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.