FIRST Robotics Report 1.2 - Viribus in Adversis

At meal time on Tuesday one of the kids said I looked stressed.  Plausible, there's a lot of things to keep track of and the clock is ticking.  But I handle stress fairly well.  Boredom not well at all.  I won't be bored during Build Season.

With a final roster of 25 we are averaging 18 per session.  I think this is going to be how it is.  There are always kids who need a break to study for a test, there are a few with recurring job conflicts, and we will always have a few out sick.  Adversity will give us Strength.  When the two kids who know CAD design are gone two more for whom it is not their main job step to whiteboard and keyboard.  Will the climber geometry work?  Despite the various attempts to make math "new" or "equitable" Euclid never compromises.

More on the great Monkey Bar Swinger as it evolves.  The rest of the game centers on these things:

Note the hand in the picture for scale.  This is a giant tennis ball, the sort you'd throw for Clifford the Big Red Dog.  Interestingly software had, at the three day mark, already trained our test bed machine to recognize the color and distance, and start to follow it.  I exist for comic relief mostly, perhaps I'll suggest this be called Clifford Mode.

We have a little group of kids whose main efforts have been prototyping mechanisms.  They like to sit on the floor while working.  On the one hand they have yet to produce what I'd call a Version 1.0 of either the necessary intake or conveyor for these things.  On the other hand, they have found assorted things in our inventory that work for these tasks and this shows that it Can be Done.

Yep, these work.  I sometimes tweak color in my photos to compensate for the lurid overhead lights.  Here I had to dial it down to avoid retinal damage.

These on the other hand did not work at all.

I see a gap between playing with gizmos and having something in a state that we can call a first draft.  But then I remind myself that this is a very young team.  Most of the kids working on mechanisms are 8th graders.  What were you and I doing in 8th grade?

All else being equal the two biggest things you can accomplish early that help later are closely related.  Get a robust drive train done and test the bejeebs out of it.  And driving practice, practice, practice.  Those Clifford Orbs are very bouncy which is bad for grabbing them but helpful when playing defense.  Here's the base of the competition machine as we approach the end of Week One (of Six).

It was a week of ups and downs.  3D printers were not working so we can't make parts and can't take our designs forward.  The school wifi was not working so software could not update programs.  The relatively easy stuff like building the drive base is nearly done, but it has not been smooth.  Five weeks to go.