FIRST Robotics - The Storm before the Lull. Also, Rust in Pieces.

Been a while since the last robotics update.  Things are ramping up, with basically one month before kick off and the frenzy of build season.  We have just a few crazy sessions left to get ready.  Then of course comes the lull of Christmas break.

We usually save Saturday sessions for build season but decided to make an exception.  There are  a few time consuming things you should get done, and the after school sessions were just too short.

Among other things we had the traditional Robot Funeral for our last competition machine.  R.O.B. had a long life for a robot, now he can rest.

One of the families actually made a cake for the social hour after the funeral.  OK, it was actually more like five minutes, we had work to do and 18 kids dispatch a cake pretty fast!

The eulogy was nicely delivered by Reverend Meg.  Then four pall bearers carried R.O.B. the robot on his final journey.  A team member played taps on his trombone.

Because robots are all Buddhists and their faith involves reincarnation, R.O.B. will live on in reused components.  Here the process of scattering him into eternity is under way.

A fair amount of real work also happened.  We've been working for several sessions now on an intake mechanism.  It folds into the robot at the start of a match, then deploys thusly:

A couple of years back we really struggled trying to build a mechanism of this sort, ultimately falling short.  So this more organized effort was long overdue.  And did it work?  Uh, yes.  But it is somewhat overpowered.  We were using a small plastic box as a test object.  It yanked it in hard enough to break a corner off when it slammed into the robot frame.  And when we reversed it to release the box it skidded it fifteen feet across the floor!  Admittedly this is on full power, but you'd have to call it a successful test!.

Another feature of the session was a Mock Challenge.  A hypothetical game complete with rules and regs.  We broke the team up into three working groups and gave them just under an hour to come up with game priorities, drive train and manipulators.  Each had a plausible end product.  When the veterans who led each group were asked to give percentage confidence that the team could actually build their ideas they went with 80%, 85% and 90 plus %.  I concur.

And we have seen a glimpse of the future.  For quite a while now we have been tinkering with an omnidirectional "swerve drive".  Well it lives.

There is something slightly disturbing about watching this thing move.  Most robots have a certain herky-jerky nature to their travel.  You can tell they are mechanical.  But Swervy is smooth and fluid.  It looks and feels "alive".  Whether it can be made reliable in the time we have remaining is still unclear, the programming necessary to have it make its way in the world is a study somewhere between mathematics and theology.  I understand it not.

And other stuff happened.  New methods for marking and measuring stock, more organizing of our many parts and widgets, progress on a robot transport cart worthy of the team and its creations, tour guiding of visitors, graphics work of various sorts.

I'll be gone next week, the first session I have missed in quite a while.  Who knows how much progress they can make when I'm not around to bother them!  Of course at my age I begin to realize that one day I'll be "gone" on a permanent basis.  I'd be happy if the team just re-used the service they did for R.O.B.   Although I would ask that they take less time afterwards to eat cake, and just get back to work sooner.