current 3038 SHIRT each day.  This should not be covered by another shirt.  You can wear a 3038 sweatshirt if you want.

Wear your NAME TAG.

WEAR JEANS or khakis. No athletic pants. No holes.

Cost:  The event is FREE for spectators.    

Pit Area: Anyone in the pit area must have closed toe shoes and safety glasses.  

Our team will have safety glasses you can use, if needed.

All spectators are welcome in the pits.  

The pit area is the Pavilion connected to Williams Arena.

Hair must be in a ponytail if it’s long.  

Parents: Everyone is invited to attend all the events.

Children under the age of 12 must be accompanied by an adult.

Students MUST ride the bus to and from the tournament.

Event Info: https://firstuppermidwest.org/minneapolis-regionals/

Reminders:

We are representing North Branch and Chisago Lakes High Schools and the Minnesota State High School League Rules apply.  Let’s make our schools proud of us.  Please be respectful and show Gracious Professionalism at all times.  Act like you want to be there.  Device use should be limited and cheering for our team is an expectation when we are competing on the arena floor. Any violations will be subject to you being sent home with your parents having to come and get you.  Students are expected to remain in line-of-sight of a mentor at all times. Do not wander off on your own.  

There are 56 teams at Williams Arena and 54 teams at 3M Mariucci Arena.  You can go as a group with a mentor to 3M Arena but you must check out with Angela before you go.  Please use the crosswalk and obey traffic signals.  Otherwise, it is expected that you stay in the arena.  

Let’s have a great time and be proud of all our hard work as a team.

Wednesday, April 6th:  Load in of robot and pit set up from 6:00-8:00 pm

Tomy, Angela, Oskar, Christian, & Garrett

4:00 pm Meet at Chisago Lakes High School

5:00 pm Leave CLHS for Minneapolis

6:00 pm Load in

8:00-9:00 pm Return to CLHS

Thursday, April 7th:  Inspection and Practice Rounds

7:00 am Students arrive at North Branch High School

7:20 am Bus Departs from NBHS

7:45 am 5 team reps to load in - Cummings will drive separately

8:30 am Pits open; Registration and Robot Inspection

9:00-11:00 am Driver’s meeting, Field Open for Measurement & Calibration next to the field

9:30 am Safety Meeting in Sports Pavillion Hallway under the stands

11:00-12:00 pm Lunch

12:00-6:30 pm Practice Matches

Last Match ALL STUDENTS meet in stands

8:00 pm Pits Close

8:00-9:00 pm Estimated return time; depends on how things go. Dinner provided on bus.  Watch for Remind text.

Friday, April 8th:  Qualification Matches

6:30 am Students arrive at NBHS

6:50 am Bus Departs from NBHS

8:00 am Pits open

8:30-9:00 am Opening Ceremonies

9:00-12:00 pm Qualification Matches

9:30 am Safety Meeting in Sports Pavillion Hallway under the stands

12:00-1:00 pm Lunch

1:00-5:45 pm Qualification Matches

5:45-6:15pm ALL STUDENTS meet in bleachers

Awards Ceremony- Pits close immediately after closing ceremonies.  

Leave for North Branch. Dinner will be provided by Wilson Tool.

7:30 pm Estimated return time; depends on how things go. Watch for Remind text.

Saturday, April 9th:  Preliminary Rounds and Finals

6:30 am Students arrive at NBHS

6:50 am Bus Departs from NBHS

8:00 am Pits open

8:30-9:00 am Opening Ceremonies

9:00-12:15 pm Qualification Matches continue

9:30 am Safety Meeting in Sports Pavillion Hallway under the stands

12:15-12:30 pm Alliance Selection

12:30-1:30 pm Lunch

1:30-4:30 pm Playoff Matches

4:30-6:00 pm ALL STUDENTS meet in bleachers

Awards Ceremony

6:30 pm Pits close   

Leave for North Branch

7:30 pm Estimated return time. Watch for Remind text.

From wood to metal, now its made of aluminum, and poly carbonate, the robot is complete. The team is now preparing for competition by finalizing our hoodies, t-shirts, and practicing driving the robot like kids would play with an RC car (only more expensive and more carefully).

Our team has spent many weeks working hard on presentations that will display all of our hard work over the build season. Our deans list candidate gave her presentation today and killed it. The Pit judging crew has finalized their speech. Chairman's is eagerly waiting for their presentation next week. 

With Wilson working consistently and his design solid it allowed the team to turn our focus to the details that will make him more efficient. For coding this included adding the gyro sensor we had been working with on the coding robot and dialing in the camera. For the build this means we could advance our hanging mechanism to traverse the rungs. We have worked out the details in CAD and been able to find the parts needed. It is time to tie it all together. The nice part is we can still use the one stage climb and if we run into too much trouble we can go back to that. 

Thank you Wilson Tool and Rev Sci for share about their businesses. It was interesting to her like our team they were having issues with supply chains. Nick from Rev Sci emphasized to us "The single best piece of advice I can give, is write everything down. The more detailed records you keep the more it will help to replicate your design once you are done developing."

For those following our Wilson's evolution this will be interesting.

Robot Evaluation

• • Great to have a working robot

  • Our mechanisms were simpler but more consistent and working then other teams there

  • Add handle to top of robot crate

  • add handles to robot frame

  • Add bumpers to the front of the intake

  • Add shields

    • can we connect back to side shields

    • Do we need side shields with steel cables - Tomy

  • Chain tangle can we use the pulley guides as chain guides?

  • Fix hanger code

    • add magnetics sensor?

    • figure out up from down

  • Autonomous test starting spots more with shooting

  • get distance camera working

    • What is the distance camera? - Tomy

  • didn't use camera for driving

  • intake worked well 

  • arc the transfer lexan

    • Add break beam sensor to help with automating the piston. This is help with the second ball not being consistent as the robot will know when to fire the piston for the second ball - Tomy

    • can with bolt to ball guides

    • or put door latches on outside edge?

    • or?

  • fix climber cables

  • can we go back to a symmetrical piston end for transfer if we bend lexan. It seems to rotate

  • add needle nose pliers to cart supplies

  • confirm chain links are all tight

  • Battery 7 is bad

  • add look for hook on cart for holding up drivers station

  • add velcro on the bottom of drivers station

  • touch up bumpers

  • cord control and labeling

  • other team had an aluminum intake and it was really wobbly

    • Made of thin aluminum

  • wood intake was stationary even when pushed against wall

  • intake ability to bounce didn't cause robot to be pushed up

• • laminate starting point diagram

  • laminate signs to identify each starting point

  • laminate control diagram

  • fix reverse spin code for shooter

  • touch up paint

  • Shooting consistency lead to higher balls scored than predicted

  • use practice bumpers on no cover on bumpers to keep the fabric nice for tournament

Highlights

• • First year intaking a ball outside the robot

  • First year using a PID loop

  • First year with multiple auto modes

  • Clean consistent intake (touch it - own it)

  • Consistent shooter scoring 10 ball in one match out of 13

Match Evaluation

• • Stats 

  • Autonomous

    • B2, B5, R2, R5 need to start one ball back from FENCE for shooter to work consistently.

    • B2, B5, R2 R5 easily shoot HIGH GOAL

    • B1 & R1 not enough room to consistently TAXI. The ball against the wall stopped us from getting all the way off the TARMAC.

      • Maybe we can program a turn as we TAXI to make this work better otherwise it seems like the the 2 wall TARMACs will be better having 1 robot in them at start.

    • B3, B4, B6, R3, R4, R6 need to line up parallel to the side of the TARMAC against the HUB

      • LOW GOAL more consistent

    • Can we add a ball pick up at the end?

    • What is our alliance strategy?

    • Do red and blue balls that start on the field consistently get place in the same location for is the color on the tape location random?

      • Balls are placed at the same spot every match - Tomy

    • HUMAN PLAYER lobbing ball worked better than basketball shooting

  • Better to be consistent

    • Ideally we can start in B2,B5,R2,R5 and shoot HIGH GOAL, TAXI, possibly collect additional ball

    • match 100% robot scoring accuracy

    • Throughout the day 25% HUMAN PLAYER accuracy

• Teleop 

  • Need to backup when turning against the wall with intake hanging over frame.

  • Time to shoot the same for HIGH & LOW GOAL

  • Time to collect balls longer with HIGH GOAL shots

  • How will ball movement be with 6 robots on the field?

  • ?Scoring potential for HIGH & LOW goal similar. Higher value vs. More balls

  • Would low be better for earning ranking points?

  • Next time can we ask another team to scrimmage?

  • We can consistently shot high or low now without them bouncing out.

  • Driver coach helpful to tell the driver where to find the ball and think strategy so driver can focus on driving

  • Do we want assistant driver to control shoot and intake?

  • 2 timed matches

  • 75% robot accuracy shooting

• Hanger

  • Not scored because code needs tweaking and we can do that at our meetings

The weather forces us to cancel a meeting but we worked crazy hard and got Wilson driving and ready for the practice match. The metal climber is on and the piston hand is working well. The aluminum shooter has also presented some unforeseen challenges. With the weather prediction and our practice match scheduled for next Saturday we focused on the climber and getting everything running smoothly our practice matches. Sometimes it feels like we are making a misfit toy. With limited supply and shipping delays it has pushed our focus to seeing what we can use that we already have and what we can design and 3D print ourselves. Luckily our FIRST Choice stuff came from AndyMark so we got the few pneumatic parts and motors needed to make the climber work. The motor mounts the team CAD and 3D printed worked great. 

MURA Field was a wonderful opportunity to test Wilson and drive on a full sized field. We were able to evaluate where we were and where we want to go. We are excited to go down again in two weeks.

Thank you to Minneapolis Public Schools, Ultraviolet, Herobotics, Millerbots, Green Machine, Technocrats, Boston Scientific, and Seagate for funding and sharing the field.

The wood prototype for the climber with single bar piston lifting is working well. We have completed the aluminum version and just need to mount it to the robot next week. The coders are working on dialing in the speed the shooter wheels need to spin. We added two more pneumatic tanks to power the piston climbers. We continued to make progress on the Chairman's presentation and notebook. We are working on new signage for the pits, finished the hoodie design and so much more.

And the robot now has a name... Wilson

The robotics program presents unique opportunities to us as it is spread across two schools; it allows kids to integrate and make connections they usually wouldn’t make with students from other schools. To achieve the number of kids we have from across schools, we spent time making presentations and used them across all schools targeting freshmen and sophomores and increasing our team size by 25% from last year. 

In the last few years, even with covid rampant and taking over our lives, we still managed to get out into the community and try our hardest to be role models in these trying times. We still reached out to Art Fests and 4-H’s to promote FIRST and Robotics as a whole. 

Positive Outcomes from COVID

While it seems COVID is all negative due to it forcing us to miss competitions and move to a remote setting, it has had some positive impacts on our team. The first positive impact Covid has had is it has helped a number of our mentors become better versed with technology and how to use it. Working remotely and joining zoom meetings and last year’s game allows team members to understand better the parts of robotics they usually may not work on, such as chairmans. On top of that, it has helped encourage us to keep our work area more clean and tidy and overall allows us to be a more sanitized and clean team. A final positive outcome of COVID is that it has helped our communication skills as a team. We have struggled to connect remotely and effectively communicate over the phone and video calls.

Improvements in the Team

One thing our team needs to improve on is outreach and recruitment. One way we can improve the outreach in our team is by setting up more tours with our sponsors and being more involved in our community. Our team also needs to improve on recruiting more members. Another area our team needs to improve on is documenting our ideas to save. Our team also needs more diversity on the team. In conclusion, we have some improvements that need to be fixed, but we work well together.

Recruiting in Science Classes

Another way we reached out was by presenting about FRC and First programs at science and computer skills classes at one of our high schools and one of our middle schools. This ended up being a great way to get information out because although many of the students we presented to didn’t end up joining the program, they still learned it was available. We were able to answer many different questions about robotics and many other STEM-related topics.

Discussed Program with Teachers to Find Potential New Members in Their Classes

Yet another way we recruited new members and advertised our team was by discussing what First Robotics Competition was and how our team uses STEM to problem solve, learn, and develop new skills and mechanisms to compete in the First Program. This gave us an excellent outlet to practice talking about our team in a judgment-free environment as we have learned from these teachers for a number of years now and have developed a good relationship with them. It also allowed us to find potential new members interested in STEM and the Robotics program.

Jump start by Medtronic

Something we did which helped us reach more teams and learn a lot more about a variety of different topics was attending the various Jumpstart programs presented by Medtronic. While a lot of the workshops were on the information we previously knew about, we learned much more about the topics and even some new tips and tricks. On top of learning further information, we also were provided a chance to meet new teams and create connections to these teams. Which are now valuable contacts for us as we jump deeper into our season, we have even discussed starting pen pal programs with some of these other teams. 

County Fair

We have found over the years that presenting and interacting with people at our county fair has helped inform them about our programs as well. Every year our fair has hosted a stem night. Last year our team was able to host an aerospace workshop for many of the younger fairgoers. We helped these kids design, customize and build their own paper straw rockets. It was enjoyable to experience just how much these kids loved launching their creations. It was also great because it allowed us to reach a broader, more diverse group of people, which we would have otherwise not have been able to. By doing it at the fair, we were also able to include a much wider range of age groups, which was overall an excellent and fun experience.

FTC

Our team has been very involved in many other levels of First. As an FRC team, we mentor three teams from two different schools. Since our team is composed of two different schools, we see more interest in STEM grow in our communities. We help create and mentor teams for new students interested in joining. We have several team members from our FRC team who every year go and mentor these lower levels. The final year before these team members graduate, they take on new team members to fill their shoes and help lead and mentor the younger students.

Another way our team inspires more students and adults to become more involved with STEM is by demoing our robot at many different events. The team showed off our last year’s robot at Chisago Lakes Middle School to their FTC teams which some of our members mentor. This was an incredible experience as we got to see and interact with the students firsthand. We also got to answer their questions about robotics and the robot. 

Wilson Tool

Our team has made connections with industries, such as Wilson Tool. We have been able to tour their facility and learn from them. Our team members have also made the connections and been able to reach out to the company for school engineering projects to help get custom parts made. Our connection with Wilson Tool has been beneficial because it has allowed members to see firsthand how many of these manufacturing instruments work. Wilson tool is especially beneficial as they specialize in manufacturing parts that other companies then use for the mass production of their parts. 

Drone Experience

Our team partnered with 4-H to allow youth the opportunity to explore and create with drones. They were able to fly and really understand how drones work and even got to meet and talk to a drone racer, who has participated in several high-speed races himself. 

In conclusion, although COVID has proven difficult, and our team has overcome many problems, we are a well-rounded team in our community. We have worked well as a team to solve any issues we run into during the season.

Katelyn

North Branch Area High School Graduating Class of 2024

4 Years participating in FIRST  |  2 Years on FRC team 3038 I.C.E.

Katelyn has been an active member of the robotics community since 7th grade. She started her robotics career as a member of FTC Team 7288 RoboGlaciers and became immersed in the program from the minute she walked in the door. She is now a sophomore at North Branch Area High School, mentoring FTC, and is now in her second year as a member of FRC Team 3038 I.C.E. The knowledge she gained in FTC allowed her to contribute to FRC Team 3038 from the beginning. She quickly gained the respect of the older team members because of her strong work ethic, ability to contribute, and willingness to learn. She is an asset to our team and a joy to be around. Katelyn is a remarkable student who is always willing to help.

Katelyn believes in the ideals of FIRST and attends our community events like Art Fest, engaging with the public to share all about robotics and FIRST. She volunteered at the North Branch FTC Competition two years in a row. Whether she is volunteering at fundraisers, participating in Pep Fest Rally, or encouraging her fellow tennis teammates to try robotics, she is a great ambassador for FIRST. She spearheaded our letter-writing campaign this season to create awareness, find sponsors and cultivate relationships with the business community. Her passion for coding is contagious when she volunteers at FTC and teaches the younger girls about coding. 

If the job needs to get done, she is willing to help. When a question arises, she is willing to research and learn, whether it is a new camera or a different way to code. In 7th-9th grade, she was a coder and a driver for her FTC team. She designed the FTC team's placement item (donut burger) to be 3D printed. She contributed valuable ideas to the game design challenge in the 2020-2021 season. Her family has donated tools to the program. She mentors her former FTC team, and her influence on that team is easy to see.

Katelyn's technical expertise and passion for coding with FTC make her a solid asset to our FRC coding group. She is eager to learn more about CAD and coding. With her help, our coders could get a PID loop working for the first time. Her willingness to frequently fill out her engineering notebook documents what she learns for future team members to reference.

The artistic ability she shared in helping create the new animated team mascot is just one way Katelyn's creativity shines through. She listens to others’ ideas, contributes her thoughts, and works together with her teammates to solve problems they face. She suggests they try something, and if it does not work, they think of something else and try that.

Katelyn displays academic excellence by being an A honor roll student for many years. She currently has a GPA of 3.89 despite her challenges with dyslexia. Katelyn is a valued team member and would make an excellent recipient for the Dean’s List.

The climber has been raising numerous road blocks. Thanks to alumni mentors Nathan and Adam for helping us out on Saturday to come up with a solid plan and direction to head. We really like our plan for how to traverse the rungs but because of the delay in getting supplies and the cost we are going to modify our plan to have a consistent single bar climb for now with the ability to add the traversal climb in the future. We submitted the Chairman's essay and finished the script for the video this week.

Thanks to Hi-Lo Manufacturing and Donaldson Foundation for their continued support.

Sorry, we are caught up trying to get the robot done by this coming Saturday. We have been taking notes and photos. We will get you an update as soon as we get a chance.

This week the team focused its efforts on making the first model of the climbing mechanism, and finishing up the intake. With many iterations done and plenty to go we should be able to drive the robot by end of week 4. This is great for keeping to the target dates we set at the beginning of the season. The coding and electrical team has set up most of what is needed to run and code the robot and has begun to teach the next generation how to take over in the future. This week the builders will focus on finishing designing a transfer for the cargo, while our Chairmen finish up the paper and start planning our video. 

Thank you to Hallberg Marine for their donation. Thanks to all of our mentors, who continue to teach us something new.

We have made great progress in week two. Our version 1.0 of the intake is working and we have a solid idea for our shooter. We are hoping to have a CAD model of our robot done by Monday to start cutting and painting the robot elements. We have 2 ideas for our climbing mechanism. 

The t-shirt design and avatar are done. We are working on a digital version of our mascot for video animating. 

The coders are working hard to learn how to use encoders, pneumatics, and retro reflective tape with lime light. We are proud to say they got a PID loop working for the first time.

Thanks to Winnick Suppy in Forest Lake for their support.

Week 1 - Build Season

Team Agile Goals - Themes - Epics

• Expose students to STEM

  • Build a effect robot with a professional appearance

    • Consistent color theme

    • Accurate fabrication

  • Good engineering notebook

    • Weekly meeting summaries

    • Consistent template

    • Include CAD

    • Include code

• Help students explore potential careers

  • Participate in community outreach

    • Art Fest

    • County & State Fair

    • School Carnival

    • Apple Fest

    • Letters to other teams/pen pal

  • Maintain and create new partnerships with local businesses

    • Letter writing campaign

    • Invite business experts to robot demo

• Represent the diversity of our school and community

  • Welcome and train new members

    • Assign defined roles

    • I show. We do together. You do.

    • Sustain a welcoming environment for sharing knowledge & ideas

  • Recruit from a variety of students groups

    • Recruit underrepresented & vulnerable groups

    • Networking with other youth groups & businesses

    • Creating an atmosphere that supports diversity & inclusion

  • Members active in all aspect of the team

    • Works to have underrepresented groups active in all aspects of the team

    • Encourage students to participate in hopes of sparking new knowledge, interests & experiences

We finished our new logo and are working hard on our shirt design and digital mascot. We have learned so much already. Members are learning to use Adobe Creative Cloud and Inventor. Our new coding robot and computers are getting our coders off to a great start. Some members are working to prototype in CAD, while others are building prototypes and game elements. The PVC pipe hub will be easy to move around. Our team is excited to have the versatility to shoot cargo in the high or low hubs. The engineering doesn't stop there. We are hoping to swing our way to the high rung. To reach our goals this season we have completed the intake prototype and are on schedule to design the cargo shooter next week.

Thanks to all of our mentors for your support and advice. It is helpful to learn about previous robots from our alumni mentors.

December 2021 - Preseason

Our FRC season is just around the corner and we couldn't be more thrilled. Lots has been done to prepare for kick off. We took time to inventory and reorganize our back room since it accumulated a few years worth of dust while waiting for us to return. This helped our team declutter which makes us more prepared for kick off. This preseason clean gave our new members a chance to become conformable with the veteran members and the meeting spaces. We are exited to see what FIRST challenges us with this year. We don't want to forget the alumni who reconnected with old friends and mentors. Team 3038 is preparing for an adventurous season.

Thank you to our newest sponsors H&L Machine, Anderson & Koch Ford, and Lakes Region EMS. We continue to look for community connects to support fabrication once the build season starts up on January 8th.

Agile Resources

• Discuss and set goals

  • Set team GOALS (if not measurable you won’t know when you achieve your goal.)

• Prioritize Goals into valuable & measurable pieces of work

  • THEMES - Broad ideas and goals to accomplish

  • EPICS - Measurable value to lead you towards those goals. 

  • STORIES - Smallest measurable tasks to work towards the goal.

  • SCRUM board Sticky Note Brainstorming

    • Everyone gets a pad of sticky notes to write ideas on

    • Consolidate ideas

    • Read through all the ideas and make sure everyone understands the suggestions

    • Decision matrix or star voting

• Get each work item all the way done

• Measure value regularly - like with Demos

• Iterate

  • Do things in little pieces, then make better, and make better. Don’t spend too much time planning.

  • Retrospectives - weekly during build season on Saturday - This is students doing peer evaluation (NOT MENTORS)

    • What did we do well?

    • What can we do better next time?

    • Pick one to improve on in a measurable way?

    • Measure and evaluate

• Improve the process

  • Minimize dependencies - If someone does not have something to do, WHY?

  • Collaborate - work together to remove whatever is blocking everyone from having a task

  • Parallelize - work alongside each other to achieve our goal

• The team is more important than goals

Source: https://daydragonsfll.wordpress.com/agile/

Video: https://youtu.be/aPYG3QS6-G0

Agile Team Roles:

• Scrum Master

  • "Wise Fool"

  • Owns "How" team does its work

  • Responsibilities:

    • Facilitates meetings

    • Ensures transparency

    • Discovers impediments

    • Deals with impediments

• Product Owner

  • "Shusa" or Chief Engineer (seasoned market expert) 

    • Note that many make the mistake of thinking "Market" doesn't include both business AND tech. They are wrong to do so, because only by having someone who knows the customer and understands the tech can the Product Owner be truly effective.

  • Owns "What" team does

  • Responsibilities

    • Builds the backlog of stories

    • Prioritizes the backlog

    • Gets customer feedback

    • Elaborates story intent

• Team Member

  • "Maverick" or "Innovator"

  • Owns the Teams Results

  • Responsibilities

    • Specialized generalist able to contribute to team discussions

    • Technical skills needed to support work execution

    • Clear sense of purpose for professional self and team

    • Passion for serving others

So Who is the Leader in Agile?

• Everyone's first answer: Product Owner!

• The clever second answer: Any Team Member!

• What about the Scrum Master: are they just Management?

Summary of Lesson:

• Agile Values are in the Manifesto

• Agile empowers the team

  • Product Owner sets Product Vision

  • Team chooses their own work

  • Scrum Master supports & improves team

• Agile requires owners trust  the team to gain speed by varying scope

November 2021 - Preseason

We welcome a new lead advisor Angela Tveit, new North Branch activities director Kindra Helin, new North Branch activities administrative assistant Tanya Giese and new alumni mentor Allysun K. Thank you to all of our returning mentors for their continued support.

Thank you to 3M for a $5,000 grant, that we use to register for Minnesota 10,000 Lakes Regional Tournament April 7-9, 2022 at Williams Arena. Thank you to Harbor Freight for a $100 donation. We completed a letter writing campaign to build stronger community connections and sponsorships. Collecting admission at the North Branch Art Fest was a fun outreach project again this year. Thank you to all that generously donated to robotics programs in our area. Thank you to those who donated to DECA's Battle of the Activities Food Drive and thank you to DECA for coordinating.

Our member numbers are down. We have been working hard to recruit new members by presenting during classes and FTC meetings, as well as reaching out to students and staff. We are working to match the diversity of our school and community in terms of women, people with disabilities, African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and Indigenous students on our teams. It has been a success so far, doubling the number of members.

We gained a lot at JumpStart by Medtronic. The workshops about manipulators were particularly interesting.

Hats off to the FTC's teams 11413, 8636, and 7290 for doing a nice job at their first qualifier on November 21.

Our Safety Animation Video: Faster, Farther, Safer gave us the new opportunity to use Adobe Character Animator to introduce our new member Jerry!

With refreshed marketing pieces, we look forward to creating identity guidelines next month.

January 4th, 2020

Our team met at Chisago Lakes High School and watched the game video. We also began brainstorming strategies and mechanisms.

August 24th, 2019

Our team demonstrated at the Minnesota State Fair. We gave a quick demo of our robot and then let kids drive in the Academic Building. We also walked in the parade with our robot and other FRC teams.

August 16th, 2019

We attended 3M Robots on the Plaza. We went to 3M and let children drive our robot and listened to Frank Merrick, the director of FRC. Our seniors were also able to attend a tour of one of the new facilities.  

August 10th, 2019

On August 10th, Wilson Tool invited us to their company picnic where we supervised children on bouncy houses and answered questions about our team and FIRST. 

August 10th, 2019

On August 10th, Wilson Tool invited us to their company picnic where we supervised children on bouncy houses and answered questions about our team and FIRST. 

April 29th, 2019

We had our end of year banquet at North Branch Area High School. This let us reflect on the season and concluded our events for the rest school year.

April 8th, 2019

We held a Space Night at Sunrise River Elementary School in North Branch for elementary kids. We ran stations to teach kids about things related to space. We demonstrated with two of our robots and had FTC teams that drove their robots too.

March 28th to 30th, 2019

We competed at our regional competition at Williams Arena at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. We placed 35th with a record of 5-4-0. We also received the Judges' Award.

February 19th, 2019

Buzz was completed on Saturday the 16th. We upgraded the cover for the electronics panel. On Monday, February 18th, we added LED light strips to give the drive team indicators during matches. We also added stickers to the electronics cover panel, hatch mechanism, and cargo ramp. We bagged Buzz on February 19th at 9:30 p.m. CT.

February 9th, 2019

Our competition robot is almost complete, all that is left is attaching pistons to our hatch mechanism. We added a cover to the electronics panel and a fan to keep the air compressor from overheating.

February 2nd, 2019

Several of our build days were cancelled due to the cold weather. Our prototype robot has been completed and it has two working mechanisms, one for hatch panels and one for cargo. We have almost completed our competition robot and we hope to have it driving by next week. Both of our robots have been named, Woody for our prototype robot and Buzz for our competition robot.

January 19th, 2019

We selected which chassis we wanted to build and built the chassis for our prototype robot. We designed a majority of our future robot in CAD.

January 5th, 2019

On January 5th, we held our 2019 Kickoff event. Our team members watched the game video and began to brainstorm ideas on what our strategy should be for Destination: Deep Space. We broke into groups and created design matrices for each aspect of the game.

December 1st to December 2nd, 2018

In early December, we hosted an FTC tournament at North Branch Middle School. Our members sold concessions, monitored the pits, organized queuing, and emceed the tournament. 

November 17th, 2018

We sold tickets at the North Branch Community Arts Fest. We wore our shirts, answered questions about our team and took donations.

September 2nd, 2018

We gave demonstrations of our robot in the Education Building at the Minnesota State Fair. We walked with our robot in the parade. We wore our shirts and answered questions about our team to people.

August 11th, 2018

We helped run bouncy houses at the Wilson Tool Company Picnic. We wore are shirts and promoted our team to employees.

June 28th, 2018

We presented to Wilson Tool in White Bear Lake, MN about a potential sponsorship for the upcoming season. Wilson Tool gave us a tour of their facilities.

May 19th, 2018

We participated in the MSHSL FIRST State Robotics Championship at Mariucci Arena in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We placed number one in Vault points with 335 points. We ended up ranked 25th with a record of 3-6-0.

April 25th to April 28th, 2018

We competed in Tesla Division at Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan. We ranked number one in Vault points in our division and tied for number two in the world for Vault points with 425 total points. We finished the tournament in 49th place with a record of 3-7-0.

March 28th to March 31st, 2018

We qualified for the world championships in Detroit at the end of April at the Medtronic Foundation Regional at Williams Arena in Minneapolis, Minnesota! We scored the most points in the Vault with 335 points throughout the tournament.  We placed 15th in qualification matches and then were picked for the 8th seed alliance with Granite City Gearheads and the Firebears. With them we made it to the finals and ended up getting a wild card to qualify us for the World Championship in Detroit, Michigan!