Written by Sophia Thieringer, Manuel Romero Maspoli

Week 0 competition is now less than a month away! By February 28th, our team has a lot of boxes to check. Build super busy working on putting parts of our robot together in order to get the robot to programming with enough time left to do their wiring.

Programming

Programming is busy at work before they are handed over the robot by build—now expected to

get a hold of it by February 17th. Path planning is a large part of the robot's programming as it determines how the robot moves based on how the driver maneuvers the robot's controller. This is why it’s at the top of the list for the programming subteam to get

down. Being able to detect objects is also critical for our robot to achieve. What our team calls “Chicken Vision” is our robot's way of determining where certain objects are. This is currently being worked on to improve its performance. The freshmen on the programming subteam are coding 2D arms. This is a great learning opportunity for them to get their hands on more strategies of coding for our robot. Finally, the programming subteam is busy finalizing the subsystem codes. These are specific codes for the different mechanisms that help the robot score, such as the shooter, turret, and intake.

Build & Design

Build & Design has been on crunch time, trying to get the robot built so they can hand it off to programming to do wiring and work with autonomous programs. This week, we are proud to say that they have finished the robot CAD! This means that they have now started actually building. For now, this means assembling the belly pan and making sure the drivetrain is prepared because other

subteams need it to accomplish their goals. Additionally, they are working on subsystems like the shooter and indexer, which will be essential for our eventual goal of scoring as many points as possible during competition. They are using all of the build tools in the metal shop, constantly working away at putting the robot together with rock music, and we are all for it. 

Operations

This week, the operations subteam has stepped foot into some local businesses in order to provide some more funding for our team. Some of these

businesses include Culver’s, Snuffy’s, and Northern Tool + Equipment. Flyers were created that represent our team—featured on the right—that we printed and handed out along with a short speech to these potential sponsors. There was some success, however, there are some emails that have to be written to people we were directed to who have the authority to sponsor us. These emails are being sent out this week. In addition to raising funds for the team, the operations subteam is working on the Impact Award Essay, a critical piece of writing that is reviewed by FIRST judges who then observes our team as a whole and determines if our team is deserving of the Impact Award. Our website is another thing that is constantly being chipped away at—from its content to its design. It’s a work in progress, but we hope to get it up and running as soon as possible. Finally, social media has been a big focus for the operations subteam and it is something that the team wants to improve, both its quality and quantity of posts. They have created a large Campaign Calendar that plans out when and what to post. This will help them be consistent in their posting.

Strategy

The strategy subteam relies on the scouting app to track and analyze the performance of robots at competition. This app needs to be altered for this year's game in order to be specific towards certain objectives. The Playbook is another thing that is being worked on. The Playbook shares moves and strategies for this year's specific game. Not only does this help our team this year, but it will also be helpful in future years as it preserves our current knowledge on certain strategies that are effective that can be applied to other games. This past week, the new Drive Team members have been announced. This was a lengthy process for the strategy subteam to complete as they had to consider many different qualities from different applicants for the Drive Team. With all that in mind, they were able to craft the best Drive Team possible. As members of the Robotics Team, we are all aware of the importance of maintaining our build cart in an organized manner in order for parts and pieces to be easily found. The strategy subteam was kind enough to help the build subteam organize their cart so that they can access their materials as efficiently as possible.

We hope to see you at Week 0 completion at Irondale High School on February 28th!

Thank you!!