September 26 2010 4th meeting

People present:Grant, Sean, Scott, Andrew, Connor, Brad, Holden, Jared, Mr.Pontious, Mr.Don, Mr.Perie, James, Rick Tinker, Mr. Lanterman.
Software-Testing Samantha, all software has been installed. Testing equipment. A programed servo!
Maneuverability-Design and building of baton collector. Brainstorming. Tested combo's between brackets and poles for the spinner collector. The finalized design will be in the next post. Blueprints for baton collector.
Mobility-Building drive train. Testing field parts. 4 wheels on each side of robot.

September 20 2010 4th meeting

Grant,scott,andrew,brad,sean,holden,connor,jerid,Mr.Pontious,

FTC Email Blast

I receive a weekly email from FIRST about the FTC competition.  The email had some interesting links on how to manipulate the magnets that are hidden in some of the scoring baton's.  We'll be receiving the sensors but I thought it would be helpful to post the info from the email on this blog.  There is also a link for an FTC forum which should prove to be a useful resource also.

FTC Team Community Forum

This is a New forum for teams and is open to all team members. Teams may use their TIMS generated Login and Password, but may also register and create their own user accounts. We encourage you to reach out to teams using this forum. Ask for help, provide solutions and get to know the other FTC teams across the country. You can access this forum here: http://ftcforum.usfirst.org/

2.    Magnet Sensors

Did you notice that GET OVER IT! has magnetized game pieces? You can buy your Magnetic Sensor from HiTechnic.

3.    IR Beacons

We’ve recycled the IR Beacons from the HotShot! Season, but if you need one for practice, you can get yours from HiTechnic.

Thanks

Coach Reidy

2010 Competition Starts!

It's Robotic's Time!  We've got a very interesting challenge this year called "Get-Over-It!" which will really be a lot of fun to figure out.  A video description of the challenge as well as the detailed rules can be found at the FTC main site, which is:

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc
(use the "game info" link on the left side)

I do expect that all team members will have read the rules by our next team meeting which is this thursday. Don't worry if they seem intimidating - there's a lot of pages but we'll figure them out over the next few months.

We've got some meetings coming up.  This thursday at our house we'll be taking the old robot apart and inventorying all our parts.  While the inventory part may sound kind of boring, it's really important as, in the past we've wasted a lot of time looking for stuff that was right in front of us.  We'll also we asking the team to describe their initial thoughts on designs / operations for this year's challenge.

We will also have a standing team meeting / build session every Sunday from 7:00 - 9:00 pm at our house.

Parents: Those interested in helping please come to the Thursday session.  I do need some help coordinating a build of the robotics field (which is described in the link above).  We'll need to build some components and have about a month to get it done.

I'm looking forward to this year and am very confident that we will do very well!

Thanks
Coach Miles

Final Practice of the Season

Well now that Delaware has come and gone we need to have one more team meeting to talk about the season.

I also need some help organizing the robotic components, taking the field down and cleaning up the basement (we made a considerable mess down there)

Lets shoot for Thursday 2/4 at 6:00pm

New Practice Sessions

We will have build sessions on Sunday (1/24) from 2:00 - 6:00 and Monday (1/25) from 10:00am until 4:00

There will also be some test driving session on
Tuesday (1/26), Thursday (1/28) and Friday (1/29) from 6-8pm

Upcoming Practice Sessions

 Here are this weeks practice sessions
Sunday 1/17/10 from 4:00 - 8:00pm

Monday 1/18/10 from 2:00 - 6:00pm

Thursday 1/21/10 from 6:00 - 8:00pm

New practices

could we please post the practice dates and times

Schedule

Goals

• New drive system/new robot body DEC-20th
• Loading design / side arms DEC-27th
• Shooter JAN-5th
• Finish Robot/ finish programing JAN-17th

Teams

• Sidearms: Conner
• Shooter: Brad, Sean
• Drive: Colin, Matt
• Loading: Scott, Jordy
• Programing: Sean Scott
  

12/10/09 Meeting Notes

Today it was only Brad and I who showed up. We discussed how to redesign the robot by using a combination of different ideas we got from other robots at the competition. We decided to have 3 different ideas to test, 4-h's spinning arm, tech-bricks pullback gun, and the ping pong ball shooter. Brad and I started work on the spinging arm and fond out some import measurements. The best length of the Lexan is 6.25 inches to have the most amount of distance per through.