BEST Robotics Kickoff in less than 10 days

BEST robotics kickoff will be on September 13th at Westlake High School. That is one week earlier than we had expected. The students all seem very excited about the event.

Today we looked at the rules and game from last year's BEST Robotics Contest. The one student returning from last year and I worked on placement of the current team members according to the jobs each person indicated interest in. While he and I were working on our project, we heard many comments that sounded eerily similar to last year. The designs and idea seemed very aggressive in design and strategy. We will have to work on keeping our design simple and effective such as we did in our robotics contest in the spring. The students will present their plans, designs and strategies in class tomorrow. It will be interesting to see their work.

Natalie Craik called today to visit with me about a team meeting with this years current team. She has been talking to team members from last year who are attending University of Texas. She said that Richard McClellan, mentor from AusTIN Cans, wanted to come and visit with the team as well.

I am still working on getting shop furniture. Who to order it from? What is the budget for it? When will it get here? All questions still to be answered.

Individual Decisions versus Group Decisions

We have spent a few days watching FIRST videos, discussing contests, robots and the year. We finished moving the last of the materials from last year's shop along with the drill press.

Today we began one of the classic survival scenarios. The students ranked 12 items left from a plane crash in Northern Canada. They wanted to give other advice during the individual ranking time, so I had to keeping reminding them to work on their own. After they finished their individual rankings, I divided the class into two groups and separated them. They ranked the items again as a group from one to twelve as well as reasoning of it was ranked accordingly. Lots of discussion ensued as they discussed the items and how to rank them. It will be interesting to see how their rankings compare to the expert ranking and explanations.

We still do not have shop furniture. I do not now when we will get it or what we will get.

Robotics II - Who Do You Appreciate

Today was the fist day of school. Robotics II had 25 students in the class. It is very tight in the classroom with all of those bodies. Throughout the day, I had no less than six students want to discuss the Robotics II class with me. I had to tell them we did not have room for them. It is so hard to turn away students who are excited about the possibility of a class they are interested in. They did have the opportunity to sign up for the class last spring though.

I challenged them to leave a legacy as last years class did - Rookie of the Year at Lone Star Regional and qualifying for First Robotics Championships in Atlanta. "Can you get back to Championships this year?" Tall undertaking to say the least with basically a whole new crew other our mentors and a two students back from last year.

Last year we had 11 girls out of 36 on the team. We have two girls in Robotics II this year. It is apparent that I need to work on recruiting more girls onto the team.

I wonder if any will drop the class because of time commitments and conflicts. I tried to represent the expectations of being a member of the Robotics II class and the need for each one to dedicate to our team.

The night before shipment of the robot

Susan practices with the robot the night before shipment. Josh, Stewart, Scott, Bobby and Jackson watched and helped. Joe, Scott, Norman and Tim gave their advice as well.

Susan made 12 laps in 2 minutes. She can successfully pick up and unload the ball as well knock the ball of the Hurdle with Stewart's new design.

This is video number one of our Ackermann steered robot for FIRST Overdrive contest. First day of driving with most of the programming bugs worked out. We need to work on the reverse steering still. It will just turn in place when reversed full speed.

Front of robot

Globe motor collar and potentiometer from Adam Olson