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January 30th – February 4th, 2017

PR:

To begin the fourth of week of build season, PR finally began polishing the essays for the awards and adding pictures to the essays. More work was put into the weekly video as footage was being taken and edited. PR also began work on looking through all of our photos to find the best ones for the yearbooks for all three of our schools. PR also finished price checking all of our apparel items and making sure we had pictures for everything as well as making sure everything was accurate. By the end of the week Coach Randolph had nearly all of the arrangements for the trip ready, we completed the Team T-shirt and have a solid idea for what it will look like, finished up the weekly video, and got close to finishing the essays for awards.

Build and Design:

To start off the week, B/D redesigned the chute for the gear pick up and made it out of more reliable materials and attached it to the practice bot. After many test runs found that the previously angle needed to be straight, so support pieces were added to help keep it straight and updated the CAD to the new model. Together everyone in the B/D team came together and made a list of every part needed to build and complete the actual competition robot.  Continuing through the week, much work was done on properly mounting everything to the robot in order to prevent things from potentially coming loose and falling off during a match, as well as beginning to build the official versions of everything on the practice bot to be placed on the competition bot.

Control:

This week Control continued to work on getting all the computers to work together smoothly. Control also worked to get the infrared sensor to detect plexiglass in front of the robot so it can stop before running into it, and tried to get the robot to drive straight whereas before it wobbled back and forth. Continued work was done to the scouting app and a guide was created to make it easier to recreate in future years. Through the week Control also worked on hooking up ultrasonic sensors to the robot allowing it to be able to see with sound as well as with the infrared sensor. Another attempted project was to create a processor to allow the robot to be able to detect the gear peg, but it required too much data to run effectively.

January 23rd – 28th, 2017

PR:

PR kicked off the week by continuing to work on organizing our social media accounts as well as finding the appropriate hashtags to use in our posts. Coach Randolph finished booking all the hotel rooms for our trip to Chicago. PR also began work on an apparel power point to showcase all the apparel that the FBI team offers for purchase, and work on the awards continued. PR also began brainstorming on ideas on how the website should be updated to be more user friendly and easier to manage (you’re welcome).

Build and Design:

Beginning the third week of build season, B/D started off by installing the chute to the practice bot, a lathed rod in order to attach the official cactus onto the practice bot, and the claw for picking up gears onto the practice bot as well. This required some work on gears in order to get everything to work as well.  Moving through the week B/D worked on a prototype of the pressure plate for the gear hopper going.  B/D also finished making the cactus for the practice bot and also worked on the gear boxes for the climber. After testing the the climber, the B/D team decided to put the climber in the back of the robot instead of the front and replaced it with the gear mechanism. 

Control:

Control began week three by attempting to get the raspberry pi to communicates with the robot’s rio and began the basic planning of a gyro turn as well as researching different kinds of sensors that the pi could make use of. Using last year’s robot, control was able to test out their gyros and found that the navx was not reliable enough to continue to use this year. Continued work was done to the scouting app as well as a new system of organization for files.

 

January 16th – 21st, 2017

PR:

PR began the week by continuing to get quotes and finalizing trip accommodations such as hotel and bus. Work on the Week 1 video review was finished and uploaded to YouTube and our Social media accounts, while work on week 2 video began. PR also did some more brainstorming and work on the team T-shirt, as well as the Chairman’s, Dean’s List, and Woodie Flower’s awards. As the week continued PR continued to diligently work on the awards and the T-shirt and also finished up folding and sealing invites for the KC Regional competition. After all of this, PR began looking into accessories we could possibly wear in order to fit the theme of this year’s games.

Build and Design:

Build and design kicked off the week by attempting to build a climber prototype out of plywood and 2x4s, but both broke so B/D ended up using a c-clamp. B/D also started out the week by trying to create a system for picking up gears off the floor and started working on bumper mounts. B/D decided through the week that in order to fit everything we needed on the robot, the robot frame had to be increased to 36x40x24, so much of this week’s work was adjusting everything to fit into the new frame. By the end of the week B/D had finished building the bumper mounts, designed and built both field gear drop ramps, and the field climber for testing purposes, and finished adjusting everything to the new frame.

Control:

Control started out the week by adding code to the practice bot and last year’s bot for testing.  More work was completed on the PID controller in order to try and get it to work, but were unable to accomplish this on the first day. Control emailed Jason (mentor from Cerner) to ask him how we made last year’s app. As the week went on more brainstorming continued for the strategy app as well as work on being able to to use cameras on the robot so it can see where it’s going as well as ultra-sonic senors. Control also tried to get navx on computers but it disabled the motors and broke, so more work is going to have to be done on that. 

 

January 9th – 14th, 2017

PR:

The Public Relations Team began the week by starting on the 2017 Team T-shirt design and began to search for a hotel to stay at during our trip to Chicago and places to eat while we were there. Coach Randolph created a To-Do List for the PR team to help keep us on track. PR offered to begin a T-shirt design contest for the entire team for anyone not on PR who might have had an idea. By the end of the week PR had identified what hotel to stay in and began to work on the Chairman’s Award, Woodie Flower’s Award and Dean’s List Award.

Build/Design:

Starting off, the B/D team built all of the field elements we would need in order to effectively test our robot, as well as beginning to design prototypes for the robot’s climb mechanism. By the week’s end, build team had built a wood frame for the practice robot, assembled the drive train and gear boxes, designed a gear retrieval, and finished building a complete and working prototype climbing mechanism.

Control:

In order to begin working, Control worked to obtain the newest FRC LAB view and installed it on all of our computers except laptops since there was trouble with the Wi-Fi. Coach Clothier (Doc) began to teach the rookies about how to use LAB view and how to program while other team members began discussing our goals for autonomous.  Towards the end of the week Control began working on the PID Controller to ensure smooth movement of the robot while in autonomous, finished getting LAB view on all the computers, researched what it would take in order to have vex parts interact with the rio, and started formatting the raspberry pis.

01/07/2017

Kick-Off marked the beginning of the build season for the 2017 FIRST Robotics Competition. As the game animation video was posted, everyone finally understood the true theme for this year’s game: Steam Punk. This theme caused much excitement among our team members as we began to brain storm ideas immediately.

Another interesting development that happened on the day of Kick-Off was the entire Fort Osage school district lost power, preventing them from being able to view the game animation videos and obtain the necessary information they needed to begin their build season. In a state of almost panic, the Fort Osage team CTC Insπre called us asking for a place to go in order for their team to be able to view the game videos as well.

Our team, practicing Gracious Professionalism, invited them to our Kick-Off. The students and mentors in this picture wearing the blue t-shirts are a part of the Fort Osage team while everyone in black is a part of our team, FBI (FIRST Bots of Independence).