Friday, November 6, 2020

End of an Era. Also the Beginning of one.

Last robotics related post was "Moving Day" and it left some loose ends.  There was a lot of wood to deal with.  Mostly this was a big wobbly storage shelf that some kids slapped together in the early days of the team.  Also some very much better built "field elements" wooden practice analogs of things on the playing fields of more recent games.  They all had to go.

There was a real memory lane aspect to this.  Once again in covid times I was working by myself.  I continued to find fun little artifacts from the early, crazy days.  And I got to deploy a tool that had not been seen for several years now.  Behold, the mighty Hammer of Persuasion.


And yes, obviously I do feel a bit like Thor wielding this.  Our first year robot was rather crudely designed and built and often needed taps with this to get shafts through bearings and so forth.  In recent years everything has been computer designed and precision fabricated, so The Hammer has not been needed.  But it sure came in handy knocking apart wooden structures.

And then for my last official duty I got out another tool, one I have used often in recent seasons.  The team is building things way beyond my skill level so I mostly order and sort supplies....and sweep up.


As of mid day 10/26/2020 the robotics stuff had been, as was necessary, reduced in bulk by 50% or more, packed into somewhat findable containers and moved to a new temporary home.  We hope to transition into the school's STEM center in the near future.

And so of course by 5pm came the word that an increase in covid in the community meant that school was going virtual until at least the end of November.

Sigh.  Well, we are at least ready and in good order when - and may it be soon - the world starts making sense again.

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