This FIRST® (heh heh) week has been one of the most fun, and stressful weeks in my four years of build season. The first few days were spent arguing over, and prototyping for, everything from drive systems to the tube placing mechanism to the minibot. Our initial ideas for the minibot were crushed by the first Team Update, which greatly restricted everyone’s mean of constructing an efficient minibot. However, when it comes down to it, we think we have a solid design, so watch out. 😉
As for drive systems, we have already prototyped one efficient means of getting around the field, and are now working on some experimental ones. By the end of build season I feel like we will have a simple yet effective design, and if all goes well, we’ll be unstoppable!
Besides the design aspects, we’ve already accomplished so many things: the CAD team has designed the frame and mapped out the electrical board, the animation team has a storyboard completed and has begun modeling scenes, the field parts are nearly completed, the mechanical team has the frame completely cut and almost assembled, along with the twin, the programming team has figured out what they want to do in the autonomous period, the media team is hard at work with their weekly vlog and multiple other projects, but most importantly, our dance team has really stepped up their game and is busting moves already. Maybe with all this design inspiration we’ll develop a few new dance moves. Who knows…
Overall, I think this was an extremely successful first week of the 2011 build season and I’m interested to see what the next five have in store for us. See you next week!
