Wednesday, March 6, 2019

FIRST Robotics 2019 - Open House

After Bag and Tag we took a much needed break.  For a few days anyway.  With a five week gap between the official end of build season and our competition it was tempting to just ease way back, but of course that can't happen.

Our wayward software and PR kids came back from that long school trip.  And even our builders still had several minor subsystems to tune up.  And practice, practice, practice the driving using our "B-machine", shown here being prepped.



We had hard slogging to to get ready for an Open House.  Remarkably every critical system was non/minimally functional on Saturday afternoon.  Things broke that I did not think were breakable!  But the team kept plugging away and had things in order and it must be noted completely cleaned up in time for company on Monday.

We had a very good turn out.  School board members and administrators, teachers, sponsors, family members and perhaps most importantly, some next year Freshmen we hope to recruit.  


The robot ran for hours, which got the motors rather toasty, but had no significant mechanical issues. It really is an amusing machine to watch and the kids are getting better at driving it.  

Several software sessions in the days ahead, then more driving and mechanical tune ups on Saturday.

It is all rather tiring.  I feel a bit like the kid in the foreground of the picture above.

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