Michigan State Championship Recap

Written by Ryan Cesiel on April 15, 2011

If there’s one word to describe this past weekend its definitely “wow.”  The AdamBots finished as finalists at arguably the hardest, most competitive event in FIRST.

We were fortunate to have a more favorable qualification schedule and took advantage of it.  Thursday night, all day Friday, and Saturday morning, we competed in 12 qualification matches and finished with an overall record of 8 wins and 4 losses, earning us the #12 seed.  We scored over 100pts five times and scored a high of 140pts in qualification match #143.

We also had success elsewhere on Friday.  Instead of giving out the yellow rubber ducks like we usually do, we asked people to donate whatever they could in exchange for a pink, cancer awareness duck.  All $154.41 of our proceed go towards our 2011 Relay for Life fundraising campaign and benefit the American Cancer Society… Read More

Troy District Recap

Written by Ryan Cesiel on April 6, 2011

The AdamBots had yet another successful competition this past weekend at the Troy District at Troy Athens High School. Despite extremely tough competition from some of the best teams in Michigan, we were semifinalists and recipients of both the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Entrepreneurship Award and the Best Website Award for the third straight time.

On Friday, our primary driver, Alex Shultz, was at a welding competition and both Emily Bolewitz and Tanay Patel drove and helped maintain an excellent qualification match record.  We finished Friday with 7 match wins and only 2 losses.

Meanwhile, the Programming Team was working feverishly between matches and whenever they could get the robot to get a working autonomous mode.  They had to overcome several obstacles throughout the year, but stuck with it, and persevered.  Just before the elimination rounds on Saturday, they got it working.  Congratulations to Steven Ploog, Jason Merlo, Ben Bray and their mentors Mrs. Keithly, and Mr. Shultz… Read More

Detroit District Recap

Written by Ryan Cesiel on March 26, 2011

The AdamBots had another outstanding robotics weekend at the Detroit District event at Wayne State University the weekend of March 18, 2011.  We finished in third place after the qualification rounds with and 11-1 record.  Our alliances averaged 51 points per game against the average of 19 for the losing alliance.  Our only loss was against an alliance that included team 217, the Thunderchickens from Utica High School, who ended up as the champions.  Their only loss in the qualification rounds to an alliance that included us.  Our new, smaller and faster, minibot was very successful after working on the deployment method and strategy… Read More

“Victory Goes Beyond Winning” – 2011 Alamo Regional

Written by Ryan Cesiel on March 9, 2011

The AdamBots traveled to San Antonio to participate in the 2011 inaugural FIRST Alamo Regional and meet their rookie team, Team LamBot 3478, for the first time.  It may seem like a week 1 competition at an inaugural regional is a recipe for failure.  But the administration and volunteers of the Alamo Regional ran a very successful competition.  Thanks to them and all the wonderful teams at the Alamo, we had a very enjoyable and extraordinary experience.  No, we did not win the Alamo Regional, but we did have a very successful regional.

Mr. and Mrs. Drummer arrived in San Antonio with the robot Wednesday night and a helpful group of LamBots (Team 3478) unload the robot and setup the pit.  Students and other mentors arrived Wednesday evening around 11:30pm in San Antonio after a lengthy connecting flight.

On Thursday, we did some fine tuning, practicing, and helped Team LamBot 3478 with problems they were having on their robot.  The juniors that were taking the ACT and MME arrived Thursday night with Mr. Cesiel… Read More

Build Season Week 6 – Final Week

Written by Ryan Cesiel on February 24, 2011

Week 6 was a hectic end to the build season. We were trying to decrease the weight of our robot, finalize functions of the robot, program the robot, troubleshoot electronics and hardware, and many more things. Fortunately, the students had Monday (February 21st) and Tuesday (February 22nd) off because of the midwinter break.

During the week and on Saturday, the Electronics & Controls Team finished wiring up the robot which allowed the Programming Team to finally start testing their code.

On Monday, during some testing and practicing we broke the part of the motor powering the vertical movement of our arm.  We had to redesign what powered the arm. But, at this point we were still hovering right at 120lb.  Several mentors and students stayed late Monday to finish placing the new sprocket and motor on as well as “cheese-hole” every possible part our robot to cut down on weight.

Tuesday afternoon brought about a very pleasant surprise-a 117.5lb robot.  After much confusion over the variance in the weight of our robot amongst three different scales, we found that the robot had to be weighed on a solid surface such as concrete or wood instead of the carpet.  Otherwise, we got a wide range of numbers for our weight… Read More

Build Season Week 5

Written by Ryan Cesiel on February 14, 2011

Progress continued on both the robot and everything else this week. Different accomplishments and milestones included the Mechanism & Manipulator/Arm completing all the necessary structure, the Above Chassis Team completing the deployment mechanism, and the Media & Documentation Team took team pictures.  We did not accomplish our goal of finishing Saturday, February 12th.  However, we do have a firm plan in place to complete the robot in time for testing, programming, troubleshooting, and practicing.

But not everyday went as smoothly as we would have liked.  On  Thursday, February 10th, we weighed the robot in at 127lb with several miscellaneous items tacked on to account for missing pieces.  127lb! Immediately, we began reengineering and reconstructing sections to remove weight.  Since then we have been able to drop to 114lb thanks to several cessions by the Mechanism & Manipulator/Arm and the Above Chassis Team… Read More

Build Season Week 4

Written by Ryan Cesiel on February 6, 2011

Mother nature hit the midwest hard earlier this week.  Between 12 and 15 inches hit our area Tuesday night that resulted in two straight snow days for our school district. We were unable to work or meet both Wednesday and Thursday and consequently, our schedule has been pushed back while we have been trying to catch up.  While it was great to get a break from school, it’s never good to lose time during this frantic, six week build season… Read More

Build Season Week 3

Written by Ryan Cesiel on January 31, 2011

This past week was not as productive as other weeks because we had exams in school.  Build teams met on their designated days and everyone came on Saturday to build and finalize designs in CAD.

On Thursday night we held another design review to talk about designs, the status of projects, and see what needed to change or be done.  The Marketing & Website team visited Plex Systems Friday afternoon after exams to discuss their marketing strategies and techniques… Read More

Build Season Week 2

Written by Ryan Cesiel on January 24, 2011

This past week each team made significant progress and the robot design and build is going good. We are moving along on schedule at the moment. This was the first week of actual build which meant homework time and different teams meeting each night. On Thursday night, we got together from 7-9pm for a design review to present designs and see how we were doing based on our schedule …Read More

Build Season Week 1

Written by Ryan Cesiel on January 15, 2011

After attending the 2011 FIRST kickoff at Novi High School, we met the following day at Crittenton Hospital to go over the game and begin designing. During this meeting we came up with a plethora of designs, ideas and strategies that we had to narrow down in order to begin building. So, each day after school, students presented and narrowed down design ideas.

On Thursday night, student team leaders and team mentors met to finalize the design. We debated arm vs. forklift, different strategies, as well as drive systems. When the meeting was complete, we had finalized the drive system and planned to finish the rest of the design process this morning (Saturday morning) …Read More