Build Season – Week 6 Part 2

5 days 7 hours . . . . 4 days 7 hours . . . . 3 days 7 hours . . . .

A countdown to the end of build season was written in LARGE letters on the white board every day we walked in to keep everyone focused on how precious little time there was left before bag-and-tag hour.
The second half of the week could not have started better for us.  After all the hundreds of hours in planning, prototyping, mathing – we finally arrived at the point where we were ready for our first, full-strength test fire.  Nerves were a little high as, confident as we were in our team, we still couldn’t be sure if everything would come together as planned.  We set up in the hallway, used mentor Steven Smith as a fill-in for the truss, and had a go . . . and it all worked !!  Once we got the high-fives and ‘wooo-hoo’s out of our system we went into they gym to test our high goal shooter
We were quite pleased with the results of our work to date, but at the risk of sounding like a broken record: there was still much left to do!  While we had the right angle and sufficient power to hit the high goal, we could certainly improve our accuracy and also needed to tweak our launch angle to lengthen the ‘sweet spot’ we had and make life easier on our drivers.
The controls team also kicked into overdrive to get the driver station final designs in place.  A good amount of time was spent in partnership with our student drivers to come up with the best layout of the controls.  Also, we found the perfect use for our LED light strip.
The goal for Thursday and Friday’s meetings was to get our drivers as much time as possible on the sticks.  (That’s insider lingo for driver practice).  Given that all systems on the robot didn’t come online until 6 days before the deadline, the ability to get hands-on time driving the robot was at a premium.
We now move into the final stretch.  We will be taking advantage of the holiday and the school being closed and working all day Monday.  And then it all comes down to Tuesday.  We’ll be putting together a reveal video and some other goodies to show off what our 6 weeks of hard work have all been towards.
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Student Alberto M. posing for the cover of Robotics Quarterly
Student Alberto M. posing for the cover of Robotics Quarterly
Mentor Alexa Noxon and student Alex V. try their hand at soldering
Mentor Alexa Noxon and student Alex V. try their hand at soldering
Students Azucena M. and Oscar G. (far left) and Katya G and Joel G. (far right) have a Saturday afternoon dance off.  Because, why not?
Students Azucena M. and Oscar G. (far left) and Katya G and Joel G. (far right) have a Saturday afternoon dance off. Because, why not?

 

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