We're Not Done Yet...

      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

      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

      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

"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

      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