FIRST Robotics Team #341, Miss Daisy, provides an update on their build progress for the FRC competition. Miss Daisy is part of the Wissahickon Robotics Program, which is an after-school activity designed to inspire young people to pursue careers in mathematics, science, and technology. Students build complex machines, learn business skills, travel around the world, win scholarships, and simply have a great time. The program is open to young women and men in grades nine through twelve. 

Design & Mechanical Build

Since Monday was a national holiday, Martin Luther King Day, the school was closed, but a handful of full-time members showed up bright and early (and some not-so-bright-and-early) to continue the previous week’s work. One of our challenges was that of the claw, which brings the basketballs to the robot. The build group assigned to the prototyping of the claw continued to construct and stabilize the robot; meanwhile, another build group worked with a coach to construct a jig. This would aid in fusing rubber strips together serving as the belt for the claw. Although the team could not complete the entire prototype, the small group finished the jig, meaning that the claw’s completion is not too far away. 

Tuesday – We returned to work the next day, turning attention to the near-complete claw as well as the ramp. A large sheet of Lexan arrived at the shop, so we spent time to affix the plastic to the top of our ramp in order to give it a realistic feel. This will play into how we will design the drive system and the kind of treads that will be used on the robot. During this time, a working prototype for the claw was tested; it successfully drew balls towards itself when powered by a hand drill. The drill rotated a steel bar, which in turn rotated the belt layer drawing balls inward. Already planning on our improvements, the build team went back to work. After we had dinner, the design team handed the build members a scale design of the base of the robot. The team is currently planning the best way to finally begin constructing Miss Daisy.

Thursday – The arrival of crucial parts increased production tremendously. A few people broke off and began cutting pieces of metal for the frame of the robot. Once cut, a few veterans began training rookies how to tap holes in extruded aluminum for the frame. Simultaneously, a few members continued the production of the reflecting tape around the square of the hoops for the field. After dinner, we began teaching the new members how to assemble the wheels of the robot properly. A few members of the electrical team began placing layouts of the electrical board. More belts were added as well as machined cardboard supplements. This improved the productivity of the claw and the feeder. Although there is still the final product to be completed, this year is already heading on the right track with the efficient use of time and labor.

Friday – Prototyping on the claw and the feeding system continued through the end of this week. With cut parts and the right materials, we were excited to finally begin the building process… that is until careful measuring found a potential issue in the mounting of the drive train. A small group of veterans began laying out wheels and assembling the chain that would link the parts together. Another team of veterans lead rookies and were nearing completion with their small project: transforming the boat made for last year’s musical into a wide base drive system. We hope to use the robot for experimenting with a wide robot base and figuring out how well it handles, especially on the ramp. The main goal of this week long project was to train rookies the basics of constructing a robot. Also, our drivers took the 2005 bot (Miss Daisy’s only other wide robot) into the hallways to practice driving in preparation for robot testing and game strategizing. Work on the robot’s drive train slowly got to a slow start. Although a little set back from the weather, we are still determined to create a championship robot hopefully by the 5th week of build season.

Electrical 

The electrical team is happy to report that the layout for the electrical board has been decided. This may change as the robot parameters are still flexible. This week, we worked together to physically lay out the design with all components. These drawings were then given to the CAD team in order to make all measurements precise.

Programming

This week, James continued to work on the backboard-locating software he was developing for the robot. Little to no substantial updates have arose as far as this project goes. The Axis Camera–used to take pictures from the bot’s perspective in-game–arrived for testing. James set up the appropriate information/user information for accessing the camera’s control system. We were intending to take sample pictures to test with the program once it was completed, however Sean is still constructing the practice backboards.

Media/Imagery

It is the second week of build season and we are busily working on the creation the 2012 robot. The media team is working hard to capture all the hard work as well as to expand our fall recap video and vlog. The fall video features all of the events in which the team participated over the summer and before build season. James as talent interviewed Eric, a member of the design team. Eric spoke to James on the design team’s progress over the second week. The media team also filmed a mechanical and electrical sequence on the progression of the robot since week one. In addition to focusing on the robot, we interviewed the coaches and asked their opinions on the game this year. The most common comment quoted Will.i.am’s FIRST interview last year, in which he called FISRT “dope.” For a fun tidbit, we filmed a segment at a school basketball game in our gym. The team members talk about their thoughts on basketball and which came first, Rebound Rumble or Basketball. Throughout the segment, our team never forgets to be safe, as safety glasses were worn throughout the shot!

The Media team has worked together cohesively this week. Veterans are working hard to teach rookies new skills which can then be applied to video editing and shooting. This is a positive change, since the experienced members took the lead last week. Now, the new members are having more active roles in the media team, which is really exciting.

Web

The web team has been hard at work writing and posting blogs addressing past events. We have five new blog posts covering: Duel on the Delaware, Monty Madness, Ramp Riot, Basket Bingo, and IRI. In addition to our vlog updates on past events, we posted the first of our build season blog updates for each section of the team. These posts can be found on the Team News Page of our website. We have also continually been updating our photos from this build season, so be sure to regularly check our Build Season photo album on the media page or on Flickr. We have additionally added the IRI selection from Flickr to our 2011 season media page. Our list of team members has also been updated. If you know someone on the team, you can now see what part of the team with which they are involved.

Business

This week, the Business Team continued finalizing content for the first newsletter. We did this by reviewing the information we obtained in interviews with the project team members and their weekly reports. We also identified the pictures we wanted to include with the articles and decided on the name for the newsletter. Our coach continued to explore options for creating and distributing the newsletter via internet research and discussions with other coaches. It was determined we will use a program contained on our team laptops and we will distribute the newsletter via email to our sponsors. We are excited to begin sending this out to our sponsors in order to keep them informed on how our season is progressing.

We have begun reviewing the 2011 Business Plan to identify areas that need to be updated or redesigned. We are planning the work process across the team since we need to update the text version and determine the timing/schedule needed to work with the Media Team to obtain updated photos, and to update the actual document using InDesign. Our initial focus will be on the Competitive Analysis section and we will then move on to the financials/budget section. The updates to the financials/budget section will require meeting with our head coach to obtain updated facts and figures.

Our head coach has requested that the business team assist in tracking our team expenses. We discussed creating a spreadsheet to log all expenses. The spreadsheet will be set up by project team so that we can see the needs and expenses of each area of our team and compare them from year to year. Once the spreadsheet has been finalized we will begin working with the coach to obtain this season’s expense information. The information in this spreadsheet can then be used in future year’s business plans when updating the expense information.

See photos from week 2 of Miss Daisy's build here. Be sure to stay current on the FIRST Robotics Competition with PD&D's continued coverage through the build season.