The third week of build season is underway and there’s no turning back now. The daisies are hard at work, finishing prototypes, and finalizing designs. If you take a quick glance into the shop, you’ll see the intake, arm, and hanger subsystem teams advancing their prototypes. The intake prototype has been finished, and the CAD for the design is being finalized.
The 2011 robot has provided an easy way to test our code, as the arm is very similar to the one we are planning on using this year. However, the programming team reached a predicament while testing, and our software team was forced to become mechanical. Although there have been some setbacks, they’ve been working past the difficulties, attempting to move the arm to a set angle and allowing the robot to move smoothly on a set path. Now, they will start the autonomous programming.
As far as the drivebase goes, the machining of parts for the gearboxes has begun. We are grateful that our sponsor at Penn State Great Valley we willing to cut out custom gearbox parts and be able to deliver them in a short notice. Now that those parts are in we hope to have them all assembled by the end of the weekend. We are hoping that by next weekend, we will have more sheet metal parts fabricated from another great sponsor of ours over at CCC and we will be able to begin to assembling our robot!
Media has had their hands full (with cameras!!) this week. They’ve been busy conducting interviews with our team members, ruthlessly asking for the juiciest details on the most conflict-involved stories we have. The Public Relations subteam is busy typing away, writing essays for the Dean’s list nominees, and the coach’s Woodie Flowers award.
This past Friday, Miss Daisy had the opportunity to spread the roots of STEM to the younger generation in the community. We visited the Boys & Girls Club of Ambler and planted the seeds of FIRST to these young students in our area. We introduced them to the basics of our activities on Team 341, and hope to have inspired them to pursue an interest in engineering, and to join our team when they’re older.
As a rookie experiencing my first build season, I have seen the upsides and downsides of prototyping and the decision making process. As we are halfway done with build season, I have been excited to voice my opinions and really be involved in programming the 2011 robot. I’m ready to take on the rest of build season, and sprout into a little daisy.
The PR team has assembled another song parody for your enjoyment, this time to the tune of “Living on a Prayer.”
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Once upon a time not so long ago
We started our brainstorming, everything seemed fine
But now we’re down on our luck, it’s tough, so tough
We’ve been working in the shop all day, working hard
Nothing is working, for the love of robots.
The coaches say, we’ve got to finish everything
It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not
We’ve got our team and that’s enough
We’ll give it a shot
Woah, we’re halfway there
Woah, this isn’t fair
Take this drill, we’ll make it I swear
Woah, we’re halfway there
Drive base got their gearboxes finished
Now they’re holding onto what they CADed
So great, it’s great
Programming isn’t as lucky
When they cry to the coaches, they whisper
Keep going, it’s okay, maybe someday
We’ve got to use the prototypes we’ve got
It doesn’t make a difference if they work or not
We’ve got them and that’s enough for now
We’ll give it a shot
Woah, we’re halfway there
Woah, this isn’t fair
Take this drill, we’ll make it I swear
Woah, we’re halfway there
We’re halfway there
