Hey guys! Abby here!
So today we got a bunch of work done, even though everyone’s tired. The build team is working on smoothing the kinks in the shooter and CADing.
The programmers “made the joystick work. That’s it,” according to Tommy.
PR worked on the Chairman’s Essay, Woodie Flowers, and Build KC.
Electric team also helped with the shooter.
I know this doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but it’s sooooo time consuming. Hopefully we’ll get everything done on time and the way we want it.
Well that was a short blog. My apologies.

Oh you’re my beautiful target… you joon through my heart like a locket….

Sorry. I caught the K-pop disease hard.  Certain bands aren’t so good at English. I love them…

Anyway. Good news from the programmers today. Apparently autonomous works, and it’s FANCY. I don’t know what that means. Also, strafing issues were worked out, and the shooter programming as well. Although the shooter itself is being a little silly. They were practicing with it when I went down there, and there was a little too much backspin.

Alex got eye surgery this morning, and he was walking around with these super dark sunglasses and it was amusing. He told me that they’ve been cutting out parts all day for the actual robot, not the kit bots (whose names are R1 and R2D2). Everyone else in the CAD lab was, whatdya know, CADing, mostly for the shooter. Maybe. I’m not quite sure, I didn’t really want to interrupt. Other people in there were still doing build materials, which they’ve been doing all day, and they were frustrated. I feel bad for them.

Papa Cowan was fighting the welder this morning, and we ran out of argon gas, so productivity was very low. This was sad.

Liz said that today she mounted things and wired the practice shooter. Yup. That’s what happened.

For PR today, we finished putting “Don’t throw me” stickers on our frisbees so that we can still win safety awards while giving out frisbees in the pits at competition. I also made several safety posters, Ellie worked on chairman’s, and Deepa… did stuff. Probably having to do with something important and money and stuff. Oh, and Cosner was up here hanging out with us all day working on his scouting application, which you should download, despite that it has some bugs. It’ll be fine. You just have to have an android device.

Also, we started slacking off and watching epic rap battles of history. We are so productive, guys.

Anyway, back to K-pop.

“I’M NOT FOOL BABY….”

(Don’t judge me).

Rachel’s back, yo! And Abbey WAS dancing!! It was amazing! And it was right after she explained to us that she didn’t dance. The powers of K-pop are truly incredible, people.

If Abbey hasn’t explained (and I don’t know because even I don’t read this), the PR team has gained an obsession with all things that have to do with Korean music, mainly due to Liz. It’s technically my fault, but it’s mostly Liz. We’ve even been learning a lot of the dances… we’re dorks.

Anyway, stuff today. In the programming area, they were, as usual, very unwilling to exchange words with me. But several FTC team members are learning how to code for next year, and apparently all that needs to get done for the robot code is autonomous code, shooter code, and something else that I didn’t write down.

We’re a little behind on building, but we do have a shooter now that people were troubleshooting in the main area. It had something to do with configuring the pneumatics, but I didn’t want to interrupt, so no big explanation here.

Some younger electronic people were reconnecting motor controls for the drive train, which is on a wooden frame right now, while Liz, our illustrious electrical team head, was with Matt on inventor trying to figure out where all the motors and wires would go.

Mr. Reynolds had a team working out building materials, and the absence of records for that kind of thing was making them very frustrated. Needless to say, next year we’ll have a much better system of recording that.

Ashton was CADing the mount for the climbing system, and I really hope no one other than me interrupted him.

In the shop, people were machining parts and it would have been a bad idea to interrupt that. Someone was welding back there, hopefully a frame for the robot. We really need to get on that.

And that’s what’s up. Also, side note, my birthday today, and I haven’t been home all day. No presents until tomorrow, probably. We’ll see. But anyway, I’ve had a great day today. Lots of K-pop and dancing and awesome people. I really love my job here, even when I make Abbey do it for me. Just saying. So thanks.

Wait, who am I kidding? No one reads this!

Hello fellow nerds! It’s Abby!

I REMEMBERED TO BLOG!! You should all be very proud of me : )

So today the electrical team finished all the electrical work for the shooter, pneumatics, and most of the kit bot. They also brought the FTC kids up to speed on how to operate multisim diagrams.

Mr. Reynolds recruited a couple of people to help him with the Bill of Materials.  They’re trying to stay up-to-date with the robot as we build it, so that we don’t get to the end of build season and realize we don’t know what we made our robot out of.

Build team was working on CADing and machining again.

Programming was debugging (big surprise) and some really complicated thing I can’t repeat because I don’t remember it.  It was something to do with servers.  And techie stuff.  I’m not entirely sure it was English.

Well that’s all I’ve got for you today.  Wish me luck in remembering to blog!  And enjoy your nerdy lives as well. (FYI that is very much a compliment.)

P.S. The thing about me not dancing was after I blogged yesterday we were listening to music.  I just happened to be moving musically on the beat and it MAY have been interpreted as dancing.  Also, after this I am going to NOT dance to Kpop

I’m such a terrible blogger guys…. I should wear the cone of shame

Well anyway, this is Abby.

Today electrical team tested the pneumatics along with the programmers, did some trouble shooting, diagrammed the motor controller for the shooter, and looked at the CAD systems to see where they could fit in the electric wires.

The build team was in the shop today, machining parts for the robot, especially the shooter and gear box.  A few people were CADing as well, mainly the shooter and gear box.

Programmers were creating a new drive system in the robot, which apparently took as many screens as possible.  Seriously, when I went down there, five of them were all crowded in a little space surrounded by 7 computers!

In PR, we cut out stickers and put them on Frisbees while listening to random music.  We also got a bunch of safety booklets done.  It was a pretty laid back day.

So hopefully I’ll remember to blog soon. See y’all later!

So, blogging…… This is fun.  (BTW this is Abby).  Basically I’ve been going around asking people tons of things all meeting, and all I get are stupid answer like “nothing” or “go ask so-and-so.”  GRRRRRRR.

Anyway, the FTC team is continuing their work on the arm and resigning the claw.  They recently got a new member, Tanner, and surprisingly he’s been a lot of help.

Surprise, surprise, Build team was CADing again.

The Electrical team was in the shop today, working on drilling in the Talon and building the electrical board.  Once they finish this, the programmers will be able to test their code whether or not they have a robot to test with.  A couple of members formed a little side group and continued working on pneumatics with a few mentors.

With all this soldering and drilling going on, one of the girls accidently burnt herself on one of the irons.

We got a bunch done in PR today.  Rachel finished the Pokémon card templates, and made the first few cards.  Madeline worked on the safety booklet, drawing pictures and creating the template (including the rules) on Photoshop. 

Today, Lexi was working footage for the Chairmen’s video.  She (hopefully) got some good footage, but people kept interrupting her interviews and walking behind the footage (me! Oops).

We also got our t-shirt samples in.  Now we can finally see what size will actually fit, instead of trying to guess.  The FTC shirts came too.  They look pretty cool.  A little plain, but we are a rookie team.

Everybody was a little moody today, but tomorrow’s Friday and we aren’t scheduled to have a meeting.  I order everyone to go home and get some sleep!! I am declaring tomorrow National Robotics Naptime Day. Seriously, I don’t want to deal with sleepy teenagers on Saturday!

P.S. Good news! Our button supplies came in, so pretty soon we’re going to be cranking out buttons!

It’s Abby! I thought I was getting better at blogging, but apparently not because I forgot yesterday and I almost forgot today.  Good news though; I’m becoming more social!  I almost know everyone’s names now. Mission almost accomplished.

Today, a bunch of parents and students came to tour the CAPS building.  It was really cool to see a ton of kids motivated to do the stuff we do, but it was PR couldn’t listen to music.  It was depressing.  And also really quiet.  All I could hear was clicking and typing and breathing!

So today I did a bunch of interviews, a ton of people haven’t shown up (or are hiding) so I don’t have their profiles.  Also some new people are popping out of corners and I need to get them interviewed, even if they don’t commit to the team, just in case they stay.

In the programming world, they worked on Trigger, our belovéd soccer playing robot.  They also coded the joystick and debugged things.

The electric team arranged some pneumatics mock-ups and also worked on direct drive, which is just an easier way to do things.

Build and Design people built and designed things.  They did more CADing (no surprise there); in the shop, they cut and welded.

In PR, Deepa worked on the t-shirts, Madeline started planning and sketching the amazing safety booklet (poor Arnold!), Rachel worked on the Pokémon cards for the website, Ellie did some Chairmen’s research, and (like I said before) I worked on interviews.

That’s all for today, but I’ll try to be back tomorrow.  Don’t miss me too much!

 Hello nerds who read this amazing blog.  It’s Abby again.  Rachel forgot to blog on Saturday, so I’ve got to pick up the slack (yay me). 

Last week, we had our very first Saturday in build season!  It was awesome.  We got a TON of stuff done: buttons, shirts, and profiles for PR; designing parts and building prototypes for build/design team; programming for the programmers; and on-the-job training in pneumatics and wiring for the electrical team.  

Today, our FTC group rewired the robot, and “made stuff work” according to Mathew, but I’m not sure how much of it was actually working. 

Our wonderful design team brainstormed the ring handling system, the mini-cart frame, a rail system, and a loading mechanism. 

Mrs. Pudvan worked on getting the t-shirt vendors finalized, and we‘re going to give out the order forms ASAP. It’s going to be the best t-shirt ever.  I’m just saying. 

In the DE lab, Tommy said not a whole lot of programming was going on; only a couple people were coding.  

Lelani reported that electric team looked for some peg boards, and then started on the pneumatics system.   

 PR designed some awesome buttons, Ellie met the Chairmen’s deadline for today and left early, and Rachel finished the logos for our website.  It’s Pokémon themed!

Abby again guys (existential or not)!  

So our team spent a lot of time today CADing.  Seriously, I went to three different rooms and talked to at least seven different people and they were ALL CADing!!!! 

Also, we’ve started spring cleaning early.  Hopefully our cleaning bug stays longer than 2 days, like it did last time everything got organized.  PR, since we’re always organized (haha yeah right) met our deadline for Chairmen’s, started writing Woody Flowers, and drew up our polo shirt (took me FOREVER to get the horse to be gray!!) and sweatshirt.  Now Deepa plans to email our pictures and get the shirts printing and shipped.

Build team created a subgroup for sorting screws and bolts, and electric team pulled together and finished cleaning their cart!  Electrical had time afterwards and fixed the pneumatics system on Trigger.  According to team leader Liz, this served the dual purpose of training the newbies in pneumatics and enabling Trigger to be driven via mobile device. 

One of our FTC freshmen, Shawn, fixed the servo motor, while another, Siricheran (I probably spelled that wrong, apologies) created a basket for our claw.  The rest of the team worked on attaching the back wheels, apparently a daunting task.

Well, I probably should wrap this up; I’ve gotta finish up this amazing polo shirt. Bye!