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Lake Superior Regional

By FRC, FRC 2016 No Comments

Hey Everyone!

Just wanted to give everyone an update about what is going on with HP Robotics and how we did at the Lake Superior Regional out in Duluth, MN. To summarize things, we did really well. This was our best regional thus far in terms of our accomplishments.

After the qualification matches we ended up in Rank 16 which meant to move on to playoffs we needed to be picked by another team that was in the top 8. We graciously accepted an invitation to join team 2538 – The Plaid Pillagers – and team 4531 – STEMpunk – in Alliance number 6 which allowed us to go on to playoffs. We ended up having to bow out in semifinals due to robot malfunctions, but we were still very excited to make it that far. After all was said and done we ended up in Rank 3rd overall.

Along with ranking as high as we ever had before we ended up winning the creativity award sponsored by Xerox. This officially sealed the deal as our best and funnest regional yet. We still have one more regional to go and expect a post soon with more information on that.

In the meantime – DFTBA

Follow HP Robotics on all of the official channels and ​share with your friends!

Website: https://www.hprobotics.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HPRobotics
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/highland2823/
Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+HProboticsorgFIRST/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HPRobotics/

 

Stop Build Day is Near

By FRC, FRC 2016 No Comments

Aaah! It’s been so busy we forgot to post updates. Sorry about that, we will try to make post more frequently. Now on to the information you all want to hear.

Stop build day is coming up! To be more exact it is February 23rd. That means that our robot has to be completely done and placed in a bag for our first competition in Duluth. We have made great progress on our robot and we will slowly release more information about our robot as it is being completed.

Today we present the information about our chassis!

The chassis is rolling with 12″ wheels which are attached by #35 chain and are in Tank Drive via 4 CIM motors and Vex Pro Gear Boxes.

Here goes some photos and even a video of the chassis in action.

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The Season Begins

By FRC, FRC 2016 No Comments

Hey Everyone!

A lot has happened since we last updated you guys so let us get right into it.

First off, as you may have noticed this is the new website for HP Robotics. HP Robotics is composed of FRC Team 2823 and FTC team 10209 currently. There will be some lovely updates coming to the website within the next couple of weeks. If you encounter any issues or have some questions regarding the website feel free to email us at webmaster@hprobotics.org

Now, for the info that you all really want to hear. The FRC Game has been announced! You can find more info on that by clicking here.

The FRC Team is already hard at work. We began with a great kickoff at Central hosted by The Minutebots – FRC Team 4536. We watched the game along with many other St. Paul Hub teams and then we broke off and discussed the game and its rules in its entirety. The next day around 15 of us met and discussed strategy and robot design. Then on Monday we met again and discussed strategy and robot design as a whole and we decided on a couple aspects regarding strategy and the robot itself.

More updates will be coming shortly.

Follow HP Robotics on all of the official channels and ​share with your friends!

Website: https://www.hprobotics.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HPRobotics
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/highland2823/
Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+HProboticsorgFIRST/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HPRobotics/

The FTC Team

By FTC, FTC 2015 No Comments

Hi Everyone,

It’s been a while since we have made an update so there is a lot of fun exciting news to tell you.

First off we now have an FTC Team or First Tech Challenge. To put things simply, they make smaller and more compact robots than the FRC team, but it is very similar to the FRC Team in many ways. We call them the “The MicroScots!” They are team 10209. There season began in September and there first competition ever is on December 12th.

The decision to have an FTC Team was made mainly on the premise that we usually don’t have many exciting things during the FRC Pre-Season. Thus a lot of the team members who join at the beginning of the year lose interest and don’t get the chance to see what robotics is really about. It also has been a great recruiting and learning tool for new members and has deemed to be a great addition to Highland Park’s Robotics Organization.

That is about all we have so far. If you would like to know more about The MicroScots or Team 10209 feel free to contact their parent team (The Automatons) via email at Team2823Automatons@Gmail.com

Don’t Forget To Be Awesome – Qwadir

Season Summary

By FRC 2015 No Comments

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.

Front View

Rear View

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Pushup

 

A view of the practice field and the pits.

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

Bagging

Robot done!

 

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.

On the bus to Duluth

Pit

Our robot in the pit area

StandSelfie

Selfie taken from the stands

Scotbot

Our mascot received some upgrades, but was still unpainted

StandView

View from the stands

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dining

Eating dinner at Grandmas

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

Pit Space

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!

Discussions made

By FRC 2015 No Comments

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.

The Questions Are Rolling In

By FRC 2015 No Comments

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!

Prototypes Are Off To A Roaring Start

By FRC 2015 No Comments

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**