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

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

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

Here Are A Few Pics And Vids

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