Butter Shows Off

Today at our second build session of the school year, we had the chance to take our new robot Butter for a spin and impress a few other denizens of University City High School! Two girls from the school yearbook committee happened upon our hallway, and with Charlie behind the wheel, Butter got a chance to shine - running up and down the hall, nipping at passersby's ankles, and finally ascending a long ramp... sideways!

It's from this sideways motion that Butter takes its name, though only very loosely. And by very loosely I mean REALLY loosely... When it came time to name the robot, the always-hungry boys on the team noticed its crab-like walk and thought nothing more than, "Butter goes well with crabs." This name could most likely have been averted had Captain Grace been there to inject some sanity into the proceedings, but alas she was not.

No matter how bizarre the robot's name, the yearbook girls seemed quite impressed, unless they were just frightened into submission. Several other people were attracted by the incredibly loud ruckus Butter's wheels made, and seemed similarly awed. Regrettably, despite bringing home several awards, the robotics team goes mostly unnoticed by a sports-obsessed student population. Sigh.

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.

Summer Session Success

Today was the team's second summer meeting, and plenty of progress was made. In construction, headway was made on the mecanum drive system, and parts for it were ordered.
In the category of programming, I made advances in building a recording function. When it's done, it should allow our team to record our drivers moving the robot, and then play it back autonomously. This system could prove helpful for building a better autonomous mode next season. So far, it partially works. When it really gets going, I'll post a video in this space.

- Daniel

To Our Readers

Hey! If you are a blog reader who is a teacher, interested parent, or the coach of an FLL or FTC team, and you're located in the area, we would love to come and demonstrate our robot for your group! We would show our robot's capabilities, explain the mechanics and engineering behind it, and teach the kids about what it's like to be part of a higher-level robotics team. It's a great, fun way to get kids interested in engineering, science and technology, as well as get them interested in a program that will teach them life-long skills.

If you are interested in a demonstration, please contact us at robolions3397@gmail.com. We can work out dates and times. Thanks!!

Summer Session #1

Today is our first summer build session. We have, as of today, 3 new members- Henry, Benjamin and Matt. It's good news for our team- Benjamin is interested in programming, which means that we have someone to take over Dan's spot when he graduates year after next. And of course, we always need more people to help build the robot.

Right now we are working on reattaching the CRio module. As you guys know, we had some complications with it at the competition, and ended up having to get a new one during the competition. National Instruments fixed our original CRio and now we are just working on putting it back on Quorra. That's our main objective for the day; that and getting our new members acclimated to the awesomeness of robotics!

Some other objectives for the coming weeks are getting the mechanum wheel system up and running so that we can use them for next season. We also want to do some more fundraising, hopefully selling more lightbulbs. We also plan to attend events and showcase our robot, to gain publicity. Now that we've got trophies, we are a regional Champion team, and have had our team written about in the Post-Dispatch, we feel like we should start doing more locally. Showcasing at Science Nights at the local elementary schools, showcasing at Club Fairs, anything we can do. The robotics program is growing in UCity, and we want to do all we can to help it!

So, this was just a quick update to let you know what we're up to. There will be more throughout the summer. Make sure to find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

Peace, love and robots!

Updates

Sorry for not writing in a while, we've just been so busy with end of school year stuff- a few of us took AP exams this week, and everyone else is getting ready for finals.

The Robolions haven't been up to much since the competition. We're planning on having a meeting next week to discuss plans for the summer, plans for next year, etc. Here are a few items that may be on the agenda for discussion:

-Do we want to meet over the summer? When? Where?
-Recruiting for next year- possibly build a Robotics float for the homecoming parade?
-Fundraising for next year- team fundraising as well as trying to get sponsorship from local companies
-Speculating on what next year's challenge might be! Several teams have already posted predictions on cheifdelphi.com, a portal/forum for FIRST teams.

Other than that, you probably won't hear from us for a while! But we will try to post updates from time to time to let you know what we're up to. Thanks for reading!

Last Day of Competition

Yesterday, Saturday, was our last day of competition. We didn't get home last night until 9:30, which is why we didn't post an update yesterday.

Our first match yesterday was early- 8:45! So we got to the pits early and strategized with other teams, and went into our first match with confidence.

Unfortunately, we lost that match. But considering that we were against some of the teams that would later go on to compete in the finals, we don't feel too down about it. We played to the best of our abilities, and our alliance partners did too.

The next match happened soon after the first, and we lost that one as well, but again, it was against a difficult team to beat.

We ended up in 46th place at the end of the day, which isn't so bad, considering that there are 88 teams and this was our first year in the Championship.

Later that day was alliance selections. We went into it hoping that we would be chosen, but we weren't. However, that didn't stop us from having a great time anyways. We watched a few other matches, and then packed up our pits. We came back later that afternoon to watch the closing ceremonies and final matches, The alliance from Galileo, Team 973, 111 and the Cheesy Poofs, won the championship- we were proud of them!

Afterwards was the Food and Friends event, where all FIRST kids got dinner, and then participated in various activities throughout the evening. There were game consoles set up, a few carnival-like booths with games and prizes, a talent show, and time for everyone to just hang out and meet new people. It was a great evening- we met some kids from team 249 who were pretty awesome.

Pictures will be on the facebook page soon! Peace!