Monday, August 14, 2017

Robotics Pre-Season 2017

A fun and busy "off season" week for the Robotics programs.  

The middle school robotics class went live for on line registration at 2:00 on Wednesday.  All 24 spots filled by 2:01.

And on Saturday the parade went off rather well.  Marvelous weather.  A good turn out of team members.  There was even a little extra time left over for work space tidy up.

In true robotics fashion the robot performed flawlessly on several pre-parade checks. Then when it was our turn to join the line it decided to not work.  Again in true robotics fashion the team tossed it onto the trailer and continued to commune with the laptop driver's station.  As we turned off of the access road and onto the actual route it came to life and drove amusingly the entire route.  It seemed to be a big hit.

A few pictures of the parade and a couple of short video clips.

Here we are lining up at high noon on a hot asphalt parking lot.


Notice if you will, that our trailer has a gigantic welded together alligator and a huge yellow industrial robot.


My job was just to follow along, make sure the drivers did not get too crazy, and to keep the emergency repair kit close to hand.  It was not needed although we did have to switch to the auxiliary battery on the competition robot.  This did not stop the progress of the parade, the kids made the needed connections switches while still in motion.


Our drivers were good, but not up the the precision driving of the Shriners in their little mini cars.  Well, they have had more practice.  And they are wearing fezzes which I think must help somehow.


Two short videos.  In the first one our competition robot chases the "Chairbot" around a bit.


Here Chairbot just ambles about in lazy fashion....


It promises to be a very fun robotics season ahead.

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