Sunday, January 24. 2010
Penguins are awesome. Thus starts the blog for today.
Actually that sentence has nothing to do with anything. I just randomly called out, “How do I start the blog today?!?”
Peter answered, “Penguins are awesome.”
Well there you go.
As I write tonight I am stuffed and lethargic and full of tryptophan. Tonight was turkey dinner night.
What we ate! I’m starting in reverse order with dinner because it is the freshest on my mind and the most wonderful! Thanksgiving in January with Lizzy’s family! The feast included cranberry compote, New England vegetable stew, roasted turkey, smashed potatoes, dressing (stuffing), gravy, rolls, veggies and dip. For dessert we had cookies and homemade cake.
Lunch was pizza provided by Michael Mac’s family and bagels and donuts were brought in by Alexis.
Because of morning commitments, I arrived at 1:00 and learned that D-D had finally taken place! We are building a robot with a kicker featuring an electronic clutch and a lifter with a telescoping cable winch. And now the true robot work can begin!
Remember yesterday with no school network? Well today the computer room was filled with a hodgepodge of laptops and Team Leader Larry’s blue beast of a computer with the hopes of setting up a network to run Inventor. But by 1:15 the school’s IT folks let us know that the school network was back up and that we could have the internet on the school’s computers.
We said good bye to Kim and Eric around 3:00 pm so they could make the trek back to Boston. But they will be back in two weeks in time for “Ice Cream for Breakfast Day!” Safe travels!
Sub-team activities:
Electrical – Since their mock board is on the robot, they are just providing support and making their shopping list for speed controllers and sensors. Vaughn and Mentor Karen took some time to get familiar with the Cypress board by programming it to say, “THE GAME!”
Programming – They had a chance of use the software to drive the kicker mechanism today and they have figured out the actual physical space that needs to be allocated for the camera on the robot.
Mechanical – It’s Inventor time!
Drive-train – The real wheels were put on the prototype bot.
Field – They had to pack it all away to get the cafeteria and the wood shop ready for school tomorrow. They have a few more things to get on order like carpet and soccer nets to have the field be as realistic as possible.
Chairman’s – Kim had a chance to read the current essay and make some comments, so the Chairman’s group was working on reviewing her comments to see what should be incorporated.
Flare (by the way it is intentionally spelled Flare) – Mike Mac, Alexis, and Supermom Sharon worked on a new button design.
Miscellaneous activities included adding the Mentors to our team roster and making this blog link back to our team website. And eating the donuts that the IT guys left for us as a conciliation for not having internet for most of the weekend! That was very sweet!
Students have been trickling out. Midterms start this week so there is a lot of studying going on! I’m proud that the students are remembering that school must take a priority even during build season.
Much shorter entry than usual, I know. But Larry is smiling so I know that the weekend has finished well.
Photo of the Day! Hey it’s Sunday, and so by my own made-up rule, there are two photos!
