This is it. This is the post that you've all been waiting for. The Shorewood event is over. In fact, the entire season is over. Actually... the whole school year is over. Huh...
So yeah. We made it to quarter finals at Shorewood as the second choice for the 8th alliance. Then we went on to win the entrepreneurship award. After the team helped pack up the field, we went to eat pho together like a big, exhausted, delirious family. That's really all I have for you. I'm moving onto bigger and better things like... like... going to college... or something. #engrishmajor. Thanks for following along with my posts for the past two years. It's been a ride. It's been a journey. A hike through the forest. This past week, the team has been working harder than ever. With a fueled passion from the experiences of Mount Vernon, many students have dedicated their entire life after school to robotics. Just yesterday, many students stayed all the way until 9 PM, and even still some students to 10 PM. The amount of effort the team is putting in this week is tremendous, and is absolutely creating the progress we need to be successful at our home event.
The new claw that we have constructed, which is a series of spikes with spring force, has been constructed, and is currently being tested on the practice robot. The mechanism is working wonderfully, and it is looking promising. The code has also been adjusted, to make the driving more smooth and manageable for our drivers. This way, the elite driving team we already have can be even better. We also have many miscellaneous processes going on, such as a Safety Board being constructed for our pit that will work to better organize safety materials, pit designers constructing parts of the pit, drive tests and practice, button making (we have a new design that matches our orange theme and shirt design!), and even video editing. Despite being out of the build season, the team couldn't be more busy. And despite past patterns, we couldn't be more productive! It's WONDERFUL! Stunning productivity, Team Pronto! (lol oxymorons. i hope that's an oxymoron) Marie Antointote was unveiled at the Mount Vernon event in which she unleashed all her carnage upon the Mount Vernonites...! Which was akin to the amount of carnage that a sleeping dragon has. But! BUT! Y'know, we did a lot of good things. 'Cause we are still Team Pronto. It's about the people, and the ideas. Not the pesky humans and the follies of man such as wanting to win and stuff.... Not like we don't want that... but yes, we cannot get stuck in the past. We will move towards victory! So now the recap.
A team of fancy schmancy people went up to Mount Vernon after school on Friday to transport the robot and get it through inspection. Reportedly, we had an extremely quick inspection, (45 minutes!!!) and the robot was set for competition! On a Friday morning full of many carpools, the team went down to Mount Vernon and the fun officially started. Lots of stuff had to happen first: like the setting up of the pits, the distribution of new shirts, and the distribution of safety glasses. Because as you know, the Safty Mann needs us to be safe. We must heed the voice of Safty Mann. We must heed the voice of God. (Safty Mann, Alex Krantz, actually ended up being our team's winner! Yay Alex!) Then, the moment that we have been waiting for all through the six weeks, and the post-build-season... Our first match. It will go down in history, and not because Marie has a red nose, or whatever. Our first alliance was with CPR 3663, and CyberKnights 4911, both of which were absolutely amazing teams. Honestly, I'm starting to idolize them. So we ended up getting our highest game score of the competition, which was over 100!! Woo hoo! ...But then things just went downhill from there! :( Even though our robot was made quite well (nothing broke, and it was organized quite well) the design of the robot and program seemed to be falling short in terms of play. While many teams were stacking 3-6 high towers, Marie was struggling to stack even two, or even one... However, our miraculous drive team stood up to the challenge, and performed with flying colors. Despite our rank dropping increasingly faster, the drive teams did not drop in determination. And for the first time in history, one of our drive teams was completely made up of girls!!! THAT IS AMAZING. We never have enough girls for a drive team! And guess what? Apparently, this is the time its happened in FRC with a co-ed school. Yeah, Team Pronto is paving the way for a better future. (The drive team was made up of Kate Parkinson, the driver of the robot, Carly Krantz, the programmer, Anna Soper, the human player, and Olivia Anderson, the strategist.) Rock on! We still need a name for their team too. Something like... the Powerpuff Girls? I really like the Powerpuff Girls. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? They could each be one of the turtles! Ahhhh!!!! Or maybe -- okay, well, perhaps we don't need to have a name for them. But they're great. Other than the action on the field, lots of good stuff happened in the pits. Other than our outstanding Safty Mann who was awarded the Safety Star, many other team members talked to judges about our robot design, imagery of our team, and the business plan that Jafar wrote. All of them answered the questions with the utmost detail, and of course, Alex's iconic conversation starter, "let me start at the beginning." They all represented Team Pronto well, and with grace. Our pit design also debuted at this event, and it ended up being extremely tall and looked kind of like a carnival tent. Nonetheless, it was quite amazing, but the team has deemed it much too tedious and dangerous for pit purposes. (we are currently working on a new design, which will be chock full of ORANGE.) Ultimately, our team ended at 27th out of 30 teams. Perhaps we didn't do so well, but we are eternally grateful for the experience. Currently, during this week before the Shorewood Event this weekend, we are refining not only our driving, program, and robot design, but our pit, and team spirit as well. Our first competition will serve as a lesson we won't forget, and at Shorewood we will no doubt flourish and succeed in the ways we want to. Perhaps we won't do as well as we want, or we'll be "top tier trash," like our goal is. But whatever happens, we'll have fun. It's my senior year for gosh sakes, *sniff sniff.* We're gonna make this great. 'Cause that's how we roll. Also, shoutout to the alliance that ended up winning: Skunkworks 1983, IRS 1319, and the Mountaineers 4654. And our wonderful runner-ups: 3663 CPR, 4911 CyberKnights, and 5784 Adna Pirates (woo-hoo for the North Seattle teams!). Great show, teams. Excellent job, Team Pronto, and continue to have the drive of a million horses! Well, this is quite long overdue.
...but anyway... Help us welcome two new robots into our family: Ropes Pierre (our practice robot) and Marie Antointote (our competition robot)! Our build season ended splendidly without trouble, and Marie is safely tucked away in her crate. She's hibernating... waiting for the battle... waiting to serve the cake full of kick-buttery. Meanwhile, the team is continuing to prepare our human bodies for the competition, putting things together such as a new pit design, buttons, practicing driving with Ropes Pierre, programming autonomous code... Team Pronto is far from hibernation! As our first competition of the year looms ever closer (next weekend), we not only prepare our physical bodies, but also our minds. We must ready ourselves for the stress, the competition, and for war. War I say! (Though no matter how well we do, we will al be winners. Yay!!! :D) WAAGGGGHHHHHH (war cry), Team Pronto! It was Valentine's Day! That means it's time to sing love songs to the robot! (And now you have to listen. Or read it. I guess you don't really have to read it if you don't want to.)
L is for the way you look at me (with that super dooper cool camera we have that's fully functional! Yay! We're using it to aim our little hooky things to pick up the totes and such.) O is for the only one I see (Since we're basically here every single day. The next day, and then the next day, and then the next day, and then the next day, and then the next...) V is very, very extraordinary (The robot can pick up two totes and a recycling bin at the same time! Wow! Truly extraordinary!) E is even more than anyone that you adore can... (We will love you forever, you hunk of metal.) Ah yes. We had our open house yesterday. It was basically the day we consecrated (or consummate, if you swing that way) our love to the Guillotine. Many families of our very own Protonians came to see how the robot was doing, and we had chili hotdawhgs made by PLovey. Thank you!!! We've made significant progress in every part of the club, as our robot is completely up and running! Woo hoo! Three days before the bag date too! Today, we have just been working on tweaks. For example, our robot is over the weight limit, and we have been putting it on a diet and exercise program in order to shave a few pounds. (We're just shaving off some metal bits and swiss cheesing some stuff). Electronics is finishing some connections and attaching the limit switches, while the programming team is ready to practice and refine their autonomous code. The team is also working on the two plastic side shields to go on the robot, and the fabric to get our team number on the robot. Finally, our dedicated CAD engineers are virtually done with the bill of parts. Each robot we've made is quite the bucket of dough. And today, we made history by coming in on a Sunday. Woohoo. Many woohoos! Also, we're trying to name our robot, while making the finishing touches on our robot. Here are some of the names we've come up with:
Feel free to express your opinion to anyone on the team or right here on this post! Polish that robot up, Team Pronto! As we (or I) ponder that philosophical question, the builders are actually doing things. So are the programmers and the electronics people. In fact, I actually need to run to the bathroom right now in the middle of writing this, so give me a second.
Now I'm done. Back to writing. Our robot is more or less done by now, with mainly minor stuff that needs to be done to it. Much of the focus nowadays is towards extra stuff, like the imagery plan that is being worked on for this year's competition pit along with the revival of Robograms before the home competition. Personally, I feel that our imagery mascot should be named "Sparky". ...Uh... what would Brian say at a time like this to sound interesting... CATS. Or SOMETHING. I DON'T KNOW. We had our lipdub get finished today, and it'll be up shortly, so we'll link to that on here for everybody to share with everybody. Although it's not up yet, so... Uh... Some of us were quadrant leaders in that, so we helped. Buy Ritz, guys. YEAH PRONTO. WOO. bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum
okay there's your intro guess what chicken butt Except not. This is much better than chicken butt. Let's have a drumroll........ OUR COMPETITION ROBOT IS LIKE BUILT AND STUFF. The builders and electronics teams have gotten the robot completely built, WITH THE ELECTRONICS BOARD ON THERE AS WELL. How exciting! The programmers have had time to program the robot as well, and I quote, the programming is "virtually done," besides the autonomous code, and limit switches. Several things have to be done before we stuff our robot into the bag, though. We're making things like our robot home (a crate, which is quite the 5 star hotel for robots), better support mounts for all the motors on the robot, 3070 signs on the robot for competition, and even stylizing our tent/pit. We're awesome. We're a... seven nation ROBOTICS TEAM. (If that makes any sense.) Oh, also, the dreaded Bill of Parts is being put together by our diligent CAD captain. (oh my god thank you so much that thing is like the devil's father reincarnated in hell's toilet). In other news, Team Pronto has had yet another successful outreach event. The outreach squad went to Echo Lake for their Science Night, and preached the good word of FIRST. Many more children got to catch the ball Chuck threw, and many were enthralled by the LEGO® MindStorm robot we brought from the FLL team at Cascade Elementary. Woohoo. We are so close!!! SOOO CLOSE. Don't give up now! Finish strong, Team Pronto! The second to last weekend has past. We can count the rest of the build days on our fingers. We are counting the days to the Armageddon. We can hear Gabriel blow his horn as we are approaching the end. I am sounding very dramatic right now. DUN DUN DUN *organs blast a very, very deep note* The robot bagging day looms ever closer...
Buuuuuttt the robot is getting closer and closer to completion as well! The robot frame already has the entire base completed, the motors mounted, and the supports attached. The build team is moving towards attaching the pulley system, which is very close to the last steps of completing the hardware of the robot. The build team has also worked on constructing the specialized worm-drive motor that we are using in order for the pulley to complete the task we are working towards (stacking totes, if you weren't aware). Each of the four cars going on the track of the robot are also being polished and carefully constructed in order to slide up and down the track nicely. The programming team is currently on standby, since they have already finished completely programming to the limit! ...switches. They have not been able to program the code that manages the limit switches, which we hope will allow us to track how many totes we are picking up at any given time. They are not present on the practice robot, but will be on the final robot. So kudos to you programming team, for being on top of everything! *smooching noises* The electronic team has been ever busy with working with the electronics, and they have been just as on top of things as the programming team. They have finished the electronics board, but since the builders are still working on the robot itself, they have yet to mount it on the robot and wire everything in. Friday night, we also had a team outing to King's FRC Team's annual robot reveal! Various teams from around the area showed off their robot's design, or in our case, talked about what our robot was all about. (And in the case of our guillotine robot, it's all about cutting off the metaphorical heads of our problems.) Team Pronto had a blast. The build season is officially only in its thirties, but it definitely feels like we've already had 10 mid-life crises. But nonetheless, the team is building with a passion that mirrors someone who has only had one! We've got the stereo on, and while we're hammering, sawing, and drilling away, we're simultaneously dancing to jazz and rock (in a safe, non-extreme manner, because we are in an auto shop). We're close, so very close. The apprehension in the team is palpable. But y'know what, we know how to express those feelings by singing the Bohemian Rhapsody. SING IT OUT, Team Pronto! (And finish the robot. I didn't say that because it doesn't sound very motivational.) ARE YOU READY, HEY! ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat? yeAH, you should be, because we are on the edge of glory. Each day, the build team and programmers have been able to inch forward towards the completion of the Guillotine. The carts are completed, the practice robot is completed, the competition robot is taller than ever, and all we have to do now is complete the building of the final robot. A robot that's unnamed I might add. *Hint hint* *Nudge nudge* *Ladylegs, ladylegs* OH YEAH, we also went to Cascade Elementary's STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) Festival, which was a blast. Our poor ol' Chuck wasn't working for the first half of our stay there, but in the latter half, we got to throw last year's competition ball to many excited children! NONE OF THEM SURVIVED. THEY ALL DIED FROM EXCITEMENT. We're all getting a little tired from this grueling build season, but the team has been doing what this team does. Pronto-ing LIKE SOME BOSSES. boo yah. Boss it up, Team Pronto! |