Kickoff!!
It’s finally here! The day started, like most other teams, with the Rules. How exciting! We were broken up in groups of 4 students and 2 mentors to read the rules. It lasted a bit long but ended just in time for lunch. After lunch, we reconvened to have one member of each group present the groups "5 Takeaways”. A bit was talked about here with things that changed this year compared to previous years. After this, a scoring analysis and objectives list was discussed. Breaking the game objectives into how many points will be gained helped us decide the route we wished to take. During this time, we had also realized that there were plenty of big question marks. The students were split into prototyping groups to get started on the next morning.
Sunday
The first Sunday started pretty strong. Prototyping began and we quickly made a flywheel shooter and a roller intake. We noticed areas that could be improved and quickly iterated these changes. This is the first time in our history where multiple prototypes were on their second or third iteration on the second day of Kickoff. The climber was harder than expected, so we needed more time in the design stage! While these mechanisms were being tested, the CAD team quickly began their work to make a drivebase. By the end of the meeting, two drive rails were ready to be used.
Tuesday
This year, we do not have meetings on Monday or Friday so our next meeting day was Tuesday. During this time, Chairman’s team quickly dove into work creating a near-final outline of the essay. Our programming team drew out a diagram of the subsystems that might appear on the final robot. We talked about the goals for programming, and tasks that need to be done. The programming team is also working on a way to test each subsystem to ensure that everything is in working order before each match. The CAD team was well on the way of finalizing their drive base, little tweaks aside. The next challenge is to figure a way to hold 5 balls in our bot in one go. After throwing 10 ideas around, 4 stuck to the ceiling and neither came back down.
Wednesday
It’s that time of the week! Priority List! We had a total of 12 items on our list, but if only the first 6 are done by our first competition in Del Rio, we are content. We believe these 6 are valuable enough to help us do well at our first event. We decided a stretch goal would be achieving the first 9.
By Wednesday, more Ri3D teams have uploaded their reveal videos and many of these teams have warned about the game pieces. Once two or more power cells are held together in the intake, they are prone to jamming up against each other.
Thursday
This was a part-packed day! Field elements were being popped out of our new router faster than we can assemble. The Generator Switch is halfway done and we still have a pile of parts needing assembly. For manufacturing, the pressure has started. With the remaining drive rails, mistakes were made and lessons were learned. After these parts are completed, more parts need to be pushed from CAD to the manufacturing team. Due to autonomous being back this year, the programming team is excited! Tuesday next week we will be having autonomous palooza, where we brainstorm all the different autonomous modes we might need. CAD has pushed through a lot this year and we are incredibly proud of our students. The communication between CAD and our prototyping groups has allowed our CAD members to alter the sketches as prototyping realizes improvements. This is the first year where we will have custom gearbox plates and we can’t wait!
This weekend the ausTIN CANs are hosting the Anderson HS Qualifier for FLL, and helping out at Murchison Vex tournament. It will be a stretch on the students of the team but I am positive we will make it work!
