The Fourth Law of Robotics: August 2011

New to FIRST?

Hello, Robolions team members, mentors, friends, and community members! Welcome to "The Fourth Law of Robotics," home to University City High School's FIRST (For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Team. We hope to use this blog to inform you about what we're up to.

We compete in the FRC (First Robotics Competition), an annual competition where we have six weeks to build a robot from scratch. This year's game is Recycle Rush. We'll post updates here to let you all know what we're up to with building (and competing with) our robot!

We also are now competing in FTC (First Tech Challenge), the next level down from FRC. The game was called Ring It Up!

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Mecanum Drive!

Wednesday was the last of the team's summer build sessions. All the aspects (mechanical, electrical, programming) of our summer goal came together, which was to build (and drive!) a mecanum drive system. It lets the robot go sideways -- without turning. Check out this awesome footage:

This is not Quorra, our competition robot from last season, but a test robot. Its frame is Pele's, re-assembled specially for testing the mecanum drive. Its name is, by consensus of team members at the meeting, "Butter."

And now for a reminder: we have a planning meeting on August 24, from 5:30 - 7:30 pm.