Build Season 2013 – Week 5 Recap

The fifth week of our build season was the most stressful yet, with time left to build the robot constantly decreasing and deadlines fast approaching for both engineering and non-engineering teams. Unfortunately, many of the engineering sub-groups are behind on their work, including the shooter and climbing teams, although with days off school approaching and another week left for build, we should be in good shape to meet our deadline for bag-and-tag.

This week was a busy one, with meetings every day as well as a team photo shoot on Saturday. We also had additional team photos taken for the Rochester “Community First” Award, which honors groups that give back to the local community.

All the sub-teams have been working diligently to  fulfill their goals.

The Chassis Team have started working on a chassis for the second robot, which we will use to practice and will fully build once the main robot is complete.

The Disc Shooter Team has finished the first shooter and has currently been working on mounting it to the chassis. As they continue to work with the Disc Acquisition Team, both teams are figuring how they will fit together on the completed robot, keeping in mind how they will place motors and the camera. As the current task finishes up, they will most likely move on to making a second shooter, testing the current one, and continuing to work with Disc Acquisition.

The Climbing Team have finished working on their CAD, and have done some testing. They will be working endlessly in coming days to finish putting their mechanism on the robot in order to be ready in time for bag-and-tag.

Over the past week, the Programming Team has been finishing the overall structure for the robot code. The behavior classes which control shooting, driving, and targeting have been completed along with the logic classes which control climbing and image processing. The drive code has been completed along with the dashboard. Data logging has been implemented and the cRIO board has been tested for each of its motors. They have worked alongside the Controls Team to make sure everything that will be put on the robot works and can be controlled. A lot of time over the weekend was spent testing the camera and sensors with the pained goals made by the Field Team.

The CAD Team worked all week to finish all of the computer drawings of the components of the robot. Due to the tireless work of the team, most of the CAD is now complete.

The Scouting Team has nearly finished their design for a scouting sheet, which they will use at competitions to keep track of the progress of other teams in order to form strategic alliances if we make it to elimination rounds.

This week the Marketing Team prepared to set up the pit for the Palmetto Regional that is coming up. They checked that each part was present, and made sure to take note of what was missing. Furthermore, they started to brainstorm and design the commercial that will be put in our pit. Also, they began cleaning the parts in the pit to make it to look neater for competitions.

The Business Plan Team worked on making last-minute adjustments to the plan and making sure everything was completely up-to-date for when the plan is sent in this week. Those who have been chosen to present to judges in pits also practiced this week. 

The Digital Media and Photo and Video Teams have been working on updating the website and organizing the new student profile pages and the photo galleries. Unfortunately, we have decided to postpone our podcast ideas indefinitely as we want to prioritize on making our website as current and as high-quality as possible.

The Animation Team has been learning practicing some animation skills.