Wednesday, January 20. 2010
What we ate for dinner! Thanks to Kyle’s family we had pasta and sauce, bread and butter, and moist and chewy brownies!
Wednesday nights always seem to have a different feel than the other nights and tonight was even more scattered than usual since we ate way far away in the Commons! So continuing in that scattered mode… tonight’s entries will be really random and disjointed!
Supermom Val has completed the draft of the first build season sponsor newsletter. It has been reviewed by Mentor’s Larry, Leann and Kim-from-afar! It should hit the sponsor’s e-mail boxes sometime soon!
Miss MacLean, one of our teacher advisors, came for dinner and with Mentor Leann’s help was added to the team bios on our website!
On the mechanical team, Mentor Tom K., with an especially deep voice, is assisting Shauna and Becca in the cylinder/winch decision.
Shhh… Supermom Terri and Crystal are doing “secret stuff” which will be revealed on Saturday at dinner!
Mentor Larry is crossing things off and adding new things to his to-do list on the computer. When he finishes a task, he doesn’t remove the items off the list, he just crosses them off. It looks like he has accomplished a lot!
College Mentor Jackie is shopping for pool noodles.
Quentin is modeling more control box parts while talking to Mentor Cynette about bacon! Ummm Bacon! Meanwhile the other parts of the controls team are mocking up the drivers station including scoring and snapping pieces of lexan!
For the electrical system, Mike H. has moved on from drawing wires to modeling the battery holder.
The programming sub-team defined the interface for driving and for the kicker mechanism. Now they are beginning to determine why there is gyro coding in the camera programming.
The field crew ordered the memory foam and cut the rest of the chain for the goals, and then called it an early evening.
The mechanical team is making their mechanism beefier, I hope they aren’t adding too much weight to the robot! The clanging noise is gone and it is very smooth and quiet. They have scrapped the chain and are using v-belt.
Just kidding*, Kim!!!
The tool test is now available – a score of 100% is required by all students! The game test will be available soon! It was slowed down by the changes in the Breakaway Team Update #3. The required scores on the game test: new students need an 80%, returning students need a 90% and to be on the drive team or pit crew need to score 100%.
Thanks to Mentor Karen for taking…
*Well, actually we weren’t kidding. But after last year’s v-belt disaster, those standing around me as I wrote this blog agreed that if I didn’t say “Just Kidding,” Kim would have immediately gotten in her car and driven all night to the school and physically ripped the v-belt off of the robot. Sorry for the trickery, Kim.