FRC 2015

It is now Robotics season, and robot season is underway. If you are interested in joining the team, please sign up using this form.

Hello everybody!

It’s been a while. With all of the chaos that is build season going on, we stopped posting information. And then we continued forgetting, and it has been nearly 6 months since the last post.

I’m here to fix that! My nickname is D-Wheezy (don’t ask), and my job for the next year is going to be news poster. So, I’m gonna be keeping things updated.

 

First, though I should catch you up. So here are the

LAST 6 MONTHS OF TEAM 2823

We left off in the middle of build season, after some tough decisions. One of our main design goals for this year was KISS (keep it simple, stupid!), and I think we succeeded.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bot is too tall (6′ 6″) to really fit in a picture. It has one mechanism, a lifter on the front. The weird proboscis was actually used to grab cans from the step. The lifter also had several hooks attached to grab totes. The number of totes varied throughout the season, but we settled on three sets of hooks. Most of our stacks only had two totes, however, as that was the easiest number to grab from the landfill. The best part of the bot is that it just worked. Our maintenance between matches was mostly just swapping the battery. No tightening needed.

Also visible is the signboard on the back of the robot. This is a small display that is powered by a raspberry pi. We extended an existing library by adding GUI functionality. This means that we can display anything on that signboard. Text, images, gifs, you name it!

Probably the best testament to the robustness of the bot is that it could do pushups. The lifter could allow us to raise back up after tipping.

 

Our first chance to use the bot was at the Saint Paul Week 0 competition. This was hosted by Central, but we helped coordinate some additional meetings within the event, and helped with set up and take down. It was great to test our robot, and it helped us get ready for Bag Day

 

Duluth was probably the coolest part of this year. We managed to raise enough money for a second competition and an overnight trip! Although we weren’t picked, and our bus never came, we found our way back after having a wonderful time.

The pictures are not in any particular order, but they are captioned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After Duluth, we continued to improve things. We made new hooks for the robot (they were way better), painted our mascot, and most importantly, upgraded our pit area! A new structure was welded and two new carts were made. This is taken on the eve of 10,000 lakes, the competition in Williams Arena

We actually performed extremely well at the competition. Our robot functioned as we intended, and we scored well. In the end, we weren’t picked, although I think the robot was certainly good enough. I’m not going to dig through for more pictures of this competition, as it was mostly similar. You can check out the scores and find video of all of our matches online here

 

That was the end of our season. We capped it off with a picnic, and then moved all of our stuff offsite for sorting. Currently, it is about half sorted.

Right now, we are in summer mode. That means less stress, and more demos. For example, we have one on the 19th at Highland Fest. We will be at the corner of Ford and Finn from 2:00 to 4:00.

We will also be at the State Fair again.

 

Thanks for reading about our season!

Today the design team made some decisions as to how to build the robot.

Chassis should be 23″ x 32.3″ this is the long and narrow configuration for the stock chassis. We choose this because it will allow us to get up tight against totes no matter what orientation they are in.

The Elevator should be 6 feet tall in total. so we can get the max height out of robot and to account for a 6 tall chassis.

We also designed and prototyped a can hook and carriage.

Team 2823 will be at the SPPS School Choice fair in the STEM area demoing our Ping Pong Bot. Feel free to stop by.

You can find more info at http://www.spps.org/schoolchoicefair

Hey Everyone!

On January 8th we got a lot accomplished, but we still have a lot ahead of us.

The build team has made great progress with prototypes. The hook team led by Ian was able to create a functioning prototype that was tested with great success and they began discussing strategies on how to approach totes and recycling containers that weren’t orientated correctly. The next meeting they will be fixing the bumpers and seeing how well there prototype is when attached to a robot. The pneumatic elevator team has reattached there piston and made a new hook. The next meeting they will be replicating that to the other side. The arms/grip team has two prototypes that are almost done. They will be finishing and most likely testing at the next meeting. Field elements also was able to do some great testing on the scoring platform and concluded that 6 inch wheels will be needed on the robot this year. Electrical was able to attach a jaguar and talon and is working closely with the programming team to get everything up and running and ready for code.

Safety Tsar wants to remind everyone to only use wood on the power saw and to make sure that you have a hair tie if you have long hair.

I, the Rule Tsar, would like to remind you guys that the Noodle Agreement is out the window.

That’s all for now!

Hello Everyone!

Today (January 6th) was our first official practice of the 2015 build season. Build team set out and began building prototypes for three different robot concepts and had a small group of people begin wiring the new control board and RoboRio. CAD Team set out and began gathering all the model of game pieces and the field. They then began making models of some of the prototypes and the chassis. Programming team began setting up all the computers for programming and driving this 2015 season. Business team then went and began discussing the Chairman’s Award.

We hope that by the end of our practice the upcoming Thursday that build team has some more progress on our prototypes and that the control board is all wired and the RoboRio is ready to hand off to the programming team so that they can image the RoboRio. CAD hopes to have successful models of the field and field elements by the end of next Thursday. Programming team wants to have all of our computers ready with the new software and be ready to code any prototypes if need be. Along with that we want to successfully image the RoboRio. Business Team is hoping to begin the process of outreaching to our community and making sure we are the model team to hopefully make us eligible candidates for the coveted Chairman Award.

Also two new positions were awarded to some lucky members today. Our new Safety Tsar is Skyler and his counterpart the Rule Tsar is (me) Qwadir. Skylers job is to know all of the safety rules and make sure that everyone on the team is following them and knowledgeable about them. The Rule Tsar’s job is to keep updated on all the revisions of the game manual and make sure that the team knows about these.

And now, a message from the Safety Tsar to 2823 members:

Hey everyone, it’s Skyler. I just wanted to remind everyone with long hair to make sure that they bring a hair tie or binder to the next practice. Also make sure that you are wearing your safety glasses. That is all.

That rounds up our announcements and updates for today. See everyone soon.

**Members of 2823 – The Secret Password is Git**

Hello Everyone!

On January 3rd our FRC team (2823) traveled with other teams to Washington Tech High School for a local kickoff. There we played some fun games and chatted until the kickoff stream began. Once the kickoff stream began we all eagerly awaited the game announcement. We were all very interested and yet still confused about the game for the 2015 First Robotics Competition. After the stream we all split into different groups allowing a small amount of people to be experts on a certain areas of the game manual. We then proceeded to meet back with our teams and discuss what we learned. Finally we had a great Q&A discussion were some interesting questions were answered.

The following day (January 4th) we all met as a team to  brainstorm ideas and strategies and possible robot builds. We began with a group discussion to start off and get our brains thinking. We then split off into groups of 5 and discussed what we think our best strategy will be for the game. We presented these ideas to everyone else on the team and we decided the best strategy and from there brainstormed ideas on robot builds that would conform to these strategies. We decided that we will have three prototyping teams and get some prototypes going.

We hope that by next week we have a couple prototypes and have a list of pros and cons to that prototype.

For those of you curious a link to the game animation video will be below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTyCIYZQ_1s&channel=FRCTeamsGlobal