FIRST Robotics 2026 - Week Three Report

We are about half way through Build Season.  I think, and hope, we are half way done with the robot.  It's hard to tell.  Various components are being built in different parts of the shop.  Will they all play nicely together?

Pictures forthcoming.  Personally I've been doing things on the periphery.  I shot some video when the usual camera persons were not available.  It was of very mixed quality.  I wonder if my geriatric eyesight in the tiny little preview screen had anything to do with it.  Oh, and I helped kids with bumpers.  Bumper construction is the most tedious of tasks.  I had hoped to escape it this year.  But no.  I guess its penance for my grievous misdeeds involving Robots Past....

Here's the robot at end of Saturday session.  It drives, picks up the game pieces, moves them on the conveyor belt.  This set of bumpers is made of old scrap.  Sufficient for testing and each crew of new bumper craftsmen must make the same mistakes.  In recognition of the Hardship Assignment all students working on bumpers get a special ice cream ration.

We are already at the stage where multiple working groups are competing for access to the robot.  It takes a bit of stage managing to get tasks prioritized.

Here's the CAD drawing of what the robot will look like with the extendable hopper, indexer and shooter added on.

And a couple of short video clips showing respectively, the intake/conveyor system working....

And....what the shooter can do.  Note...this was with the cameras and software recognizing the target distance and height, and automatically spinning up to the correct rpms for this location!

Soda Bottling in Chippewa Falls - Part One, the Early Years

When you study the history of a Wisconsin community the Brewing Industry looms large.  Most medium sized towns had several breweries and they were a significant element of local culture.

Soda pop bottling is mostly unrecognized.   

So I guess it's time to revisit, update and extend the history of soda pop bottling in Chippewa Falls.

I've covered some of this in the past.  For instance the brief attempt by Schofield, Garon and Hebert to establish a soda pop factory in the late 1860s.  They seem to have set up shop, ordered the equipment and bottles, gotten things going....and then quit after a few months in 1868.

I think that, among other problems, they had a measure of competition.  Matt Johannes had come to next door Eau Claire in 1860, starting the areas first soda pop factory a few years later.  He may well have operated in Chippewa Falls too.  Fragments of his distinctive 1870's bottles turn up on occasion, and he is known to have owned commercial property in town. 

A 1936 newspaper article with the headline "Landmarks in Chippewa are Being Razed" has this to say:

"Two of the oldest landmarks in Chippewa Falls are being torn down.  They are the two buildings located at 409 and 411 Bridge Street, owned by Mrs. Albert Nunke of this city.  Both are frame buildings and were erected about 60 years ago (Note, that would only put them in the late 1870s)....The properties were formerly owned by Mrs. Nunke's father, the late Math Johannes of Eau Claire."

The article mentions that various businesses were carried on there, including a tailor and a barber shop, but the logical thing for a soda pop bottler to do with a building in a near by community would be to sell pop there!

While a storefront operation would do just fine to store, sell and most importantly to collect your returned bottles, it would take a bit more involvement to actually set up and start manufacturing soda.  Perhaps after a while business was good and the bother of hauling wagon loads of clinking bottles with sticky residue all the way down to Eau Claire just got to be too much.  And Johannes also needed to do something with young Albert....

Albert Nunke was born in Prussia in 1853, emigrating to the United States in 1867.  In 1874 he joined the army, serving five years and supposedly being engaged in various skirmishes with hostile Indians.  He turns up in Eau Claire circa 1879 and spends the next few years learning the 

soda business from Matt Johannes.  While also apparently making goo goo eyes at the boss's daughter Mary!  After marrying the gal Nunke started his own bottling works in Chippewa Falls, with the most likely starting date of 1882. 

Nunke's factory and his home - still standing btw - was on Jefferson Street.  In the 1880's this would have been on the edge of town.  But it turned out to be a pretty good location.  Because eventually it would be right next to the biggest park in the city.  Irvine Park specifically.  But the benefits of that would come to the next owner of the business, as the park was not officially established until 1906.

Albert Nunke's life, at least the part after the Indian fighting days, does not sound very interesting.  He bottled soda pop until 1904.  I found one mention of him at that time also being involved in, of all things, selling washing machines...maybe bottle washers?  His second career was selling insurance, something he did up until his death in 1920.  He was also a City Councilman for many years.

His later life was characterized by ill health.  He had heart troubles and was diabetic, in an era before effective treatments.  So his passing was not a surprise.  But....he went out with class.

It seems his daughter Mayme was getting married.  With Albert's failing health there was discussion of whether the ceremony should be delayed.  But he insisted that it go on as scheduled, saying "Never postpone it on my account.  I will be there to eat a piece of wedding cake."

Strong words, but his strength failed him.  But the wedding went off as planned.  When he was told that it had happened he was too weak to speak, but is said that a "smile of satisfaction" came over his face.  He died the next day.

Here's a photo of the Nunke House.  The soda plant was back behind it.   

For the continued story of soda pop in Chippewa Falls, there will be a Part Two shortly.

Barking at The Hobyahs

Hank the Dog has many good qualities.  In particular he takes his duties as Watch Dog very seriously.  Too seriously I've often thought, raising a loud Red Alert if he sees someone wearing a shirt slightly suggestive of a mail man two blocks away.

But maybe I've misjudged him.  I'm sure he regards me as a worthy Master but clueless as to the dire perils of the world.  Some people claim that dogs can perceive things beyond our senses, and I suppose they could be right.  Which brings me to The Hobyahs.

As I've had to pick through the Detritus of my parents' household, all manner of old artifacts and old memories are unearthed.  Here's one:

At Lowell Elementary School the reading material on hand was dated and, how can I say this, not always up to modern sensibilities.  So I definitely remember reading about Little Black Sambo.  There were tigers involved.  It became an unfortunate thing to mention with regards to Black America.  In a sense this was incorrect.  The story of Sambo was written and illustrated by a Scottish author who had lived in India for many years.   But that's not related to Hank.  He'd turn tail and run at the sight of a good sized cat, never you mind a tiger.

No, I recall another story.  That of Little Dog Turpy and the Hobyahs.  I thought it was a West African tale.  Basically an old man, an old woman, and a little girl live in a small house with their Little Dog Turpy.  Every night evil creatures called Hobyahs come and say they are going to devour the adults and make off with the little girl.  Sheesh, I guess it took more to "trigger" people back in the 1960's.

Turpy barks, well, barks his fool head off and the Hobyahs run away  His foolish master cuts off Turpy's tail as punishment.  On subsequent nights this happens again and again, each morning the really stupid master chops off a leg, etc, until eventually Little Dog Turpy loses his head.  Literally.  That night the Hobyahs break in and do all those horrid things.  (The little girl does eventually get rescued).

This was in story books for grade school kids!!!!!

As it happens, the story is not West African.  Yep, another one from Scotland.  Supposedly it was included in a collection of fairy tales compiled by a Mr. S.V. Proudfoot.  Who learned it from somebody in Perth Scotland.   Hmmmm, something seems a bit off here.

If you know your Tolkien, oh and I do, there is a family of Hobbits by the name of Proudfoot.  Somebody once asked JRR if he knew the Hobyah story, and if it had anything to do with his creation, the Hobbits.  He denied it, saying he'd never heard this particular fairy tale.

Well, there you have it.  I shall conclude with two observations.  As I am planning our spring trip to the UK there is some discussion of a side trip up into Scotland.  Out of curiosity I took a look at where Perth actually is.  The first thing that came up on Google was a Lost Dog notice!

And finally, as no actual description of the Hobyahs seems to exist, I guess I'll just have to keep trusting Little Dog Hank to keep them away.

FIRST Robotics 2026 - Week Two Report

Bit of an odd week.  The last half of it had bitterly cold temps.  The sort of numbers that don't really matter if you quote them in F or C.  There was also - good timing - mid winter break, and some kids off doing college tours/Science Olympiad, etc.  But still, progress marches on.  (Yikes, makes me think of March, when our competitions start!!)

Lots of clever new mechanisms being prototyped, with a few approaching final production versions.  This is version 2.0 of the ball launcher, with an adjustable hood to change angle of launch.

This shows the Version 1.0 of the ball intake, and some crude duct tape experiments with the conveyor that will bring balls back to the launcher.

And, we have the robot's frame cut and ready for motors and mechanisms.

Here's the Week Two progress video.   

Video production has stepped up this season.  We are doing two a week now.  Here's a short, fun one where the "Hub", that's the field element you shoot the yellow balls into, is pulled out and assembled.  And then, well, suffice to say there is an option for a "Human Player" to launch a few from the sidelines....

And so it goes.  Decent progress but a few key systems need to get past the cardboard and duct tape stage of prototyping.  The nasty weather has slowed down parts delivery a bit....

Family Portraits from the early 1960's

At least I sure hope these are from when I was in roughly first grade!

There are faint captions on some of these.  This is My Family.

Now, I have three brothers but only two are shown here.  I think it probable that I, as the artist, did not include myself.  Yes, mom presumably looked like that when pregnant but the math does not work with regards to when I was in early grade school.  Also, the concept of Conception was still some years off in the future fort Young Me.  By the way, my dad  never sported a ZZ Top beard.  I think that was supposed to be a tie.  Also, as brothers we'd occasional tussle but would not kick each other in the butt when our parents were standing right there!

Probably our beloved dog White Tip.  Or an obese cat.  I cannot explain the wheels.

This one is labeled My Mother.  Evidently my youthful impressions were that she dressed nicely when she went to the grocery store.  And that she had huge feet.  Hmmmm, is the tendency for children to show adults with giant feet an inevitable side effect of us growing up down at knee level?  In some respects this image raises more questions than it answers.  What is the meaning of S P on the grocery bag?  I think our family mostly shopped at either Red Owl or Piggly Wiggly.  And, am I trying to be helpful here?  Or does the subtle creative nuance of showing my tongue hanging out mean I am ravenously hungry and trying to grab the bag away from her?

Well this one is clearly labeled My Father.  It's an interesting study, no?

The figure is tall, see my earlier comments on the knee high perspective.  He's lean and fit.  That wasn't dad at all.  He was, for as far back as my memories go, rather round in the middle.

Here he is wearing a blue shirt, something  I never know that he did back then.  It was standard white shirt and tie every working day.  Which was darn near every day!

Yet work is implied.  I've written earlier about the old doctor's bag that came out of the same cluttered basement as all these works of "art".

Well, there it is.  This seems to confirm that he was still using it in the early 1960's.  (for reference I was born in early 1957, and frog marched off to Kindergarten at age 4 in what would have been fall of 1961).

As to details, well, he was certainly bald and wore glasses.  I don't think he customarily had this determined facial expression nor the confident striding out into the world pose.  He was probably up and out of the house doing hospital rounds before we arose, and returned home tired at about 7pm most days.  The garish red lips?  Hey, when you hand a young artist a red crayon you get this sort of result.   Here's what he looked like towards the end of his days.  He's happily talking over Old Times, still smiling at the joke I just told him.  I confess to recycling some of my better ones.  It's the only nice thing you can say about memory loss.  It makes you a great audience!

Yeah, I Have a Question about This

Exactly what sort of vandalism involves lipstick?  Well, I noticed this at the middle school so darn near anything is possible.  A much belated National Custodian's Day.  I salute you.

FIRST Robotics 2026 - Week One Report

Pictures and video from our first week of build season:

Old robots being taken apart.  We need those parts, and new builders learn.  If you see how something comes apart you should understand how it went together.

An early build season task is always making accurate field elements.  We once torpedoed our entire season when a game piece delivery component was made with a ramp that was about 15 degrees from the spec.  Never again.

I never know how to illustrate what software does.  It's basically magic.  We thought this was going to be a weak spot on the team this year, but through a combination of alumni helping teach, a couple of smart 8th graders getting the call up to the Big Leagues, and another student with multiple talents helping out....looks promising.

OK, but where's Robot doing Robot things?

Intake prototype.  It has to be able to "touch it own it" for lots of game pieces.  We hope to have a capacity of 40.

And, once you have them, we need to be able to shoot them accurately on target.  Lots of 'em.  Fast.   In this one we got 8 balls airborne in 3 seconds.  Early "reliability" tests were hitting about 80% on target.  Not bad.

You may notice that we have adults holding this prototype down for testing.  It's not secured down, and it has a couple of flywheels that have a lot of stored energy.  There's a time to be a little extra cautious, and the end of a long Saturday session is one of them.

Of course consistency will be important, and it would be best to be launching them in pairs.  So a feed system is our biggest remaining challenge.   

Oh, and about flywheels.  We just happened to have a couple on hand.  They came off the fall Robot School machine which was designed and built with the sneaking suspicion that this would be a year to launch things.