As Team 1511 completes its final preparations for FLR this weekend, the mentors, teachers, alumni and older students will be taking time out to remember the life of Keith Kearns who died unexpectedly over the weekend.

Keith joined our team in our rookie year (2005), and was a member of our 2006 Driveteam. He was able to graduate a year early to head off the Monroe Community College to get started with college. Even while attending college, he came back for build season to help the team build the robot. He was a master of the drivetrain, and was always great at helping our students learn the ropes.

He was known for his hard-core music tastes, constant coffee drinking, immunity to drama, wicked sense of humor and for always coming through for his friends and for the team.

Since our rookie year, Rolling Thunder has always felt like a family. This loss is teaching one of the hard lessons on what it means to be part of that family. It also crystallizes the idea that FIRST is about so much more than the robot. We are honored that Keith’s family has included his membership in FIRST Robotics in his obituary. Our hearts go out to his family and to the other friends who will also be missing him dearly.

From our team leader, Kim: “Congratulations team on a VERY successful Rochester Rally V!!!!!  All of the hard work you have all been putting in all season paid off for all of the Rochester teams!  We heard nothing but great things and thanks from everyone around!”

It was interesting to see how the robots would interact on the new field. We also had a few rookie teams join us, 2999, 3003, and 3015!

Thanks to all the teams who provided extra moon rocks and floor pieces, especially those who stayed late to help us take down the field.

Good luck to all the Rochester teams and we’ll see you in competition!!

We completed the installation of the conveyor system, and there are only a few more mechanical pieces to go (chaining motors, sensor mounts, lexan panels, belt adjustments, etc).  We are able to run the conveyor system and confirm that it works!

Photos can be seen here:
http://rollingthunder.smugmug.com/gallery/7328166_xuRcD/1/471821482_met72/Medium
http://rollingthunder.smugmug.com/gallery/7328166_xuRcD/1/471821424_sPXvt/Medium
 

Video of moon rocks moving through our robot:
http://rollingthunder.smugmug.com/gallery/7328166_xuRcD/1/471821696_KZWbq/Medium
(probably better with the sound off, we were a bit tired! Lol)

Tonight we have Thomas Jefferson High School visiting to test out both of our bots on the field.

We are also getting geared up for Rochester Rally on Monday, Feb. 16 in the Penfield High School east gym!

The Harris & Penfield High School Robotics team has completed the end of Build Season Week 2!!  Only 4 weeks remain to complete the robot! 

The team has progressed along well.  The 2009 Game called Lunacy has thrown many new challenges at the team!  Between the slippery floor and wheels and the addition of the trailer dragging behind the robot, the team had to do plenty of engineering math to come up with a good design for this year.   

On Kickoff weekend, we decided that we wanted to implement a strategy that could collect the orbit balls from the ground and receive them from the human player, and use a conveyor mechanism to score them in the trailers behind other robots.  They also completed a drivetrain design which would help account for the slippery floor and wheels, and allow for a collection system in the front of the robot. 

Students and mentors have been busy calculating, designing, prototyping and working in Autodesk Inventor (CAD program) to get this year’s robot designed.  Programmers are busy developing autonomous modes, and our electrical team has a layout and sensors chosen!  They are also working on preparations for our Pre-Ship Scrimmage that will be held on Monday February 16th at 3:00pm!  Many thanks to the model shop for helping with our drivetrain parts and cutting lexan to make our own orbit balls! 

On Saturday, January 3, teams from all over Rochester met at the local kickoff site at RIT to watch the event via live broadcast in the auditoriums. The teams now have six weeks to design and build their robots, and ours is off and running! This year, we are also mentoring a new rookie team out of Thomas Jefferson High School.

As it is NASA’s 40th anniversary of the moon landing, FIRST has come up with a related event called LUNACY.

Lunacy is played on a 54’x27’ low friction field. Robots are equipped with slippery wheels and payload trailers. Lunacy game pieces are “Orbit Balls” designated as Moon Rocks, Empty Cells, or Super Cells. Two three-team robot alliances collect

and score Orbit Balls in trailers attached to the opposing teams’ robots. Human players are positioned around the perimeter of the arena and can score from their stations.

Robots are autonomous during the first 15 seconds of play, and teleoperated for the remaining 2 minutes. Trailers begin each match empty, but robots may be loaded with up to 7 Moon Rocks by their team prior to the start of the match. Human players are equipped with 20 Moon Rocks, less the number they load into their robot, and a quantity of empty cells and Super cells determined by the outcome of their previous match. If a team has not yet played a match, the human player receives 4 Empty Cells and 2 Super Cells. Moon Rocks and Empty Cells scored in an opponent’s trailer, at any time and by any player, are worth 2 points. Super Cells scored in an opponent’s trailer are worth 15 points. Super Cells must be “activated” before they can be played. Activation occurs when a robot delivers an Empty Cell from their Outpost to their Fueling Station. Empty cells can be delivered throughout the match. Super Cells may only be played during the last 20 seconds of a match.