Chutes and ladders

We acquired a drawer slide for Sonic. We plan to use this slide to reach the third and final level of the rack, thereby completing the arm of our robot. The first major challenge is deciding where to place the slide on the robot, balancing stability and functionality. We decided to initially attach it to the top of the arm and proceed from there, moving the arm if it proves too unstable. In the future we will need to drill additional holes in the slide to attach it firmly, but this arrangement seems promising.

News of the World #2

Final: 150 to 1

FTC Engineering Notebook

Cypress Bay High School Did a presentation on the Engineering Notebook and what they did to win the Think award for their notebook from the previous competition. Aspects we learned to add to our notebook are more specific figures about our engineering process and the challenges we face daily.

FTC Programming Workshop

The St. Thomas team presented a power point on the basics of Robot C. They discussed Robot C tools and the  programming language, as well as an efficient way to code the robot using comments and functions to clean up and improve the readability.

Schedule

Proving Grounds

Today is our practise tournament at St. Thomas High School where we can meet other teams and test our robot against theirs in the ring. We can also create friendships and alliances here that will follow us long past this year's FTC challenge, making this a great day for our robot and our team.

What Really Grinds My Gears...

The arm design we used to reach the second level of the rack had a gear ratio of 25 to 1 in order to provide the power we needed to reach the height with the weight of the grabber. An unfortunate side effect of this gear ratio is the large amounts of stress it puts the parts under. We experienced this first hand when the axle our arm was on was twisted and bent by the force, forcing us to cut it in order to replace it with a new axle that can better handle the stresses.

Mentorship

Casey went to Western High School to help mentor the rookie team that visited us the other day after school.