We have had quite a few weeks to rest up since the last district event in Week 2. We had an open house during this time and we used our practice robot to demonstrate the game to visitors. Since we did well at Waterford, we did not plan to make any major changes to the robot or minibot, but life does not always follow a script. We ran the minibot quite a few times during the open house and we noticed that the minibot was flying off after hitting the top instead of gliding down. We tweaked it a bit and the minibot starting driving off the pole and could not go up. We found that the minibot design was too sensitive to changes in center of gravity and geometry. Out of desperation, we decided to build a whole new minibot two days before State Championship. The new minibot is actually easier to line up to the pole and easier to deploy.
The Michigan State Championship was awesome. There were so many good robots there and the matches were all competitive. Even though we were not selected in the elimination round, it was breathtaking just to watch these matches. We were very happy to qualify for States three years in a row. Our team won the Best Website Award and our co-team captain Jason Law won the FIRST Dean’s List Finalist Award.
April 11, 2011
March 13, 2011
Waterford District Competition (Week 2)
We earned 14 points in our first district event. With the estimated cutoff point to qualify for state at 60 points, it meant that we would need to rank high after qualifying round, be an alliance captain or get picked early and at least get to the finals in order to have enough points to qualify for States. Despite the odds, the team was determined to try to do just that.
The robot was running great on Friday. The autonomous program was working as planned and hung an ubertube on the top row 80% of the time. We were completing two logos on the top row all by ourselves in most matches. The minibot deployment was finally completed and we tried it after the 6th match. The success rate was very high even though it was not the fastest minibot on the field. Despite the success of our robot, our win-loss record did not reflect that. On Saturday, our program was accidentally erased and we could not compete in one of our matches. In the next two matches, there were some small problems with the wrist and we were not able to hang as many tubes. Even with that, our scouting data showed that our robot had hung the most number of tubes on the top row out of all the teams there. We finished the qualifying round ranked 6th and were picked by the alliance captain #2. We gladly accepted the offer and worked hard to reach the finals.
Even though we lost in the finals, we were happy that we had accomplished our goal to finish qualifying round with a high ranking, to get picked early and to get to the finals. That plus winning the Best Website award and Entrepreneurship award gave us a total of 74 points which should be high enough to get us qualified for States.
The robot was running great on Friday. The autonomous program was working as planned and hung an ubertube on the top row 80% of the time. We were completing two logos on the top row all by ourselves in most matches. The minibot deployment was finally completed and we tried it after the 6th match. The success rate was very high even though it was not the fastest minibot on the field. Despite the success of our robot, our win-loss record did not reflect that. On Saturday, our program was accidentally erased and we could not compete in one of our matches. In the next two matches, there were some small problems with the wrist and we were not able to hang as many tubes. Even with that, our scouting data showed that our robot had hung the most number of tubes on the top row out of all the teams there. We finished the qualifying round ranked 6th and were picked by the alliance captain #2. We gladly accepted the offer and worked hard to reach the finals.
Even though we lost in the finals, we were happy that we had accomplished our goal to finish qualifying round with a high ranking, to get picked early and to get to the finals. That plus winning the Best Website award and Entrepreneurship award gave us a total of 74 points which should be high enough to get us qualified for States.
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FRC 2834
March 6, 2011
Kettering District Competition (Week 1)
We arrived at Kettering very excited. There is always an extra level of excitement for a week 1 event since nobody knows how the game is actually going to be played. Our pit continued with the medieval theme. This year there were some enhancements with the addition of lights and coverings on the top among other things.
One of the charms of Kettering is that you can sit very close to the field. Last year was the first year we played at Kettering and we had a great time.
Unfortunately, our robot did not work properly throughout Friday and Saturday during qualifying round. Between the last minute rush to finish the robot and having used up most of the 6 hours of access time, there was not enough time spent on testing. The problem was finally traced to a software programming error. Unfortunately it was found after our last qualifying round match, so none of the teams saw what we could really accomplish with our robot. Consequently we were not picked to play in the elimination round.
However we did pick up two awards, the Best Website award and the Engineering Inspiration award so we did not leave empty handed. We won the same awards a year ago at Kettering also. The team was kind of disappointed because not making it to elimination would make it very hard to get enough points to qualify for State Championship.
One of the charms of Kettering is that you can sit very close to the field. Last year was the first year we played at Kettering and we had a great time.
Unfortunately, our robot did not work properly throughout Friday and Saturday during qualifying round. Between the last minute rush to finish the robot and having used up most of the 6 hours of access time, there was not enough time spent on testing. The problem was finally traced to a software programming error. Unfortunately it was found after our last qualifying round match, so none of the teams saw what we could really accomplish with our robot. Consequently we were not picked to play in the elimination round.
However we did pick up two awards, the Best Website award and the Engineering Inspiration award so we did not leave empty handed. We won the same awards a year ago at Kettering also. The team was kind of disappointed because not making it to elimination would make it very hard to get enough points to qualify for State Championship.
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FRC 2834
February 20, 2011
Build Season Week 6
We are making good progress this week. The robot is finally moving. The arm is working. The programming team is busy calibrating the sensors. We started building the competition robot.
The scouting team has finalized the scouting data collection. We have started to prepare the pit and the match scouting sheets. We are also working on improving the logistics of how data will be collected, stored and distributed to the drive coach and the team coach. Last year we had a good system and collected very extensive data which helped us a lot. We are trying to improve on that system further to streamline the process and to add features like match video archiving and retrieval system.
Awards submissions were done on time without problem. We have a brand new website this year. The URL is http://www.team2834.com/.
We are looking forward to the district competitions. We will be attending Kettering (Week 1) and Waterford (Week 2).
The scouting team has finalized the scouting data collection. We have started to prepare the pit and the match scouting sheets. We are also working on improving the logistics of how data will be collected, stored and distributed to the drive coach and the team coach. Last year we had a good system and collected very extensive data which helped us a lot. We are trying to improve on that system further to streamline the process and to add features like match video archiving and retrieval system.
Awards submissions were done on time without problem. We have a brand new website this year. The URL is http://www.team2834.com/.
We are looking forward to the district competitions. We will be attending Kettering (Week 1) and Waterford (Week 2).
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FRC 2834
February 13, 2011
Build Season Week 5
The robot building subteam has had a lot of setbacks this week. Many hours were spent undoing things that were done wrong due to carelessness and rushing without paying attention to details. It ended up taking longer than expected. We are at least one week behind schedule. All the structural components are assembled together and we have started to put together the electrical board.
The website is coming together and will be ready for submission this week.
The programming team is making good progress. They are waiting for the robot to be completed before they can test their code.
The website is coming together and will be ready for submission this week.
The programming team is making good progress. They are waiting for the robot to be completed before they can test their code.
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FRC 2834
February 6, 2011
Build Season Week 4
We had a snow day on Wednesday so we did not meet. The CAD model is done and we have started making parts and assembling the robot. Progress is slower than we would like. The robot is more complicated than last year and is taking longer time to build.
We finished the Chairman's Award essay and the Executive Summary. We also finished the Entrepreneurship Award Business Plan. It was a lot of work but we had many talented student writers and dedicated mentors to help this year. We are now working on the presentations. This team is doing great.
The programming team has had a setback with the gyro. It worked for 15 seconds or so and then the cumulative angle drifted. We are still looking for the root cause of this.
We finished the Chairman's Award essay and the Executive Summary. We also finished the Entrepreneurship Award Business Plan. It was a lot of work but we had many talented student writers and dedicated mentors to help this year. We are now working on the presentations. This team is doing great.
The programming team has had a setback with the gyro. It worked for 15 seconds or so and then the cumulative angle drifted. We are still looking for the root cause of this.
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FRC 2834
January 30, 2011
Build Season Week 3
This week was finals week and we did not meet until finals were over on Friday. During this time, many of the parts we ordered came in. Some parents finished our little practice field and game elements on Thursday which was great.
We had our team pictures taken yesterday and we built a new pit which looks great. The chassis is finally running with a temporary electronics board. The robot design is being finalized in CAD. We are at about the same point as last year but with more students and parents helping, we are confident that we will be able to finish the robot by ship date.
We had our team pictures taken yesterday and we built a new pit which looks great. The chassis is finally running with a temporary electronics board. The robot design is being finalized in CAD. We are at about the same point as last year but with more students and parents helping, we are confident that we will be able to finish the robot by ship date.
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FRC 2834
January 23, 2011
Build Season Week 2
Parts from one vendor were very slow coming in compared to the last 2 years. To make it worse, parts were already backordered so early in the season. Some other problems were that part of the order was missing, the quantity of components was wrong and the wrong component was packed in the bags. As a result, we could not assemble the chassis to make it run. In a desperate move, we took apart our 2009 robot and took the parts we needed to make our robot run even though it would not have the correct gear ratio.
Our original robot design had a big deficiency. We had to redesign the arm to make it more robust. We were back to the drawing board.
During this setback, students were working hard on awards submission and presentation. They are making great progress.
I think we are still slightly ahead of schedule compared to last year, but that can quickly disappear if we continue to have problems getting the right parts on time.
Our original robot design had a big deficiency. We had to redesign the arm to make it more robust. We were back to the drawing board.
During this setback, students were working hard on awards submission and presentation. They are making great progress.
I think we are still slightly ahead of schedule compared to last year, but that can quickly disappear if we continue to have problems getting the right parts on time.
Posted by
FRC 2834
January 16, 2011
Build Season Week 1
I never thought I would blog but I thought I would give it a try and use this great communication tool to update parents, student members who have missed meetings and the general community about what we are up to on a weekly basis.
We went to Novi High School for the kickoff event. I stayed in the afternoon to give a seminar as I have done for the last two years. Some students took the kit of parts home and did the inventory. I spent the rest of the day reading the rules. The game turned out to be exactly what we prepared for in the off-season. Since the game in the last two years that we have participated in FRC did not require the use of an arm, we decided to practice building a robot with an arm. We studied the robots from 2007 Rack and Roll from the book that was published and watched a lot of videos on The Blue Alliance.
On Sunday and Monday, we gathered to brainstorm. We have a well defined process that we used that we found was quite successful in identifying what robot features are important in the game. We also went over the rules to establish a common understanding.
By Monday night, I had worked out the size and shape of the robot. I also worked out the drive system and speed and pushing force target. By Wednesday the CAD leader on our team already finished most of the CAD model. By Friday we already started building the chassis. By Saturday we finished cutting the aluminum pieces for the frame and arm. Compared to a year ago we are two weeks ahead of schedule. You have to feel good when that happens.
Week One was great!
We went to Novi High School for the kickoff event. I stayed in the afternoon to give a seminar as I have done for the last two years. Some students took the kit of parts home and did the inventory. I spent the rest of the day reading the rules. The game turned out to be exactly what we prepared for in the off-season. Since the game in the last two years that we have participated in FRC did not require the use of an arm, we decided to practice building a robot with an arm. We studied the robots from 2007 Rack and Roll from the book that was published and watched a lot of videos on The Blue Alliance.
On Sunday and Monday, we gathered to brainstorm. We have a well defined process that we used that we found was quite successful in identifying what robot features are important in the game. We also went over the rules to establish a common understanding.
By Monday night, I had worked out the size and shape of the robot. I also worked out the drive system and speed and pushing force target. By Wednesday the CAD leader on our team already finished most of the CAD model. By Friday we already started building the chassis. By Saturday we finished cutting the aluminum pieces for the frame and arm. Compared to a year ago we are two weeks ahead of schedule. You have to feel good when that happens.
Week One was great!
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FRC 2834