Steady Progress

Here we are at the end of the third week and our focus has shifted from conceptualization and design to "Let's get the parts made!".

That's right. Fabrication has begun on designs that have been finalized. This includes the drive system gearbox, pulleys/belts, and part of the chassis.

Good news on the programming front. Mr. Cosme is working hard to upgrade our software capabilities with the encoders and other sensors giving us improved performance in this area.

Finally, once the robot is running, we'll be testing it at a gym where a full size field will be setup. More details to follow on this.

Here a few snapshots from the week...

Things Are Moving Along

Boy time flies when you're having fun. This week has been a whirlwind of activity - finalizing the design, CADing, ordering material, and changing the design.

Taking a second look at our strategy, we've decided that it's in our best interest to elevate without having someone suspend from us. Two factors played into our decision - time and complexity of the arm.

We also started assembling a few of the field pieces.

In addition to building a new robot, we're rehabing last seasons version for a demo at FAU during National Engineers Week.

And lastly, we've been asked to put together a mechanical "actor" to play The Wiz in the upcoming performance of the play with the same name.

Until next time...

The First Week

Everyone has been hard at work strategizing and prototyping. So far it looks like we'll be using some type of kicking device and attempting to hang from The Tower. The drive system will incorporate a tank tread design for optimal manuvering over the bumps and allowing us to maintain a low profile.

It's going to be a long weekend. We'll be working at Jonathan Parriera's home working out details and tweaking the kicker. In between, there's Town Crier delivery - have to keep the money flowing!

Here are a few pics from this week. Stay tuned...

Let's Get This Party Started!

Oh boy. As you can see, I didn't do a very good job of keeping up with this through the first semester. I won't give you any phony execuses, I just didn't get it done. I have resolved to change that.

Now that we know the challenge and we're in "The Season", I'll post here at least once a week to keep everyone updated on our progress.

To get started here are a few pictures from kickoff that was held at Sonny's location in Tamarac. There were several good ideas that came out of our brainstorming sessions and we're going to continue with that the first part of the week.

Stay tuned as we navigate our way through the maze that is FIRST...