After an exciting kick-off event, we have been working diligently to create the ultimate, steampunk themed, boiler-feeding robot! It only took a week of dedicated brainstorming to come up with a robot that would be able to take on the challenge of collecting and shooting more balls than any other robot on the field. In order to save time, we began building, without a final design, but we quickly decided on the design that would blow the competition away. It's been less than a month and already the chassis and gear box are completed, as we embark on the next task: mounting the electrical components.
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Monday, January 9, 2017
FIRST Steamworks | Game Animation
Build season has begun! Last Saturday, January 7th, this year's competition game was finally revealed! In FIRST Steamworks, robots must collect fuel and gears to power up our steampunk airships and take off! You can watch the video below.
Build season runs until bag and tag on February 21st. During this time, we will be meeting Tuesdays through Fridays (yes, four days a week), until 5:00 pm after school. If we are behind schedule, there may be additional Saturday and extended Wednesday meetings. We ask that everyone participate as much as possible. This robot is all of ours, and the more you show up, the better our robot will do and the better we can represent our school in the upcoming competitions.
We are planning to post weekly updates about what we are doing during build season, so check back here if you are interested in following our process. Thanks for supporting our team!
-Jonathan Hacker
Build season runs until bag and tag on February 21st. During this time, we will be meeting Tuesdays through Fridays (yes, four days a week), until 5:00 pm after school. If we are behind schedule, there may be additional Saturday and extended Wednesday meetings. We ask that everyone participate as much as possible. This robot is all of ours, and the more you show up, the better our robot will do and the better we can represent our school in the upcoming competitions.
We are planning to post weekly updates about what we are doing during build season, so check back here if you are interested in following our process. Thanks for supporting our team!
-Jonathan Hacker
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Learning to Build Robots
We don't build our brand new competition robot until January, but in the meantime we've been working on making some changed to our robot from last year as a way to teach our new members about building robots. We drove last year's robot in a school assembly a few weeks ago, and we noticed that the drive train we were using had a very difficult time turning on the gym floor, and later the concrete floor of our shop. During competitions we drive on carpet, so the wheels weren't an issue, but we figured it would be useful to change the wheels to omni-wheels, which would let it turn really well on any flat surface.
Over the last few weeks we made several major changes to the robot. In order to better access the electronics, we removed the arm that we used last year to cross ramp obstacles in competition, since we wouldn't really need it any more. That way we could mount the bridge in a more secure position and actually reach the ports on the RoboRio.
In addition, like I mentioned earlier, we replaced the regular wheels we had before with omni-wheels so it could turn properly on hard surfaces. Our regular wheels wouldn't let the robot turn without skidding because there was too much friction when you try to move the wheel sideways. The omni-wheels have smaller wheels built in to the edges so it can move freely in any direction.
To do all these changes, we needed to completely dissemble both sides of the drive train. Also, the new wheels were slightly different smaller, so we had to create new spacers to let the wheels fit in without too much slop.
These high-schoolers, some of whom had never even touched an allen wrench before this school year, practically replaced every part on that robot, in some cases more than once. They've already learned many new skills and have a much better understanding of robotics and engineering in general. We will begin going over electrical aspects of the robot, as well as get a chance to program the robot within the next few weeks. With all this practice, we will be more than prepared for build season when it comes!
-Jonathan Hacker
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| The Robot (Named Mjolnir, after Thor's Hammer) |
In addition, like I mentioned earlier, we replaced the regular wheels we had before with omni-wheels so it could turn properly on hard surfaces. Our regular wheels wouldn't let the robot turn without skidding because there was too much friction when you try to move the wheel sideways. The omni-wheels have smaller wheels built in to the edges so it can move freely in any direction.
To do all these changes, we needed to completely dissemble both sides of the drive train. Also, the new wheels were slightly different smaller, so we had to create new spacers to let the wheels fit in without too much slop.
 |
| Front: Jahad Back (Right to Left): Jonathan, Wesley, Mikhail, Julian, and Thomas |
These high-schoolers, some of whom had never even touched an allen wrench before this school year, practically replaced every part on that robot, in some cases more than once. They've already learned many new skills and have a much better understanding of robotics and engineering in general. We will begin going over electrical aspects of the robot, as well as get a chance to program the robot within the next few weeks. With all this practice, we will be more than prepared for build season when it comes!
-Jonathan Hacker
Thursday, October 20, 2016
2017 Robotics Season | FIRST Steamworks
Welcome to a new robotics season! We're starting this year with the season's new theme: FIRST Steamworks! Here is the teaser video that announced the theme:
After the awesome medieval theme of Stronghold from last year, we thought there was no way that anything could be better, but Steamworks has us blown away. The possibilities for a steam punk game are endless, and we can't wait for kickoff on January 7th when we will learn what this all means.
We are excited and looking forward to robotics this year. We've already started off better off than previous years, so we are expecting this to be our team's best year yet!
After the awesome medieval theme of Stronghold from last year, we thought there was no way that anything could be better, but Steamworks has us blown away. The possibilities for a steam punk game are endless, and we can't wait for kickoff on January 7th when we will learn what this all means.
We are excited and looking forward to robotics this year. We've already started off better off than previous years, so we are expecting this to be our team's best year yet!
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