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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! My colleague told me to "hype the hype up." I wasn't sure if he was referring to anime or Robotics, so here I goooo. So many things happened in this one weekend. Forgive me if I'm being cheesy, but if anything, it helped reaffirm the reasons why I stay in with the robotics team. It makes me teary eyed (excuse me as I go and listen to Coldplay and contemplate my life). Reason #1 - SOOOO much excitement when one of the robots was able to move after the programmers hooked up their code to the robot. It moved! mOVED. IT'S ALIVE. Everyone on the team was so excited that all their hard work and dreams were coming to fruition. It was so surreal to have such a moment so early on in the season. Usually, only such happiness happens near the end of the season, but I guess tis' the season for such things anyway. There's been so much progress in only a couple of weeks, and it's amazing to see everyone working so hard. Reason #2 - On Friday, after the meeting, a group of us went to Highland Terrace's Science Night. All the "whoas" and "wows" from the kids that lined up to catch Chuck's ball was such an incredible experience. I've been so many outreach events like this, but this one made me so giddy! Chuck is always so popularrrrr. Reason #3 - Unusually, I enjoyed cleaning up on Saturday. Kind of therapeutic to pick up the broom and sweep up the autoshop. (Feel free to ignore this, it's really, really irrelevant). Reason #4 - Robograms. We are selling buttons. Buttons are really cool. 'Nuff said. We are actually so, so close to the Kick Off date. It's alarming. But we've made so much progress as a team in just one month that I cannot wait for what we can do for the rest of the year. Keep it cool, Team Pronto! P.S. Thanks, Mr. Bruno, for advising us on Saturday. Your child is cute. Hey... this isn't Brian OR Brian 2.0... it's a mystery.
Today some members of Team Pronto went down the street to visit FRC team 4911 CyberKnights. In short, their set up is amazing. While everything they have is a dream for Team Pronto, the most amazing thing to me was ALL THE SPACE. Guys, we need our own space. Besides drooling over their stuff, we also got to ask a lot of questions about how they run their team and what makes them so successful. It was a great learning opportunity for us. Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures. Instead, I'll just link to the CyberKnight's website. It's a day off at school for members of the Robotics Team, and well, everyone else at school too. But y'know what, Team Pronto went to school anyway. In an effort to spread the good word about the wonders of engineering and FIRST Robotics, five of Team Pronto's members went to B.F. Day Elementary School to teach a lesson on engineering and show off Chuck (our robot from last year, if you didn't know). Our lesson included classic engineering activities such as making a paper tower with one piece of paper and half a foot of tape, and giving instructions on how to make a jam sandwich. The kids in the class did wonderfully, working together to make towers that were extremely impressive. They did way better than I would of for sure... In the sandwich activity, we got to watch one of Pronto's members try and spread jam with their fingers (to the utter dismay of the jam's owner) as they tried to follow each set of directions precisely. In the end, we got to show them a robot demonstration with Chuck. Their "ooh's" and "aah's" made it worth every minute of sleep lost on this day off.
Great job, Team Pronto! |