Happy Holidays!

This week we wrapped up the SRC activities. Most of the drive trains were completed but the rookies did not get to go much further than that.  We basically ran out of time and had to prepare for Kickoff.

We fleshed out a high level plan on TeamworkPM and reviewed it with the other mentors and team. We've also decided to try out the  WhenToHelp scheduling tool. Hopefully using this tool will help us manage the team work more efficiently. From some of the interest poll results, many people are interested in the multiple areas equally. I would rather they pick one to focus on but as of now, they don't have enough experience yet to know if they don't like something or not.

On a daily basis, we will open the build session with a short meeting where we review what happened the prior day and what our next steps are so that everyone knows what they are working on. At the end of the session, we will hold a wrapup meeting where a member from each sub team reports on their accomplishments and issues and what the next steps are. They will put this information in the build season log. Anyone who needs to catch up can read the log. As a team we haven't been very good keeping a log up to date but it is essential for this year.

We also need to better manage the cleanup process at the end of each day.  People who sign up for a shift need to stay for the entire shift. Pre-sorting the bins of stuff to return to inventory will also help speed it up. We estimate that it will take 30-45 minutes. Hopefully, as we get better at it and people learn where stuff belongs, it will go faster. 45 minutes lost every day does add up.

Last night, the official game hint was announced. I am not usually a big game hint chaser because most off the time they don't really make sense or give much advantage. This one was ominous.  "Change is coming." Bring it on!

Of course, last minute shopping for prototyping materials have to be done and we need to make arrangements for food on kickoff weekend.

Happy Holidays!  Rest up while we can before the fun begins!

It's already how many days until kickoff???

18 days to go on our Kickstarter and we are pretty much at a standstill at around $2600.  :(  boo....

Moving on...

We hopped off the wait list for Chesapeake and have registered for a third regional - Windsor Essex Great Lakes - in Ontario, Canada.  Woo Hoo! We get to go on a long bus ride and eat at Tim Hortons again! (Hopefully, they will stay intact even after Burger King purchased them.)  Of course, there are pre-requisites for the trip.  We have to bag and tag the robot by February 13th so that the team will be able to get rest during Winter break.  Also the price quoted is for 30 students.  If there are not enough committed to go, the trip is canceled.  It doesn't make sense cost-wise.

For the New York and SBPLI regionals, we are also planning to stay overnight in a hotel closer to the venue.  This is so that we can spend time scouting and not commuting.  This is the first time we're trying this based on tips from Karthik K. and other teams.

In the SRC training, the rookies have finally drawn up their robot designs and started building the drivetrains with VEX components.  They are struggling with it partly because the directions give them a slightly larger frame than required by the rules.  They seem to be having fun though :)

We submitted a priority list in FIRST Choice and got 10 of the top 13 items we asked for. However we didn't get batteries or solenoids.  I can't believe teams actually went for the old control system parts and classmates.  There was an error in the inventory for the pneumatics fitting kit and it got substituted with one with brass fittings.  The package got shipped yesterday and we should get it on Tuesday!

We now have our first blog entry published!!! The website has an About Us page and the social media links work!

A few members went with Mr. Heitman to visit the workshop with the plasma cutter in Brooklyn after school on Thursday.  There we found out based on Uncle Victor's experience that plasma cutters do not work well with aluminum (less precision) but it needs to be tested.  Steel cuts better but it is also 2.5x heavier. He also had a metal bender, a Tig (?), welding equipment and other tools I will not attempt to name.  Victor promised to come by school to take a look at our older robots and see if any improvements can be made using the tools in his workshop.  It will then give us a better idea of what kind of things we can do for this coming season.

FON (Festival Of Nations) is starting already?  Seems earlier than last year but people were already practicing the Filipino Stick Dance in the lobby.  FON is wonderful but it's a big drain on Robotics resources.  The SciOly teams had their first invitational today as well so they were busy getting their mechanisms ready.

Today, StuyPulse hosted their StuySplash Workshop.  I was happy and disappointed that one person from THHS showed up.  Disappointed because there was only one.  Happy because nobody had responded to my email so I wasn't expecting anyone.  I was looking forward to the keynote speaker since the talk from the CMU professor last year was pretty good.  Unfortunately, it was a little difficult to understand the professor from City College.  Some of the robotics projects he talked about were interesting however - quadcopters which can map a place using lasers, robots that use vacuum to climb walls and ceilings and work to help the blind.  There was also a robot built by seniors (mechanical, programming, electrical) which won a competition.  Some of the other sessions were also enlightening - Learning From Mistakes and Marketing/Public Relations.  The mistakes that Stuy encountered were also ones that we've made - like building a shooter without using encoders, programming autonomous without using encoders, and not properly checking the health of our batteries.  It's really scary now that I think about all those times we were lucky our battery didn't die in the middle of a match.  No wonder we see teams at competition with a big battery cart and multiple chargers! The Beta presentation was good - pretty detailed with demos.  They had retrofitted the control system on an old robot.  I am curious when people will be testing the cameras and other sensors.  They seem to be on the list of remaining things to test.  We also finally returned the planetary gearbox that we borrowed from Stuy.

We have started planning for the build season.  Some of the challenges include the ability to manage the large group of incoming rookies and the shorter build schedule (no Fridays for the first few weeks and target finish by Feb 13).  We are evaluating WhenToHelp.com to define shifts and have the team members sign up for shifts.  Also, we're using TeamworkPM to try to set up a high level project plan.  I want to have an Agile type meeting in the beginning of each session and have an update and next steps from each sub-team before we leave.  Each sub-team should write their updates and observations in a log.  People would also be using the Points Tracker to add points for their build hours. We have a meeting coming up to get the other mentors up to speed.

Inventory is in better shape although the quality of the data depends on who is entering it.  We have been adding items to a list for restocking like pool noodles, pneumatic fittings, duct tape, etc.

OMG - I completely forgot about the roboRIO!  We received the one we pre-ordered from AndyMark last Friday.  Unfortunately, the other parts did not come with it and the firmware has not yet been published.  It's getting lonely sitting in the box...

OK. Enough blabbing for now.  Time to review and simplify my project plan.

Our FRC Workshop

On Sunday, our team hosted an FRC workshop at Townsend Harris High School. We had 3 presentations prepared on safety, drive train and programming.

We had scheduled a practice run for all the presentations last Thursday but none of them were close to being done.  I was quite worried.

When we arrived at school (running a little late because we had to pick up coffee from Dunkin' Donuts), there was quite a turn out.  There were attendees from Francis Lewis, John Bowne, Cardozo and Thomas Edison High Schools.  The person from FIRST who organized the workshops was there as well.

All in all - the presentations went well.  There was some nervousness because they didn't practice enough.  Some parts could have been improved if given more time and feedback.
We ended up finishing early because we skipped lunch.  People ate a lot of bagels and danishes.

After that, we continued with inventory for a bit longer.  People are starting to get the hang of what to do.  Although problems with getting access to the internet - using the DOE vs school wifi - to look up information was a hindrance.

Tuesday's meeting was not very productive.  Since most of the veterans were participating in the Science Olympiad in-house testing, only the president was entertaining the rookies.  They covered some CAD and then sang a robot song that Mr R made up that morning.  I got a sneak preview of the Safety Animation and it looks pretty good so far.  It shows quite a lot of progress made since last year.  The next step after this is submitted is to train the rookies to take over when these seniors have graduated.

We got our peek at FIRST Choice and started looking at items to submit for our Priority List.  The Priority List processing is new.  The folks at AndyMark are offering this as an alternative to the first come first serve shopping when FIRST Choice opens.  This year we have 600 credits to spend.  There seem to be fewer pneumatics parts available - no compressors.  There are a lot of steel tracks however which made people wonder if that is a game hint.

There are about 3 weeks left until Christmas break.  Time to start planning and getting ready for Kickoff and Build Season!

btw - the Kickstarter project is still open - only $2600 pledged and about $5400 to go.  Please donate whatever amount you can - every $1 helps us get closer to the goal.  We don't get any of the money until we reach the goal.

TEDYouth 2014 and updates

On Saturday, I chaperoned a few of the team members to TEDYouth 2014 in the beautiful Brooklyn Museum.  It was our first time at such an event.  The auditorium was full of middle and high school kids as they listened to many speakers who were experts on a wide variety of topics including geology, astronomy, leeches, music robotics, and bio-engineering.  In the Beau-Arts Court next to the auditorium, they had tables with activities/displays manned by either the speakers themselves or TED personnel.  You can tell TED is well sponsored - they provided free lunch, snacks and t-shirts to participants.  From what I could see, the kids had a great time.  My only peeve is that the chaperones who couldn't fit in the back mezzanine of the auditorium had to watch the live stream on TV in the Beau-Arts Court.  The team should try to go again next year.

In other areas, adoption of Points Tracker is going well.  There were some issues encountered in the first couple of days - mostly user error from lack of training or rather users didn't pay attention to directions until they tried to enter in their points.  Even then, they didn't read the directions written on the first tab or look at the training video.  I had to manually correct some entries until finally, I added a function to allow them to delete their entry and re-enter it again.  People seem very trigger happy to click the Save button before they finish filling in the fields.  I added a screen shot with instructions and arrows which seems to help a bit.

Inventory is in full swing.  We, of course, had to add an extra incentive for people to stay and do inventory since it is very detailed and tedious work.  Again, lack of training was an issue and I had to manually adjust things that were done incorrectly - some kids created spreadsheets on their own instead of using the scripts so the data was not linked up.  The information they entered also was of varying quality.  The Inventory Secretary was busy learning to manage this project - helping people look up items, assigning bins, training, etc.

I am happy to report that one of the kids volunteered to work on the website and is actually making progress.   I also asked for volunteers to write the team blog and a few people were interested if they can rotate the responsibility.

The team is also preparing for the FRC Workshops that we are hosting on Sunday.  We are a little less prepared than we were for last year's Beta Test presentation.  From what I saw yesterday, it needed some more work and practice.  We have 3 presentations:

• Make it Go: The Programming Very Basics
• SAFETY!!!
• Improving on the Kitbot or the Basic Drivetrain

Yesterday was the last of our series of bake sales and it was a big one.  Since it was dress rehearsal for the school's SING performances and there was a basketball game, we had a lot of customers. Never mind that a parent brought in sliders from White Castle - over 200 of them!  The security guard was so happy - she had been craving WC burgers :)

We also had 2 members from Francis Lewis H.S.'s FRC team come join us.  Somehow they only had a couple of kids who wanted to continue FRC this year.  Most of the other students participate in the FTC program and the rest of the team from last year have graduated.  We're trying to help them keep their FRC program alive - or at least provide a place for those kids to participate.

We have 40 days left in our Kickstarter project and currently have 24 backers pledging a total of $2050.  Still trying to spread the word because we don't get any of the funds until we reach the goal.

Finally, I got a wonderful surprise yesterday.  While busy taping the Inventory QR codes to bins in the bathroom a.k.a. our "storage" area, I was summoned back to the classroom.  When I walked in, I got a "Happy Birthday" and was presented with my "Woodie flowers", a small binder filled with touching notes from the kids and a cool robot silicone mold.  Now I can make them chocolate or Jello robots and No - No Jello shots!

Brunswick Eruption 13 - our first off-season event

On Saturday, the team went to our first Off-Season event, Brunswick Eruption 13, hosted by Team 25 - Raider Robotix.  We've been preparing for this event for the past two weeks.  Since many of the rookies expressed interest in attending,  we had to get them ready as well as ourselves.  This included a new set of scouting forms to replace the Android app that we used for competition.  According to the agenda, qualification matches took place in the morning with Alliance selection immediately following the last match.  That means we did not have time to reenter the scouting data into a spreadsheet to generate the pick list.  The scouting leads spent one training session teaching the rookies how to record match data.  I did some pre-scouting and found that about 10 teams had gone to Worlds this year and one of them had made it to the finals.  Looks like it will be an uphill battle.

Tomahawk had to be checked and tuned up.  We discovered many loose or missing nuts and bolts. The catapult was not at the right angle.  Bumpers had to be repaired.   Also, since we offered to lend our practice robot, Beta, to the rookie team 5599 (The Sentinels) from Cardozo, we had to tune it as well.

We also needed to define our drive teams.  As a rule refresher, I prepared an abbreviated version of the driver and game rules test for those who applied for the drive team.  Rookies applied for the role of the Human Player.  We had set up a small test course for the drivers, operators and human players.
Factoring in the test course timings and test scores, Marcus and Ian tied for the highest driver score.
Unfortunately, we didn't have time to do any additional practice before Saturday.

Packing tools and spare parts was done on Friday and everything was loaded into one of the school vans. The second van would also be put to use.

As Mr. Heitman said, this week was a tough one: Open House on Monday, Parent Teacher Conferences on Wednesday and Friday, and Founder's Day on Thursday.
On Saturday morning around 5:30 am, the van with the robots and gear and drive team and safety members set off first for North Brunswick.  About an hour later, the second van with the remaining students along with vehicles of other parents and mentors headed out.

Because we had a couple of kids taking the SAT IIs that morning, I watched the matches on the live stream that was provided.  You can tell that many teams had new drivers like ours.  Some of the driving was not as efficient, some simple mistakes made - like forgotten rules or not really understanding the game or forgetting to load the ball in the robot for autonomous.  But that was to be expected, after all, you vet out drivers in off-season events.  Teams also test out new components.  One team had switched their drive train to a new one they worked on since competition.  Sure we could have tested our summer project if only we thought of it sooner.

We arrived after the alliance selection to witness the Evil Sundae Contest - luckily our first candidate pulled out before he had to eat bacon (because he can't) and our brave substitute survived sauerkraut, mayonnaise and other goodies.

So at the end of qualifications, we ranked 12th. I was happy to find that the scouts were able to produce a pick list.  I'll need to get a copy of it and review the scouting data.  However, we ended up not having to use it as we were picked as the 4th robot for Alliance #6.  For Aerial Assist, that meant we were backup if one of the other 3 broke down.

Apparently the alliance captain did have problems and we got to play in the second match. Woohoo!
Ultimate, our alliance lost in the third match and did not advance to the finals.

Then it was time for awards.  The rookie award went to Team 5599 (aka 2602 - because we shared bumpers modified with tape with them), but they were outside in the parking lot!!!  Mr Heitman went to get them and then the Mahalo award was given to us for GP (Gracious Professionalism) - i.e. helping the rookies participate. The award trophy was a tikki.  Yes - they had a Hawaiian theme.

We departed, got stuck in traffic and eventually made it back to school between 7:15 and 7:45 pm.  By the time we unloaded everything back into the bathroom and put the seats back in the van it was around 8:30.

Lessons learned:
- people need to eat - even if they are picky about the food and especially if they are on the drive team otherwise they end up eating Kit Kats and Pringles or have stomach cramps.  Ever heard of : Beggars can't be choosy?
- people can step up to fill the gaps - we had new people in most of the roles.  The team's presentation for the Hoku (mini-Chairman's) award got positive feedback.
- we need lots more practice driving
- drive team needs to know the rules
- scouting matches is boring but it is very important
- we need to use our packing list when packing or keep forgetting things
- check the agenda and plan accordingly - No, alliance selection isn't after lunch break
- there's no hope for dancing or spirit awards on our team :(
- off-season events are great!

Fundraising!

Since FIRST Robotics is a relatively expensive program, every team needs to do a lot of fundraising. It takes $5K to register for a single regional competition.  This doesn't include monies to buy parts and materials to build the robot ($4K) nor travel expenses (TBD) to get the team to that competition.  If the team decides to register for additional competitions, it costs $4K more for each one.  The team can spend up to $4K in labor and parts to build a competition robot.  Of course, there's more if spare parts have to be kept in stock and if we build an extra robot to practice with after the freeze date (Bag and Tag Day).

There are many ways to raise funds: applying for grants, bake sales, car washes, pasta dinners, selling candy/candles/popcorn/raffles, going to local businesses for donations, etc.  We've been continuously applying for grants.  Every Thursday, we hold a bake sale after school.  The kids have been reaching out to the businesses in the area.  While we appreciate every dollar that comes our way, we still have a long way to go.  This year we are planning to attend 2 (maybe 3) regional competitions!

The Steel Hawks is now trying out a Kickstarter project.  A parent of some team members set this up.  We're hoping this money will help offset some of the costs described above.

As an added incentive, our head coach has volunteered to be the recipient of a bucket of ice for every $100 raised. (I think he'll be in over his head with ice so he'd better not get sick before Kickoff on January 3rd!  Don't worry - we will be recording this event!)  See his challenge below:

Please Help Spread the Word. Please pass this along, you will be helping an amazing group of students.

Anyone who believes that there is more to an education than Common Core and Standardized Testing, will truly believe in the learning experience FIRST Robotics is giving to our children.

To help my students reach their goal, I will personally do a modified ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE where for every 100.00 raised I will have my students dump ice buckets on me!! That's 80 ice buckets! If they reach their goal by November 30th, 2014, I will make it an even 100 ICE BUCKETS!!!!

The countdown begins now. You know what to do: tell people about it! Let's reach our goal!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1686974648/steel-hawks-first-robotics-team-2601

If you can spare some $, please donate to the team. In any case, please forward this info to others who may be interested.  This project is open until the end of the year.

If you would like to help the team in other ways like:

• mentoring - both technical and non-technical
• food - because kids are always hungry
• running errands to Home Depot, etc. - because we sometimes can't wait for parts to be shipped
• donating services or materials

please contact me or the team at townsendharrisrobotics@gmail.com.

Thank you for your support!

Meeting the parents and updates

On Tuesday, the coaches and some mentors met with the parents of students interested in transitioning from the club to the team.  We had over 15 families in attendance.  We bought pizza and soda for dinner. The head coach prepared some slides about FIRST, what our typical Build Schedule is and what kind of support we need from parents. We distributed copies of our team's Handbook which we worked on since the spring.  There were only a few parents who asked questions.  A few offered their help with food, rides and such.  Overall, I think the meeting went well.  The goal of the is for the parents to get a better understanding of what their child is signing up for.

The students also had a separate meeting at the same time. There, the criteria for becoming a team member were explained - the Points System.  I'm waiting to see how the Points Tracker stands up to more use and volume.

So far, our new training program, dubbed the "SECOND Robotics Competition" (SRC), has been working well.  Our current attendance by new members still average about 30 per session. Attendance has actually increased gradually.  The kids seem excited and enthusiastic.  We have also informed them about the off-season competition that the team is attending - Brunswick Eruption - in just over a week.  Over 20 said that they wanted to go!  I'm looking forward to the Evil Sundae Contest! With the large influx of new members, we really have to plan the Build season in more detail and delegate more to the other mentors and veterans.

Inventory has started - still registering and labeling the bins and bookshelves at this point.  We found a few minor areas in the tool which need to be fixed.  I'm also waiting to see how the Inventory tool handles more users and data.

There are a lot of activities going on at school.  This week was Spirit Week.  Students and faculty dressed up for Twin Day, Pajama Day, Halloween, etc.  Seniors were wrapping up their work for the Election Simulations.  Others are getting ready for Founder's Day performances next week.  Many Early Action applications are due tomorrow for the seniors and teachers.

We've been getting many opportunities for expanding our community outreach work.  It is difficult to choose or do all of them when we don't have enough members who are able to meet the additional  required time commitments (in addition to time spent on robotics and other clubs, they also have to work 40 hours of community service for school). After watching Karthik's session on the Chairman's Award on Wednesday, I think that we need to be smarter and more unique in how we approach community outreach and this award. Our team isn't big enough to be able to support a large number of outreach activities.

There are lots of things to do next week: the team is scheduled to give a demonstration at a school in Manhattan, we have to finish preparations for Brunswick Eruption (packing, drive team practice, travel logistics, etc.), prepare for the FRC workshops that we are hosting in November, continue Inventory and training, etc.

TTFN!