Team 1517 Blog

end of weekend 4

2011-01-30T17:12:00.000-08:00

This has been a very successful weekend. We have the robots base up and we have put all the electronics on the robot. After working on the program the programmers switched over to the new robot for the first time with out any problems. Which is amazing. The guys building the lifter finished the first one yesterday afternoon and tested it and it worked. they then decided to build a second lift which when you put the grabber on looks sorta like a t-Rex. Its amazing. We also now have a mini bot that is working. Though our co-captian Brownbear keeps hurting himself while working with the mini bot stuff, they have been very successful. Everyone is excited to start testing the robot at St.Pauls. Hopefully we will be at St. Pauls next weekend testing everything. The line following program that the programmers have come up with are working, which is pretty amazing. More next weekend.

January 22, 2011

2011-01-22T14:50:00.000-08:00

Its the start of the third weekend of the season. the base is almost done being built. The prototype of the lift is built. The guys have the gripper prototype up and running. It can grab the game pieces and will hopefully be able to rotate very soon. Everyone is working hard to get things done for the robot. It has been a very productive day so far. Animation team has finished the storyboard. It is amazing. They are now working on making models of the different things needed for the animation. It is going to be really adorable! The programmers have a line following program up and running for our robot. They also have the encoders working. And they also have gotten the camera up and running.Which is awesome.They hope to have an autonomous and operator working by the end of the night. who knows how long of night it shall be. Nick is getting ready to work on the Chairman's award.

From our little reporter: Mentor Casey Burr says "The team is working together considerably well since the time we've had together has been short. About half the team is new. We are all getting along fabulously!"

We will update more tomorrow. there will be videos first thing tomorrow.

Jena

End of Weekend 2

2011-01-16T11:47:00.001-08:00

We are coming to the end of the second weekend of the 2011 season. We have a prototype for our mini-bot up and running. We have it on and moving around. The programmers are still having some issues with getting last years robot up and running. We also have a name for this years robot. The name is "lowrider". We have the lift for our robot about half way done. Between being downstairs working and getting something from the kitchen most of the guys on the team are drifting in and out of the living room to watch the football games. The animation team is still working on a storyboard. They had some inspiration yesterday afternoon when someone on the team put the soundtrack for TRON on. everyone is busy working on different projects down stairs. Update on the programmers: They have gotten the robot from last year up and working. They found out what the problem was. It had to do with the radio. So things are looking up from here for them. The guys are still working really hard to get things up and running. Things are continuing to look up from here.
Here is a pic of our safety dog:

Saturday January 15, 2011

2011-01-15T11:35:00.001-08:00

We are on to the second weekend of build season. This year the game is called logomotion. Here is a link to see what this years game is about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYBUKZ6r5Hc.
Everyone is working hard and staying safe. Our build team is working on prototypes for our mini-bots. Our animation team is working hard on a story board for the autodesk excellence in design award. Tim and Sam have been using the milling machine to drill holes in the aluminum for a tower. Programing team is working hard to get things up and running for the robot. And they are trying to get last years robot up and working and installing the updates. Leah is working on autodesk inventor to prototype the mini-bot. We are all enjoying the season so far. It is going to be a great season this year.

Updates

2010-02-14T09:59:00.000-08:00

A few updates since the last post:

1) We have officially decided to stick with the tread-drive bot.

2) We have a kicker all set up.

3) The programming for driving, kicking, and the camera are all set.

4) We are working on driving practice at St. Paul's to get ready for the competition.

5) We are still working on the lifter for the endgame.

We will keep you all posted. Thanks for reading and wish us luck.

-Sterling, Programming Team

Building robots

2010-02-06T13:13:00.000-08:00

Here the videos of us testing our 2 robots.

A word from the mechanical side

2010-02-02T13:44:00.001-08:00

hey everyone just throwin up an update from over here on the mechanical side. we now have two count em two operational robots for the 2010 FRC challenge!!!!!! we have one base custom made by jonny that i am pumped about. this robot runs on treads and is lookin good. it can climb the ramp forwards and backwards. it can turn on a dime and will beat anyone in a pushing match. the other robot is a modified kit bot on mechanum wheels. both robots also have a kicker mounted on em and by the saturday will each have an electronics board on them. dr slocum and i have been working on a lifting mechanism for the end of the game. we have three designs and one that is operational and will work. we have a double stage piston, a piston and motor combo, and a custom three stage telescoping piston. get ready for a fun weekend st pauls here we come!!!

Tom Sweeney
Mechanical

Fourth Weekend

2010-01-31T10:44:00.000-08:00

It is the fourth weekend of the build season. We have our kicker running and the camera is up and finding the target. We have made progress in building. The programming team is all set to run the robot autonomously. We are able to sense the ball and target and kick during the autonomous period of the game. They are waiting for a robot to test . We have the target and goal built, so that we can practice kicking the soccer balls into the goal. We are now working on the tower for the use at St. Pauls practice field. Finally we are actually building two robots. A tread based robot is being constructed now that the parts have finished being machined. We are also building a four wheeled machanum robot and we are hopefully testing the robots next week to see which works better.

~Jena, Build team

2010-01-23T11:15:00.000-08:00

After many days of frustration and surfing Chief Delphi to find answers, we finally got the robot to send a camera feed to the dashboard. It took many days of confusion but after resetting almost everything in the entire system and finding a program that works on Chief Delphi it finally works. We on the programming team rejoiced.

On the build side of things things are progressing steadily. We have a design decided upon and are building the pieces for it as I type. This year has been going well and we have all been working hard to achieve our goal.

We can't wait to be done and at the competition.

-Sterling, Programming Team

A New Season

2010-01-09T14:33:00.001-08:00

And yet another year for the FIRST Robotics team 1517 begins. As our resident pneumatics expert Tom said, "Gentlemen, today our lives end." It's called the Six Weeks of Death for a reason. Despite this we all thoroughly enjoy the season and couldn't wait to see the new competition game.

I personally was lucky enough to go to the actual kickoff at Southern New Hampshire University and honestly it looks much better on the webcast. I was honored to go but when you're there it looks much more like just a gymnasium than the major event you see on the webcam. After a few hours of waiting to find out what the game is they finally unveiled the event: Breakaway.

This new game seems quite a bit like soccer at first glance but upon closer inspection it becomes much deeper and I can tell immediately that there will be quite a few little things that we will need to keep in mind that may make or break a match. The bumps are the biggest obstacles both literally and figuratively. Getting over the bumps has become one of the biggest focuses strategy-wise. I am very happy with the competition this year and can't wait to see a match in action.

I will keep everyone informed. Thanks for reading and wish us luck.

-Sterling, Programming

FIRST Lego League Tournament

2009-10-03T09:34:00.000-07:00

A FIRST Lego League robotics tournament will be sponsored by BAE Bishop Brady High School Robotics Team 1517 on Saturday, November 21 at Bishop Brady High School in Concord, NH from 8:30am to 4:00pm. FIRST Lego League introduces elementary and middle-school students to real-world engineering challenges by building LEGO-based robots to complete tasks on a thematic playing surface. Members of the Bishop Brady High School robotics team volunteer their time and talents to stage the FIRST Lego League event annually for younger students. FLL teams competing in the event must pre-register but viewing the competition is free and open to the public. To learn more about FIRST Lego League and the Bishop Brady High School Robotics Team visit www.bbrobotics.org.

We're Not Done Yet...

2009-02-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

The Tuesday ship date is coming up very quickly and we are going to St. Paul's School today for a mini competition between local schools for practice. We are working on some finishing touches so we can be ready enough for the competition which is only three hours away. We hope that everything works well together from the programming to the design to the drivers. We need it all to work perfectly together, but then again that's why this is a practice competition. We hope and pray for the best. I will post again after for our results.

-Sterling, Programming Team

After Day 1 @ St. Paul's

2009-02-08T08:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we visited St. Paul's School toward the end of the meeting and met up with the Pembroke Academy Team 134. Their robot seems to be running well. We got plenty of throwing practice for the payload specialists and then tried to get our robot running. As usual on our first St. Paul's trip, not much driving happened. We had a few kinks to work out and got quite a few of them fixed but still have a bit to go. Today we should be driving a bit at least. For the people who weren't frantically working on the robot we had fun playing board tennis, a game/tradition started a few years back. We play like normal tennis except with wooden boards instead of rackets. It started because the practice course is built in the St. Paul's tennis court building. We hope for the best today.

-Sterling, Programming Team

On To Testing

2009-02-07T13:09:00.000-08:00

      Today we have made our robot functional enough to go to St. Paul's School to test. We are a bit behind our schedule and this will cut down on valuable driver practice for the slippery surface and also on programming test time. We hope to still be functional and up to speed by next Thursday, the ship date. After the ship date we have to send away the robot and won't get another chance to work on it until the competition time. We are working hard and are hoping for success.

      Best of luck to all,
      -Sterling, Programming Team

Quotes From The Build Season

2009-02-07T07:48:00.000-08:00

"I'm drowning my Windriver sorrows in Metallica and root beer." -Sterling

"I put my sweat and spit into making this." -Cody

"It's funny how many people it takes to drill a hole around here." -Jonny

"Well, I'm supposed to be doing the fun parts." -Matt (Brown Bear)

Sterling: "I wonder how much salsa I can get on one chip.."
Cody: "I can get more!"
Sterling: "Hah, I win!"

A New Start

2009-02-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

We have started the final robot. The final design has been decided upon and hopefully we will have a running robot by the time of the St. Paul's mini-competition coming up. We can't wait to see what other designs other teams have come up with for the competition. It appears from our research that most teams have stuck with the sweeper/screw idea that we have. We are working hard and should have the final robot up soon.

-Sterling, Programming Team

Hard at Work

2009-01-26T10:24:00.000-08:00

The build season is still heavily underway and now that we're on our fourth straight day of robotics during this long weekend, some of us are really feeling the pressure. The build team is still working away in the basement trying to assemble the robot and upstairs programming team is getting frustrated just trying to get our laptops to connect to the robot. Some members show their fatigue a little more than others, but almost all of us need to take a break once and a while.

Even the dogs look like they could use a nice nap.

Cheers,
- Lincoln

Here Are A Few Pics And Vids

2009-01-25T11:31:00.000-08:00

These are some pics and vids of our team and some of our progress.

We're Getting There

2009-01-24T15:25:00.000-08:00

      Today we have made slow but steady progress on our robot and hope to be in possession of a working, testable robot by tomorrow's end. We have almost completed a Solidworks image of our robot for visual planning of our also almost-complete Archimedes Screw ball lift design. One team member has dubbed it the "Artesian Screw."
      Hopefully tomorrow we can finally test the engineering and programming that we've been waiting to test. We are determining what to do about Safety Man because he graduated. We are planning on appointing a new one but don't know who yet. We are also almost done building a trailer for testing. Tomorrow should be full of things being complete and, if we have time, testing. Things are slower than anticipated but we should be as close to done as reasonable by the time of our competitions in Manchester, NH and Seattle, Washington.

      -Sterling, Programming Team

FIRST Team Update

2009-01-11T11:56:00.000-08:00

Today we have been working on the prototype of our robot's collector mechanism for the competition

this year, Lunacy. We have had the challenge of trying to figure out how to collect somewhat yielding 9-inch diameter orbit balls. They look almost like the stereotypical atom diagram electron paths. We have to collect them off of a slippery surface without expanding beyond the original size of our robot. We then have to deploy them into trailers attatched to the opponents' robots (for complete rules and explaination please see usfirst.org). We are using a sticky roller to attach to the balls and deploy them into our containment chamber to later deploy to score.
     On the programming front we have been working on getting the camera to recognize the green and pink above the trailers and then distinguish between our trailers and opponents' trailers. We have made it recognize the colors and are currently waiting for the build team to be ready for us to test our latest programming for distinguishing the patterns.
     So far we are on schedule and hoping to have a working robot to test drive on the slippery field soon.

     -Sterling, Programming Team

First Blog Post!

2009-01-11T11:40:00.000-08:00

     Yay, the Blog is officially up! Yet another milestone on our journey to a new website is now complete!

    Until next time,
      - Lincoln