Rolling Thunder Blog of Wonder - 2011 Build Season

Competition Prep Day!

nospam@example.com (Mentor Blogger) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 16:18:01 -0800

Many devoted students, mentors and parents gave up yet another Saturday to take care of a long list of things to do before our competitions start next weekend while our completed robot slept in its bag (see photo below)!

We can't believe the Finger Lakes Regional is in less than a week! Practice day is Thursday, March 3 (it's March already?!?!?). Competition will be 8am to 4pm Friday and Saturday in the Gordon Field House at RIT. It's open and free to the public, with concessions available. Awards ceremonies are at about 4:30pm on Friday and Saturday. Look for the red camo and feel free to come by and cheer with our team!

So what got done today??

Mechanical members made spare parts. The BOM (bill of materials) was completed. Flare subteam got together the team awards, personal recognition buttons, and all of our flare items to cheer on our team and alliance members. They made over 2,000 buttons to give away at competition and we know we won't have a single one by the end of competition season. Powerpoints of the highlights of the past year were made to display on the screens in our pit. Mentor Amy A. is working on our giant FLL banner to hang in the pits (we can't wait to see it!!). Crystal, Ciana, and Mentor Leann decorated/decked out/pimped out JP's wheelchair (shhh!) and recruited a new mentor at Staples! LOL Jason finished creating the container to safely transport our scouting system. Programmers kept programming using last year's robot, Thunderfoot, as a guinea pig. Justin worked on the 50th update from Mentor Kim for the scouting database. And many other people, especially Mentors Jeff and Larry, were running around making sure everyone had what they needed to pack in the trailer!

It was a busy day that went by very quickly. There is still much more to do, but today made great progress. We'll be signing off till FLR when we should have more fun and exciting things to report on! Stay tuned!

The Sleeping Robot!

Shhh... the robot is sleeping!

nospam@example.com (Cynette Cavaliere) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 08:48:00 -0800

Yesterday was Bag and Tag day.

With the students on their school break there were several very long days as the programmers (students and mentors) crunched code during the day and into the evening. Mechanical and electrical teams were there after work hours and until midnight each night. The drive team candidates got to spend some time testing out the drive train the arm / manipulator, and mini-bot systems. Flare teams finished the Finger Lakes Regional Recognition Program buttons and added corporate sponsor logos to the robot. All subteams were finishing their Bill of Material entries.

Last night it was apparent that the countdown had begun and all eyes were on the clock. Glitches were found in the autonomous codes and fixed. The arm joint refused to latch during one trial and a contingency was found in case it happens during a match. The deployer latch stuck and will have to be redone for competition. A wire was cut disabling the manipulator and was replaced and fastened more securely. Tubes were hung and picked and tossed. Finally Team Leader Larry called for the tear down of the final section of field left standing from Rally and the robot went up for a final weigh-in (a hint over 104 lbs) and photos. Such a celebrity!

Then the bumpers were tucked inside, everything was tied down and the robot was slid into its giant sleeping bag and tagged!

The sleep won't be long since the Finger Lakes Regional is March 3-5. It is at RIT! If you are in the area, please come and join us!

From the pre-bag photo session.

Rally Day! Welcome to the Rochester Rally!

nospam@example.com (Student Blogger) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 20:50:45 -0800

Rochester Rally VII!

Team Captain Crystal here! It was a hustle and bustle all over at Penfield today! Three local newstations stopped in to check out our robot scrimmage with 10 other NY teams! We webcasted the Pits all day, but unfortunately could not show the actual competition on our homemade field with the lack of internet in the gym.

We did tape the event though, so we will upload highlights of our entire day and share it on Chief Delphi!

Several teams continued to work on their robots here with the assistance of 1511 and other attending teams. We were so happy to help wherever we could! The first few practice matches were rather slow, but teams started to get adjusted to their new robots and controls. We did see some teams successfully place ubertubes in autonomous, and a few attempted auto! It was really great to have the Lead Inspector for FLR, Rob, and one of his crew, Dan, at Rally to work with the teams, especially the rookies to make sure they were all set for FLR!

We also had an exciting minibot race where climb rates ranged from 2 seconds to 6 seconds; they were launched physically at the base of the towers by team members though.

The big news is that our robot works! We struggled with the robot sitting and twiddling its sprockets on the field until we discovered that mysteriously the robots code had been overwritten with gibberish! With a refreshed copy of the program in place the robot made its move! It was able to pick up pieces and place at all levels of the rack. The potential drive team members took turns learning the controls. Most needed reminded that the programming team had written functions to do specific activities at the push of the button! The robot makes a very interesting sound as it grabs the tubes, which earned it an instant and slightly inappropriate nickname!

As the visiting teams were packing up, the team tore down the field except for a small section that was set up in the cafeteria. The robot and mechanical and electrical teams headed to the shop to add a few extra motors and speed controllers. Shayna and Team Leader Larry were reminded of the chemical properties of paint and plastic cups as Shayna did the touch up paint on the robot. And on Shayna. And on the bench. And on the floor. You should have the idea by now.

We also got a demonstration that the Robot Cart has removable handle. This will be a space and safety improvement for competition! The blue bumper cover made a brief appearance for a fitting and then went and had bold white 1511's stenciled on by several Team Moms and Mentor Cynette. Which reminds me! A big thank you to all the team moms and dads who came out to work at the Rally! And to our great sponsor Harris and Chip Renzi for providing speakers for the morning ceremonies and for the CAKE!

And thank you to the people who helped feed our team today - Lunch by Peter, Ben, Manual and Mentor Christian's family, afternoon snack of pizza by Mentor from afar Kim (who was near and brought College Mentor Theo with her!), and dinner by Team Captain Crystal's mom!

Logo Motion - 5 Days till Bag and Tag!

nospam@example.com (Cynette Cavaliere) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 22:07:29 -0800

I'll start with dinner tonight. We had a slew of pasta casseroles with sausage and broccoli and peppers and chicken! And one that seemed almost like a minestrone casserole. And HOT DOGS!!! And Brownies and Cookies. Thanks Jonathan G's family!

Team updates!

The programming team spent their night in the Bit Cave working on autonomous and with the drivers station.

Game testing (you just lost the game) was in full swing. Just a few days left for those students who are applying for pit crew and drive team to qualify.

The red bumpers were finished! And look pretty sweet if I say so myself.

The web team was working on refreshing the content of our newly revamped website.

Buttons were being designed - some for rally and hopefully some for the Regional Recognition Awards.

We got the arm mechanism and the drive are to the point where the last thing is putting on the motors and transmissions. The missing motors and transmissions. They didn't come today, so they hopefully will come tomorrow.

This is our big weekend - RALLY! Come on Sunday and see the robots test out their moves! At Penfield High School starting at 10 am.

So tomorrow and Saturday will be working to set up the field and try to finish the robot. And tomorrow is the last day of school for the students for a whole week.

Caption: It looks like a robot!

Logo Motion - 6 days till Bag and Tag!

nospam@example.com (Student Blogger) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:08:38 -0800

Team Captain Crystal here!

It was a long evening for our award submitters, but the Chairman’s, Dean’s List, Website and Woodie Flowers award have all been submitted successfully!

Tonight’s dinner was a delicious meatloaf meatball platter with mashed potatoes, salad, chips and cookies! Thanks to Liz's family (Parentor Peggy!). Ciana also had a really delicious load of banana bread that we munched on throughout the night while working on the essay tune ups!

The robot appears to be underweight right now with the drivetrain, deployer, superstructure and arm, isn’t that amazing? It’s been dieting since the start, and all the lightning holes have really paid off!

It’s our hope that the BaneBots motors will show tomorrow, they’ve been delayed for some time and finally shipped today, so we’re hoping for the best!

Team Leader Larry has also been out sick, and we really wish that he could be back with us! At least he can watch the webcast! He’s happy to report that he’s finally graduated to solid foods once again!

Red bumpers! Blue bumpers! Beep beep, we want to get in the other lane!!! Our students started to staple the FIRST approved red and blue fabrics on to our pink and blue pool noodle bumpers.

Signing off with great weights off her shoulders,

Waffles!

Look! Bumpers!

Looks like the robot tried to sneak in a meal!

Logo Motion - 8 Days till Bag and Tag!

nospam@example.com (Cynette Cavaliere) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 19:45:00 -0800

Happy Valentine's Day!

First of all, I apologize for all of the missing and late blog entries! The team is in CRUNCH TIME both for the robot and for the team essays and award submissions. We are trying to have as many entries as possible written by student team members and I usually don't realize until too late that there is no one available to blog.

Tonight is such a night! We aren't even supposed to be here today, but just like last Friday, we are holding extra build sessions to get the robot finished. To make working on Valentine's day a little more palatable, Mentor Leann brought in chocolate chip cookies for Valentine treats.

The eventing started early with a design session. We have an interference issue with the motors for the arm and the mini-bot deployer. The decision was made to move the deployer tray down a bit, which then causes an interference with the lift bridge deployment aligner. As Mentor Tom C. described it, a little dental work was needed (to improve the bite). Small reliefs were ground into the lift bridge and it is back to fitting correctly.

The arm was wired during the evening and the fancy light was mounted. The motors for the manipulator are still on back-order from Banebots, and the team is starting to consider other alternatives.

The only other room I spent any time in was the essay room, although I did notice that Parentor Peggy was in the closet. In her slippers. She was finding some good stuff, like photos and videos from our first season in FIRST, but still no sign of the red camo bumper cover from last year.

In the essay room, work was being done on Chairman's, Dean's List and Woodie Flowers essays. The Chairman's essay is finally been pared down to under 10,000 characters. Whew! It's so hard when the students write so much for the Chairman's to have to chop and whittle to get it back down to size!

Since it is Valentine's Day, I want to close out today's blog entry with the poem that was written by Calvin's Grammaliz!

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue...
Stir red and blue with white to make a potion
     for the game this year is called Logo Motion.
Robots large and small--now there's a notion!
Inner tubes--enough to cross the ocean?
Six weeks' worth of absolute devotion,
     skill, and speed, with nary an explosion.
Here's to Happy Valentine's emotion:
     Go get 'em, Rolling Thunder!

<3 <3 Happy Valentine's Day! <3 <3

Logo Motion - 9 DAYS TILL BAG & TAG!

nospam@example.com (Mentor Blogger) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 19:25:57 -0800

By Guest Mentor Rob

Hello, it is me Rob. Known for cooking bacon and wearing the bright yellow hat further down this blog, I come to you today to write this Sunday's blog entry.

First thing Cynette wants me to mention is that Adam from the Duct Tape Bandits came for a visit yesterday. In my personal experience Penfield has always been a very welcoming FIRST team. Remember to keep up on their videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/PenfieldRobotics (Crystal is making me plug it) And today will celebrate Mentor Jeff's birthday!

From what I hear this morning started with programmers hitting their keyboards early. They continue to focus on line following, which I know they have been doing for sometime, but practice make perfect. Autonomous can be worth a lot of points.

Review of the Chairman's Award essay has progressed, and the results look good. It is a good read. Finalization is in progress as the length is being pared down so that it is under the 10,000 character limit.

For lunch the team enjoyed the Upstate New York fare, beef-on-weck. (Thanks to Alex R's family) And since it was mentor Jeff's birthday he had Chipotle. Fun was had but everyone got back to work, because we are all under the same deadline.

This afternoon had exciting news in the form of the arm being mounted. Both the arm and its mount had been assembled and painted. And, if I can say, at a distance the paint job looks professional. The arm is surprisingly light for its size, and lifting the arm is not difficult. To assemble, the base was placed on a low table, and the arm was lifted into position by mentors and students alike. I participated by using my intrinsic skill(my height) to line up the bushings in the mount with arm sprocket assembly. With any luck, there will be no need to ever take it apart, or so everyone hopes.

Since Yesterday's post about the minibot deployment, a bunch of work has been done to see how it could be mounted in the arm base. The tower alignment device now called the drawbridge , A.K.A. the dust pan, the face mask, and the reverse cow catcher, is now connected to the arm base. Refinement will continue through the week.

Preparation has begun for Rally, as game pieces were labeled with 1511 by Jason and Crystal. Crystal continues to work on intros for the teams that have said they are coming to the January 20th event. Even if your robot can't come, it is a great place to see other teams, and get a feel for how Logo Motion will be played. I know I will be there.

Walking into the control systems lair, I was treated to the amazing sight of the control board full of lights and knobs and buttons and one pretty cool keypad. Seeing it work is quite the sight as it interfaces with the classmate. Programming Justin has done a lot of work to pull things together and it shows.

For dinner there was pizza and wings. Though he was late to this meal, everyone sang 'Happy Birthday' to Jeff. There was no cake, but this was Jeff's choice. I can only assume that the weight worries about the robot have spilled over to team members as well.

As Bag & Tag day fast approaches, 1511 will be working every night.

Logo Motion- 10 Days till Bag and Tag

nospam@example.com (Student Blogger) — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 19:52:41 -0800

By Mo and Jake

Today we started at 10:00 AM. For breakfast we had heart-shaped doughnuts.

After, we worked on the superstructure and minibot, programming, and applying electrical components to the minibot and hostbot.

For lunch we had hotdogs and 7-layer pea salad. We then got back to work. Some students took our game and tools test. Others painted and weighed parts, finished the superstructure and mounted it to the drivetrain, or worked on the chairman's essay.

For dinner we had an Asian buffet, comprised of an onion/beef dish, fried rice and steamed rice, and chicken.

After, we completed and tested the minibot, and worked on other parts of the robot.

Lunch came from Chris' family and Dinner came from Eric's family. We also painted our bumpers!

Caption: Minibot/Deployer and minipulator

Logo Motion - 13 Days until Bag & Tag

nospam@example.com (Cynette Cavaliere) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 21:48:15 -0800

Another short blog entry!

Pizza provided by the family of Peter, Ben, Manuel, and mentor Christian.

The shop is humming! Soldering, milling, drilling... The programmers and webteam are coding. The field crew is organizing and building (shelves). The chairman's group is editing. Busy, busy!

My first Game Test update: three students are at 100% for both tests (the requirement to be on pit crew / drive team). Congrats to Justin, Calvin and Andy!

Bonus tonight! Photos!

Parentor Sharon and the white carrot!

The lumber cart!

Soldering!

Logo Motion - 14 Days til Bag & Tag

nospam@example.com (Student Blogger) — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 23:00:00 -0800

Head Video Producer here, Crystal!

Tonight we had the delicious chili that Andy's family so kindly refrigerated after canceling the Super Bowl night dinner! Chili in three varieties! Meaty, veggie, and buffalo wing!

Mentors Larry, Leann and Cynette spent most of the night interviewing students who were interested in presenting Chairman's.

Following that, each subteam presented their statuses at Integration, and the wonderful Parentor Val took notes on the wiki!

Everyone worked hard to get as much done as possible. Electrical controls began soldering more of their button components that they just received from Digi-key! Many of the Mechanical students were found milling, drilling, sanding or bandsawing!

I even got a chance to complete a commercial for the Rochester Rally for this coming year! Check it out!

Our team will be meeting all week, including this Friday! So be sure to tune in and see where we are with the robot!

Logo Motion - 15 Days to Bag & Tag

nospam@example.com (Cynette Cavaliere) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 19:37:00 -0800

Mondays are our day off! But that didn't seem to stop some mentors and students from showing up to give a push to the parts for the mini-bot deployer! Mentor Dave V. had made arrangements for parts to be taken to our specialty welder, Greg Schickler on Tuesday, and they were not completely ready by the end of the build session on Sunday. The shop hummed for a few hours and the parts were made ready to go! Thanks go to all those who gave up their free night to help!

Logo Motion - 18 & 17 Days til Bag & Tag

nospam@example.com (Mentor Blogger) — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 21:58:50 -0800

Former team leader Kim here!!

Eric & I drove up from Boston for one of our favorite weekends of the year!! On the first Saturday in February, the team celebrates Ice Cream for Breakfast Day, and completely reverses to the day and has Breakfast for Dinner!

Yesterday we called as we got onto 490 from the Thruway and found there was still a flurry of activity at the school, so we headed to PHS. We entered the shop to see students and mentors working on the drivetrain and other parts on the mills and drills! We headed into the computer room and were greeted with excited waves and hugs. I was immediately dragged to the closet in the shop to see the brand new sheet metal arm pieces that just came back from Harris. They also informed me that Arachnaphobia (the 2007 robot) was back up and running, as they wanted to use it for training & programming. We wandered around, checking in with all of the teams, the electrical team was building a signal light, the controls team was putting together a paper version of the control box, programming students were spread out across various robots testing new code, and the field team was finishing up some painting and assembly. Mechanical mentor Tom K showed me a bunch of photos from his "real job", the crane he designed that helps build the freedom tower - we have such amazing mentors! Time flew, and we finally packed up and headed out at midnight!

This morning we arrived to Ice Cream for Breakfast! There was ice cream, sherbet, and several toppings including my favorite - spray whipped cream! Programming students were already spread out all over the hallway we call "the Precipice of Despair" with laptops and cables and control boxes and the drivetrain! Not long after our arrival Eric & Andy were working on Drivetrain code, moving the gyro with the drivetrain up on blocks. They were figuring out their left, right, front and back drives!

It was almost time for lunch when we realized a mixup meant there was no family signed up. Fortunately we had some Guida's coupons and ordered up some pizza and wings for the team! Big thanks to Mrs. Mlodzienski for going to pick it up! At lunch I met a new electrical mentor Gaffei who is helping out the controls team.

After lunch, I headed over to sit with the chairman's team who were revising and writing a few new sections of the essay. A the same time the subteam leaders met for the integration meeting, projecting the design on the smart board and discussed the placement of the newly built signal light. I was distracted for a while from both of those as mentor Karen stopped by with her new baby Eamon! We got to pass him around, giving mommy a break!

Then mentor Cynette and I headed out for a shopping run to get hole saws, drill bits, organizer bins and corregated plastic board. We were unfortunately only 50% successful, and the weather started to turn bad on our drive back, making for roads that reminded us of driving in Lunacy!

My favorite dinner of the build season, Breakfast for dinner was up next! As I walked downstairs mentors Justin & Josh from CT team 2168 called after checking in on our webcast. We brought the camera down so they could see our feast! We had waffles, pancakes, sausage, bacon, eggs, and homemade scones!! The cafeteria smelled amazing thanks to our many volunteer chefs! Big thanks to Leann for heading up the shopping and to all the families who sent waffle irons & griddles! Rochester mentor Rob broke our tradition, and didn't make it in time to cook the bacon this year!! He did show up in time to eat with us, and redeemed himself as he walked in with an official FRC BACON Inspector Hat!! (See photo!) Mentor Alex from 3181 and Dan from RIT also joined us for dinner, and Alex came shopping at Thundermart! Once the team cleaned up, we had a half can of blueberry topping left that mentor Gaffei shoveled food-competition style for our video camera!

After dinner, I wandered around to find out what everyone was doing and meet some new kids. Justin showed me the amazing mySQL Scouting database he had built up, Alex C told me about his controls code for the autonomous selection, Calvin and Mike were working on arm code using an old robot for its encoder. Ben and mentor Mike W. were assembling the upper structure of the arm, and Jake told me how he had helped mill flats in the Andymark hubs. Jake had also just taken the tool test and as we spoke, parentor Sharon told him he got a 100%! Alex W was thoughtfully sitting in front of inventor working on the "dustpan" alignment system for the minibot deployment. He showed me how it protects the minibot and then folds down to align the tower. Its pretty slick! Mentor Tony told me he spent the entire day on the mill helping students make parts for the minibot and drivetrain.

I also got to meet a whole bunch of the new kids tonight! Matt B was working on high level autonomous code with Eric. Ciana was running around all day doing tons of mechanical work, assembly, and drawing up the electronics tray in Inventor. Manuel was working with mentor Tom C to drill tons and tons of wholes in the shaft of the arm. Shayna spent most of the day working with the chairmans team, and Briana helped mill some parts.

At the end of the night Matthieu and Alex R walked in looking spiffy in their tuxedos! They had just gotten to perform in a concert with a world famous Ukulele player! They gushed stories about how great this guy was, apparently he could play Bohemian Rhapsody on the Ukulele!

Overall it was definitely a very productive day, with some fun mixed in! I loved meeting all the new team members and seeing how well things were going. Time is definitely getting short, but they are doing well. Eric & I will be back for the weekend of Rally! Stay tuned to the Wiki, Forums & Webcast to see the robot come together!

Logo Motion - 19 Days to Bag & Tag!

nospam@example.com (Mentor Blogger) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:06:45 -0800

"Parentor" Val here - the weather has relented and school is back in session! That means another night of robot building!

The meal tonight was a complete turkey dinner, courtesy of Lizzy's family. In addition to the turkey, we had mashed potatoes, gravy, fabulous butternut squash stuffing, cranberry sauce, rice, cookies and pie...yum!!

Thursday is Safety Day, so during dinner team captain Crystal quizzed the team on what an MSDS is, what it's for, and where it can be found. (If you don't know, it's a Material Safety Data Sheet, which has info on potentially hazardous chemicals or materials that we may be using, and it can be found in our green Safety binder!) Also during dinner, lead mentor Larry announced that applications for drive team and pit crew are available, and need to be filled out and returned by next Thursday. Good luck to all applicants!

After dinner was the integration meeting. There may be a new design element that both protects the minibot during the match, and helps the robot line up with the tower for the "rat race" at the end...stay tuned to see how it works out!

Lots of parts are coming in and being assembled by the various subteams. The arm is being put together, custom parts for the minibot have come in and are being inventoried, and the LED signal lights are in and are being tested (one interesting discovery - the color of the LED lights changes if there's a bad alligator clip!).

The essay we need to submit for the Chairman's Award is still in process. Several people were working on editing it this evening.

Also going on: testing! All the students need to take a test on the game, robot, and safety rules, plus a separate test on the various tools our team uses. Everyone needs to know the basics! Fortunately, students can take these tests once each day until they pass.

The field for the Rochester Rally (coming up on the 20th) is being put together in various hallway areas. The programmers, hanging out in their usual spot at the Precipice of Despair, were coding to the sounds of drilling and hammering tonight. They were happy, though, because they had a package of chocolate chip cookies to snack on - does that mean they had cookies enabled??

Look for another blog entry tomorrow, because Friday will be a replacement for Wednesday's snow day!

Caption: Parts have arrived!

Logo Motion - 20 Days until Bag and Tag

nospam@example.com (Student Blogger) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 11:22:00 -0800

Unfortunately there will be no blog entry for tonight because school was cancelled today due to the storm barreling in. When we got up this morning.. NO SNOW!!! School was cancelled anyway though so we will report back with another entry Thursday night!

Logo Motion - 21 Days until Bag and Tag

nospam@example.com (Student Blogger) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:35:00 -0800

Hello everyone! This is student blogger Kyle again!

Tonight we started off with a great dinner provided by Jake's family. We had two kinds of pasta, penne and tri-colored, and two different sauces to top with alfredo and red sauce. There was also meatballs to put on the pasta. Along with the pasta we had salad, apples, and oranges. For dessert we had cookies and brownies! We also had milk and apple cider. Team Leader Larry did his nightly announcements during dinner and then our lead teacher stepped up to talk.  Mr. Brewer announced that at the end of the school year he will be stepping down as lead teacher so he can go back to school to learn to be an administrator. We wish him the best!

After dinner everyone met for our Tuesday integration meeting. We found out a lot and moved quickly through integration. The drivetrain sub-team announced that the drivetrain is complete! The mechanical sub-team announced that they are well under way and the arm and manipulator are being manufactured.  They have shipped drawings to Harris and are now awaiting parts. Electrical controls told us the design is done and now they just have some finishing work to do. And to wrap it up programming has programmed the robot to follow the line and stop at the end!!!

After integration every one went their separate ways to get down to business! Everywhere you looked last night there was something going on. Maybe everyone was working extra hard tonight because of the snowstorm that we all knew was fast approaching. Controls was working on cutting out the control pieces and I learned that Rachel knows her safety very well! She was wearing her safety glasses while using the knife to cut! When I approached student Mike Mo. to ask what he was working on tonight he replied with his quote "Not now I'm working." Programming was getting their programming on and mechanical was doing their thing in inventor! Everyone worked hard all night and we progressed even further.

Caption: Controls Design takes concentration.