2016 – 2017 Videos
February 3, 2017
State!
Washington state competition is tomorrow. We spent this last week preparing in categories ranging from the launching mechanism to a team "billboard" (more on that later). Engineering fine-tuned and reinforced the launching and intake mechanisms. This is our largest area of difficulty due to the plethora of mechanical failures and inconsistency at regionals. Programming doesn't have much do do anymore as they mostly finished with the coding and troubleshooting last week. Meanwhile, me and one of our out of work programmers were refurbishing and improving our "billboard" which we had last season. It consists of two banners (we have connections so we had them made for us for free) and a bunch of painted PVC pipes. We created a frame and legs out of PVC and strung the banners back-to-back through them with zip-ties. It actually looks quite nice! We are planning to attach it to our pit table for visibility and publicity. We will get a post out next week detailing the match, it will either be a post-mortem for this season or a victory post.
Wish us luck!
Districts
We are going to state! Districts was a blast. We barely made it because of numerous mechanical failures, very stiff competition from the other alliances, and our dead last placement in the second inter-league match. The only reason we got to state in the first place is because of the high ranking players getting numerous awards. However, we are optimistic and hope that if we are able to learn from these mistakes we will do well in state and hopefully advance to super regionals like last year. Happily,
Wright Angles
Weeks 8 & 9
This week we are preparing for districts; our last match if we are not lucky. The people working on the engineering notebook and most of the free people are working on filling in the gaps, compiling it, and hopefully printing it sometime next week. (the competition is next week Sunday). Currently, programming is working on programming the new gyroscope which was apparently ordered over the break without my knowledge. In case you are wondering, we need a gyroscope to offset the weight imbalance on the bot because the imbalance messes with our mechanum wheels. Meanwhile, engineering "discovered and fixed problems in the robot." Lastly, the plans for fundraising was put on hold as the people working on it are needed for other things currently, (like the engineering notebook).
Wright Angles
Weeks 6 & 7
Hello again,
This week we did quite a bit, as far as building and programming. The build team disassembled the robot and started reassembling it and giving it modifications as they went. As of today it is still under construction but going well. Another section of the build team is also working on a lift design to cap the cap ball. We are thinking about a modified cascade lift or a scissor lift. The pros of a scissor lift are reliability and stability but it would take up quite a large amount of the space on the bot which we probably don't have. A cascade lift is much more compact but will be wobbly due to its thinness. This is especially important as we have to lift a relatively light object a relatively high height. So far we have no solutions but plenty of options!
Programming worked on coding the drive train for our new mechanum wheels. You should see photos of the new wheels in this week's post. This week as you can see the design team (me and my partner), also added team bios. This is another important step towards the completing of the website. We are planning an about us page as well and musing over adding a photo page. Well this is about it, until next week!
Wright Angles
Week 5
Howdy!
If you saw last week's post then you may know that the blog wasn't updated for a few weeks. Here is what has happened since then. Bear with me as team member's memories may be a bit foggy.
Week 3: Engineering "made it drive" (that is all I got from them), programming did "troubleshooting", design made weekly update videos, pit scouting didn't do much, drive team hasn't done much, professional development worked on point optimization, and lastly outreach and PR thought up fundraising ideas and PR opportunities.
Week 4: Engineering worked on the particle launching system, programming updated last years drive code, design made weekly update videos and finalized/ordered this year's teeshirts, drive team drove around our test-bot, professional development didn't do much and PR helped finalize business cards along with design.
This week (week 5): Engineering worked on building and perfecting the particle intake system, mounting the sensors, controllers, and devices on one of the chassis, programming worked on the autonomous program, design began working on our new website, PR worked on fundraising ideas, and professional development didn't do much.
We have an interleague match and Bellarmine preparatory School this Saturday. Hopefully I will write a post on Monday detailing the results.
See ya,
Wright Angles
Week 3
As we started to get some working mechanics we were able to put the programmers work into action. the autonomous programming preformed well and so did the tele-op. Although the drivetrain broke down a bunch we persevered.
Salutations,
Wright Angles
Week 2
Hello Friends!
Today we had a Saturday build session. Our design team got organized, discussed team apparel, and finalized this years logo, (see top of page). Programming copied the basic project framework onto their laptops. Engineering is working on a prototype to launch the balls. The drive team started programming our tele-op program. Outreach, engineering notebook, and data collection were either missing their leaders or didn't do much of anything.
Cheers,
Wright Angles
Gensco Visit
On September 24th, We visited Gensco. We got to see laser engravers, Hydro-drills and other amazing machines, there was even a robot! They gave up a tour Courtesy of Ryan M., '19, Father (an engineer). They made us a copy of our logo out of a steel alloy with a fiber laser.
Week 1
Hello Friends!
Last Saturday we went to the FTC 2016-2017 kickoff at Auburn High School. The kickoff was supposed to be held at Microsoft headquarters but there were some technical difficulties and it was moved. The kickoff was great! The velocity vortex game should be an interesting experience focusing more on appendages than drive train like last years challenge. Afterwards we came back to HQ and did some brainstorming and team organization. Last year we had problems with team communication and a near nil PR/Outreach group. Now we have four main groups; design, strategy, community, and technical. these groups are further divided into graphics and engineering notebook, driving and scouting, outreach and professional development, and engineering and coding. Hopefully this structure works, with such a large team it is hard to stay organized. Sorry about the lack of real photos, not one of our team members got anything good.
Bye,
Wright Angles
