Now that the build season is over, what are we going to do? Well, Team 100 is finishing the practice robot (which was put on hold due to time limits for competition) and soon we will be training our drive team. Soon we will have all the kinks worked out, or so we hope. Our first competition is the Sacramento Reginal at UC Davis followed by the Silicon Valley Regional.

~Pat.

Well, one robot down, one to go. The practice robot is mechanically finished and we are currently about 1/6 of the way done with the second. The second robot is the one that is going inside the bag. . . Unfortunately. However, things are going at good, steady pace and we are working hard to finish on time. The programmers are working on the practice bot so that the real robot can be worked on by mechanics and decorators up until the bitter end of build season. We’ll keep our readers posted when it’s really crunch time!

We have a working, driving, drive train! And an electronics board to match! Thank goodness we’ve got it together this year. The hardworking mechanics have been knee-deep in nuts and bolts as they finished up the frame and drive train on this year’s bot (name is yet to be determined). The electronics board is done and the programmers are configuring it so that it will actually work the way they want it to. The animators are well on their way to a finished product with narration and animations. The website has been moving towards success slowly but surely. We also might have a T-shirt design by the end of tonight, our thursday night meeting topic for today. The Wildhat has been refurbished and is now ready for intense dancing, jumping, and possibly even a mascot war at this year’s competition.

The CAD is done! Woohooo! We have started machining and assembling certain parts of the robot already. The website and animation are due soon so here on the website team we have been working our butts off day and night. The animators have animated almost all of our short video and we are currently recording the sound. Tristan, our photographer/videographer is hard at work with editing our “Epic Meal Time” spoof called “Epic Workshop Time. ” It’s hilarious! We’ve gone through tons of food and we’ll probably go through tons more but that’s what it takes to keep this team running smoothly. Until next time! And remember, Think outside the hat. –Sydney S.

The past few days, we have accomplished a lot for such a short amount of time. Our animators have received the prompt for this year’s 3D Animation. They are hard at work making a storyboard and brainstorming lots of great ideas. The “iikos” from last year will be helping our world this time around. They have to help rebuild our education system while saving the environment at the same time. Hopefully our animators will achieve great success with the help of the “iiko. ” Some of our new members are making the BOM, (Bill of Materials, not actual explosives! ) so that we can edit it as we go, rather than waiting until the end to do all of it. The CAD images of the robot are coming along wonderfully with the mechanics group working all day every day in order to meet the deadlines we set. The programmers are testing cameras and starting to create the overall structure for the code. They are also finding out how to use the Kinect in “hybrid mode. ” A major concern this year is the weight of the robot. Since the robot can only weigh is 120 pounds, we will be very limited because we will be using a lot of motors and motor controllers. Also, instead of welding the frame, we will be bolting it together for a number of reasons, which adds a lot more weight. We will need to keep the weight down as much as possible. That’s the update! We’ll keep you posted. -Sydney S. .

As of today, we have determined exactly what our robot will need to do and basically how it will do so. Our creative and hardworking mechanics team has ranked what our robot will do in order of importance: 1) Pick up game pieces off of the ground. 2) Drive over the barrier. 3) Score accurately, at any height, consistently. 4) Balance on the bridge. 5) Push down bridge and drive over it. 6) Shoot from far away. This year, we are going to build a competition robot AND a practice robot. We have never done this before, but this year we are more organized and determined than ever. We have lots of new members and lots of experienced ones who are eager to design and build two successful robots. We will continue to update our readers as often as we can, and good luck to our competition! .

1/7/2012
Today was the first day of build season! Everyone was so excited as we awaited the reveal of 2012 FRC game: Rebound Rumble. Team 100 invited 6 other teams including: Team 766 the M-A Bears, Team 2144 the Gators, Team 3045 S. W. A. T. , Team 840 A. R. T. , Team 253 MRT, and Team 751 barn 2 robotics. Everyone watched a recorded broadcast of the 2012 Kickoff video in the Woodside High School Performing Arts Center. In the spirit of Gracious Professionalism, we split off into 4 classroom-sized groups and collaboratively brainstormed game strategy ideas. As everyone else went home we continued to discuss as a team. We created a way to get over the barrier by prototyping a simple drivetrain and constructing the barrier out of plywood. We have compared some aspects of this year’s game to games from the past. We always look at past robots to see how we manipulate game elements. All in all, today was informative and productive. .

Ok so where to start. . . ? Oh hey, we won! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! But not without some problems. We were pretty much freaking out at the beginning of the weekend.   (I lost the game. )  After flying in late on Wednesday, we had all kinds of issues.  We destroyed the rope twice in our winch, more importantly the second time, when it ripped apart at the knot.  There were continuing problems with our omni-wheels bending, although we found out that they’re not terribly difficult to bend back.  Needless to say, that isn’t a perfect solution.  At one point, we were leaving to play in one of the Thursday practice rounds, and realized that the battery in our Classmate PC (driver’s station) was dead.  Team 359 had a similar problem when we were entering the finals round.  Another frightening problem we experienced was tipping over, an obvious issue for the tallest robot in the regional. Now onto the positives! ! ! The kicker was positively dreamy.  Other than all of the issues with autonomous, the kicker code (and the kicker itself, of course) worked incredibly well.  The only potential problem was when the robot tipped over; the kicker code attempted to keep the kicker up, with gravity in direct opposition.  The motor seemed to stall and heated up considerably.  A bystander observed a puff of smoke, but it later turned out that the kicker  motor was still entirely functional.  Although we’ve had to replace our old camera with one not specified as a direct replacement, it appears as though we are getting full usability.  It’s lighter, too!  Hmmm. . . Other good things. . .  After a considerable amount of trials and tribulations, the deployment arm for our climbing hook was perfected (more or less) and the winch was more than capable of lifting the robot.  Other than the rope issues, the winch mechanism was found to be incredibly powerful.  Not only was the motor-and-transmission combination largely impossible to backdrive by itself, but the ratcheting mechanism backed it up.  Once we were up in a match, there was no bringing it down.  And although the autonomous was quite a problem at the start, it eventually became very helpful and effective, repeatably acquiring and kicking a ball.  However, we can improve this without too much trouble; it kicked slightly off extremely consistently, indicating that it can be adjusted easily. *sigh of relief* the pluses were greater in amount than the minuses; we’re doing something right! By the way, go teams 294 and 359, our alliance partners throughout the finals!  What a dream team! I’m so glad the code works (at least, mostly >. <)

-Nick.

An update: an over-powered kicker has broken our upper limit switch, an over-zealous machinist broke our camera, and an over-active roller has shredded our beautiful neon green wheels. Thanks to good old fashioned elbow grease and dedication, we have attached a new limit switch, re-soldered an abused circuit board from the interior of our camera, and added a new set of Team 100 orange wheels. Never doubt the abilities of a small group of dedicated individuals under a deadline.

The robot program is nearly complete, but debugging has proven more difficult than we expected. Autonomous may very well be decided at competition. Currently, work is focused on setting up sensors in order to control (safely) the action of the kicker arm. Initially, a magnetic encoder was intended for this purpose. Unfortunately, it has been unhelpful thus far and, perhaps, not functional. We are working on using a photogate to stop the kicker motor in time. Also, we are using a limit switch at the top in order to verify that the kicker is ready to fire.