Captain Walter signing in. Tonight we began cutting the arm to make room for the shooter. We also got the gearboxes for the shooter wheels fully assembled. I will not go into too many details, as the pictures speak for themselves.

We also had a new kid, Marcus Shelton, join the team. 

That is all for tonight, the next post will either be tomorrow or sometime next week.

New kid on the block and programming progress made

Hey everyone! My name is Emily Looby and I am the new team blogger and photographer. This is my first year as a part of the University City High School Robotics team. I am beyond excited and look forward to advertising this club that little people know about.  I am also a member of the field hockey and swim team\, a National Honor Society member, and on the U-Times newspaper staff.

Currently, the programmers can now deploy code through the correct application and fixed a majority of the network problems. Christine and Nathan are working on disassembling  the old shooter in order to a build a new one. Meanwhile, Walter is working on the gearbox for the new shooter.

Temporary captain Walter signing in here! We opened up the lab today to find a MIG welder left there by some unknown person. If it is ours, and not just left in the room as storage, we plan to put it to good use. There are some pictures of the machine shop in there as well, with the welding box where it would be.

  

Back in the Lab

It may be summer, but that won't keep the RoboLions out of the lab. Walter, Christine, Jonah, Josh, Dan, Mr. Deitzler and I headed down to do a bit of midsummer cleaning today, discovering a whole lot of miscellaneous junk in corners of our lab, such as screws, bolts, washers, the long-lost sprocket bag, a lot of buttons, the One Ring of Power, and too many forks -- as well as a steel welder in our storage room. The box advertised that the welder could weld aluminum, though it would require 100% argon gas and a calm indoor space to do so, which is a little intimidating. However, if we can overcome those hurdles, Walter (an experienced welder) and Christine (going to welding camp shortly) should be able to weld parts of our next robot with ease!

End of Year, Senior Stuff and Summer Happenings

Hello! Just a quick update here from Captain Grace. We're in the middle of transitioning leadership right now so that means you'll get a new blog writer too (as I'm off to college in the fall and no longer on the team.) But it's never too late for an update.

In recent news:

In April, the World Championships were held here in St. Louis. Being a local team, we once again had the opportunity to travel down to the Edward Jones Dome for a field trip one day to just hang out and check out the happenings. We met lots of awesome people, saw lots of cool robots, and watched some intense matches. One of our members, Walter, even got to hang out with a team from Canada that would eventually go on to be on of the champions. So yeah, we've got friends in high places, no biggie.

Three members; Walter, Michael, and myself; also attended RoboProm that week, where we danced the night away with other geeks dressed to the nines and the ones and everything in between. Here we are below, with Shrapnel Sergeants member Nisha Rao, next to Walter (on the right end.) We look a little disgruntled, this picture was taken after we'd already been dancing and flailing around for a few hours. (And yes, that is a dress made out of old robotics shirts I'm wearing.)

In May, we celebrated the end of our season by hosting our annual end-of-season party at Frank and Helen's, a local pizza joint. It was bittersweet for us captains and seniors, as it was the last time we'll be there (as team members, at least!)

Also in May was the Academic Awards banquet, held at our school. All participating FRC team members received varsity letters, and those who have been on the team for more than one year also received FIRST pins.

Back row, from left: Jonah Zukosky, Henry Braekse, Coach Dave Sarber

Front row, from left: Joshua Stueck, Christine Politte, Walter Deitzler, Carl Sechrist, Lafayette Gatewood IV, Marquise Williams, Grace Deitzler, Michael Sarber, Dan Politte

Now, before I move on to summer happenings, I wanted to both thank all of the graduating seniors for their contributions to the team and also share a little bit about where they're headed off to next year.

Mike Sarber will be attending Saint Louis University to study Mechanical Engineering.

Daniel Politte will be attending Washington University in St. Louis, and he's not entirely sure (at least when I last talked to him) what he's going to study, but something in computer engineering maybe.

Paul Watkins will be attending Stanford University to study Mechanical Engineering.

Lafayette Gatewood IV will be attending the Missouri University of Science and Technology to study computer engineering.

Carl Sechrist will be attending University of Colorado at Boulder to study Physics.

And Grace Deitzler (me!) will be attending the Missouri University of Science and Technology to study Biological Sciences and Information Technology.

On to summer happenings! There will be meetings scheduled periodically throughout the summer as the team continues to work on various things, such as learning new technologies, organizing the room, fundraising and looking to gain sponsorship. Keep an eye out for emails/facebook posts about the next meeting, students!

Alright, that's about all I can think of. Until we get a new blog writer or I leave for college (whichever comes first) I'll try to keep you all updated throughout the summer as much as possible. 

Peace,

Grace Deitzler, Captain

Well.

To all of our adoring fans who read this blog regularly (I know you're out there somewhere), I sincerely apologize for not posting since the Friday of competition. Things have been busy, and I realize that's no excuse. So, to make it up, here's a pretty long post (I'm also doing this to procrastinate on a paper for school, so it's a win-win.)

To recap the competition:
On our final match, we FINALLY got the robot to do what it was built to do- release discs into another robot's chute. It worked beautifully :') Alas and alack though, we did not get chosen for eliminations. It was great fun though, watching the robots that did compete, and our former alliance partners LASER came out with another astonishing win. So, congrats to them!

And now here's the mushy gushy part. I'll try not to tear up as I write this, but it has to be said.
I love this team. Even though I may not always be the most dedicated captain, being a part of the RoboLions has been a huge deal to me and has actually changed my life. It sounds cheesy, I know. But it's true. Besides FIRST being an amazing program in and of itself, it's been my team, especially two particular members, that has amazed me the most.

When we started four years ago, we had no clue what we were doing. And yet somehow, we made it through that first crazy year, and the following four. My two co-captains, (and yes, I'm proud to call them that,) Mike and Dan, have been there since day 1, and though I joined a few weeks later, the three of us have had an incredible journey through these four years of high school. I think I speak for all of us when I say that FIRST has left an indelible mark on each of us.

To Mike and Dan, I truly appreciate everything you two have done for the team. So here's to you guys, to our days as freshman, to the starry nights where we escaped for "Captain's Meetings" (still some of my favorite memories), to sharing inside jokes, to getting through the days where we all just wanted to quit. To mustering the strength to coordinate an FTC team, to the competitions that we all loved so much, to Mike never even batting an eye at wearing that ridiculous (and hot!) lion costume to drive in. This is to you guys. You two are the best co-captains (and frankly, friends) a girl could ask for. So, thank you. I hope we can all still keep in touch and remain connected by the threads of FIRST as we move on with our lives. Best of luck to both of you. :)

Love and peace,
Captain Grace

Frantic Friday

Our day got off to an exciting start when we received our match schedules and realized we were up for the first match! Immediately, the crew got working on preparing Serenity for her first big game.

However, the first match was somewhat disappointing. The dustbin snapped off once again (although another team lost an entire bumper, so by comparison it wasn't that bad), and although we did some mediocre defending, by the end of the match Serenity somewhat spiraled out of control, incurring dozens of points of technical fouls. Furthermore, we forgot to unload some Frisbees from Serenity's chute. However, we were visited by three very friendly judges, and three scouts from Team 931 (Perpetual Chaos), and talked to each for a while about our robot. Captain Grace assigned Addy and Paul to watch from the stands and take notes on teams we were to be either paired with or against in the course of the competition.

Our next match was #15, around 10:40 in the morning. This one was a disaster. Someone forgot to remove the wooden plank lodging Serenity's arm in the upright position before the match. The drivers didn't realize this and kept trying to move the arm, which eventually broke the fasteners allowing it to move. Consequently, we didn't do much of anything. Henry made a valiant effort to score some human points, but it's awfully difficult to aim across the field. The wooden plank was removed and exiled to a corner of the pit, but there were still bugs to fix. The worst part was that we were scheduled for Match 18, meaning that any repairs had to be made in the queue line! 

In a few minutes, we competed again. Serenity still hadn't been completely patched up, but she did some decent defense agains Team 4331. However, we were allied with Teams 4330 (Rambunction, from Ladue) and 4154 (Perpetual Recursion), the latter of which was outstanding and carried our alliance to victory. We returned to the pit and leapt into action repairing Serenity, while Captain Grace talked with a scout. Our next match wasn't until after lunch, so we had ample time to repair those screws -- a task that might necessitate removing the entire arm!

While Walter, Christine, and Mike worked dutifully on the arm, the rest of us headed outside to enjoy glorious summer-like weather, eat Subway (provided by Mrs. Sechrist), and play an AWESOME game of Frisbee. The builders joined us for the last half of lunchtime, and then it came time to reenter the pit and prepare Serenity for a match in thirty minutes.

In our next match, we were allied with Team 1288 R.A.V.E.N. Robotics, one of the best shooters in the competition and at that time ranked #1. Victory was guaranteed. As for Serenity, she defended rather zealously, becoming locked up with Team 1706's robot for some time. Tension was high as everyone waited for 1706, perched at an awkward angle, to topple to the ground -- and the drivers stressed over losing connection to Serenity. However, after a few awkward moments, our opponent freed itself, bumping Serenity against our pyramid and incurring a technical foul. After that, noting that there was no way for our opposing alliance to make a comeback, Serenity retreated to a corner to let 1288 do their thing. Another win for 3397! We returned to the pit to inspect Serenity and make sure her close call with 1706 hadn't damaged anything.

The next match wasn't very exciting, since our two alliance partners built specialized climbing robots. Serenity ran about and blocked a few opponents. Our points were guaranteed by the climbers, but an opponent robot also bumped into the climbers twice, incurring 40 points of technical fouls that only cemented our third victory.

About an hour later, we returned to the field for another match. It's worth noting that our autonomous period had been faltering in every match until now. Dan and Josh anticipated trying out their new autonomous code on this match. However, she unfortunately turned in the wrong direction, so it seemed some changes still needed to be made. Furthermore, it seemed the new battery we'd put in was less than optimal: Serenity was sluggish and eventually stalled out about halfway through the match. Our opposing alliance included the 1985 Robohawks, our friends and rivals, who scored enough to wallop our team. Looked like our winning streak was broken.

Although autonomous goofed up again, in our next match we actually scored points, disgorging a few Frisbees into the 1-point goal. Unfortunately, we also bumped up against an opponent robot at its feeder station; and more worryingly, a corner of our arm shield broke off during a tussle with the Army Ants' robot. Also, our alliance was thoroughly trounced -- but the important thing is, we scored points! That's a victory in our book, even if Henry disagrees.

In our final match of the day, Serenity defended her best yet. The problem was that our alliance mates were not optimized for scoring, so all our awesome defending didn't mean much. Really, that was the problem with most of our bungled matches: simply not having any synergy with our alliance mates.

Well, with our matches for the day done, we migrated to the stands to watch the final few matches and the awards ceremony. Walter, Henry, and I danced with the Cavaliers before hanging out with the CyborgCats for a time.

All things considered, today was a pretty great day for the team. We fixed all the problems that came up, and marketed ourselves to higher-up teams. We didn't get a chance to do what Serenity was built for -- feeding teammates -- but there's always tomorrow. Regrettably, I won't be there on Saturday, due to a prior commitment; Captain Grace will take the reins of the blog then and keep you all posted!