It’s that time, we are heading to Houston tomorrow morning at 4:00 a.m. and will spend the next three days playing Rebound Rumble for all we are worth against some of the best FIRST Robotics teams in the country! If you are able to attend we will be at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston. The competition is free and open to the public with opening ceremonies starting at 9:00 each morning and finishing up around 6:00 each evening. If you cannot attend you can watch us online at:

http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/2012_frcwebcasts.php#webcasts

We will keep you posted on how we perform and please join me in wishing the PantherBots the best of luck at the 2012 Lone Star Regional!!

Love, Peace, and Robot Grease,

Mrs. S

If I could do the happy dance in an email I would! I am humbled and thrilled to tell you that you have a very supportive community/family who has come through at the last minute and as a result we are able to cover the cost of both the team shirts and meals!!

I would recommend bringing extra cash as eating in downtown Houston for lunch is expensive. We will have continental breakfast at the hotel, lunch in downtown, and then dinner someplace inexpensive (I hope anyway) each evening but $18.00/day doesn’t go very far so be frugal. There are no souvenirs to buy at the competition so you won’t need money for anything there except food.

Remember:

4:00 a.m. on Thursday morning in our classroom

Parents,

If you cannot make it to Houston the following link will provide a web-cast of the competition starting Friday morning:

http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/2012_frcwebcasts.php#webcasts

I will send you a match schedule once I get it Thursday evening so that you will know what times (roughly) to tune in!

If you have any questions please email or call me (414-9790) as soon as possible so I can get them answered. In the meantime at the end of this email I have attached the ‘general’ event schedule and as always,

Love, Peace, and Robot Grease,

Mrs. S

2012 Lone Star Regional

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

5:30PM – 7:30PM        5 Team Reps to Load In

Thursday, April 5, 2012

7:45AM                        5 Team Reps to Load In

8:30AM                        Pits and Machine Shop open

8:30AM                        Registration and inspection

10:00AM – 12:00 PM   Practice Rounds

12:00PM -    1:00 PM   Lunch

1:00 PM -     4:30 PM  Practice rounds

8:00PM                         Pits and Machine Shop close

Friday, April 6, 2012

8:00AM                        Pits and Machine Shop open

9:00AM                        Opening ceremonies

9:30 AM – 12:00PM     Seeding matches

12:00PM -  1:00 PM     Lunch

1:00PM -    5:35PM      Seeding matches

5:45 PM -    6:30PM     Awards ceremony

7:00PM                         Pits and Machine Shop close

Saturday, April 7, 2012

8:00AM                        Pits and machine shop open

9:00AM                         Opening ceremonies

9:30AM -  12:00 PM    Seeding matches

12:00PM – 12:15 PM    Alliance Selections

12:15 PM -  1:15 PM    Lunch

1:15 PM  -   4:15 PM    Final rounds

4:30 PM  -   5:15 PM    Awards ceremony

6:00 PM                        Pits close

We are only 10 days from competition and we need to get together one last time before competition. I am calling amandatory (that means you are here or you don’t go…period) student meeting for Monday April 2 (that is next Monday). We will review behavior and responsibilities as well as travel times etc. We will also be doing some work to finish up getting things ready to go (tools, compressor box for airing up pneumatic system and such). We may also have to rework our bumpers so be prepared for that as well. Just a couple of minor things to note right at the moment:

1.       Today is March 26, 2012 travel forms are due to me by Friday (March 30^th). It is the absolute cutoff date. If you do not have forms to me by then do not worry about coming to the Monday meeting. If you need a copy of the forms come see me

2.       Travel eligibility is governed by UIL rules. Due to the grading period breakdown we are forced to go by the 9 week grade pull (the report card we sent home last week). If you are failing one class by one point you are not eligible to travel. I will be pulling grades tomorrow to determine eligibility and will be contacting anyone who is not eligible to go

3.       I am waiting for the vendor to get back to me regarding team shirts. I do not know if they will be ready or not. I will let you know when and how much as soon as I hear from her.

4.       We are in need of two volunteers to work as field reset for the competition. I currently have two but need two more. Let me know if you are interested. Field reset responsibilities are to reset the field between matches. Volunteers for FIRST and as such will be given a FIRST Volunteer shirt and be provided lunch each day.

5.       Mandatory meeting will start right after school (3:45) and last until 6:00

Ok guys, I know you are excited (so am I) but remember, we compete as a team, lose as a team, and win as a team…

Love, Peace, and Robot Grease,

Mrs. S

I have been falling down on the job…I can’t believe that it’s been 6 days since I sent out an update. The short story is that we’re almost done. The long story is…well it’s long…

The last email you got was on January 31 and we had the practice bot driving with no glitches or fried electronics. We hit things hard on Friday and Mr. Robertson and I kind-of threw a curve ball at the mechanical team. He and I talked about it and decided we wanted to try flipping the wheels on the competition bot 90˚ and make it a long-wheel base crossing the bridge instead of a short-wheel base. It took most of Thursday evening to get the wheels off (they were already mounted but no electronics had been put on yet), cut the new aluminum pieces and by 9:30 we were tired and it was time to go home.

Friday during the day a couple of the kids would come in during their lunch and work as well as the kids who are in my classes anyway and by the end of the school day Friday they had re-mounted all the wheels in the new configuration. Friday night mechanical continued their work and mounted all the rollers, poly-cord, and generally mechanical stuffs. We cut out around 10:00ish (a little early for a Friday) and agreed to meet back here at 10:00 Saturday morning.

Saturday we came in with a ton of things for the electrical team to do everything had to be re-wired for the competition bot andbecause of a family commitment wanted to head out by 8:00. At 7:50, I announced that we were heading out in 5 minutes just as the electrical team finished the last wire and handed things off to the programming team. As I announced that it was 7:57 and time to put the toys away all I saw was 5 kids carrying the robot, 1 kid carrying the Classmate (the computer that runs the robot), 1 kid carrying joysticks, and several trying to run interference so that I wouldn’t notice they were running and loading code all at the same time. Their goal was to try to test it before I booted everyone (the looks on their faces were priceless as they kept casting furtive glances my way as they tried to half-run half-walk to the back room carrying all this equipment). Within moments I heard spinning motors and mecanums then I heard the, ‘No no not that way!’…the sign that robot is just about to crash into something. They came in and said that there was a coding issue and we decided to check it out on Monday.

Monday turned out to be a workday, just not a robot build day necessarily. On many occasions I have mentioned cleaning the lab and some of you parents have heard my story of how I made the mistake of sitting down one morning over Christmas break 2010 and watching about 4 episodes of Hoarders. Within six-months I had de-hoarded all but two rooms in my house (those being the boys rooms one of which has since been addressed). The lab has been bothering me for a while and Saturday evening I had actually started cleaning the classroom. Things kind of cluttered up on us (as they tend to do during build season) and I finally had enough. We had reached a point where we were crowded in and just needed to take a break and clean. Clean they did! The lab looks so much better!!!! We can walk without tripping over things, we can run the robot, it’s nice…no it’s really nice…and it’s going to stay that way…or else (meanie glare at the children).

Tonight has been another productive evening. We now have two fully operational robots and have begun driver tests. The written test has been available since Saturday (yes I know I was two days late) and so have decided to extend the deadline to take the test to Thursday. We spent this evening playing with code and driving the robot over the bridge. The long-wheel base going over the bridge is much more stable and after probably 30 minutes playing with it the team voted to stay with the long-wheel base. This means that we now need to flip the wheels on the practice bot as well (this will keep mechanical busy for a few days). I also want to ‘shout-out’ to Mrs. Wade tonight (the principal at Dunbar). I have a grandson (AJ) who has joined the Engineering Club at Dunbar and his mom brought him over tonight to work with the team a little bit. I was soooo excited for him to be here. AJ came in and watched us drive across the bridge and shoot the ball. Then he helped us calibrate the speed controllers. He may come back and visit with us again on Thursday but we’ll see.

It’s now 9:32 (I started typing earlier tonight than usual) and all but two of the kids have headed home and sit here with me as I finish this up. Since we have a short day at school tomorrow (surprise mom and dad they get out at 12:30) I am canceling our meeting as well. We all need a break and you people need some time to just be kids for a day and catch up on rest and homework. We have updated videos (I will email the link as soon as they are posted) and am attaching new pictures for your enjoyment!

Love, Peace, and Robot Grease,

Mrs. S

P.S. 12 days to lockup…

Well if you left early you missed the excitement…we broke it…

Ok, not really, but we did find out exactly how much abuse it can take! So we came in from yesterday somewhat dismayed and down trodden about me being persnickety about making sure we didn’t fry another jag. And then the magic started to happen…

The code loaded, nothing fried, and the next thing we knew it was 8:00ishish and we were in the hallway driving the robot, experimenting with picking up balls and hitting the lights when we launched the balls. IT WAS SO COOL!!!

Then came the fall…literally…so we got this bright idea about bringing out the ramp and testing driving over it…things went well the first time…the second time not so much. Our ramp is not exactly to specifications (it’s not weighted like the ramp that will be on the field at competition) and so it is extremely sensitive (i.e. it tips suddenly and easily). So the second time we attempted the ramp cross well…it kind of flipped the robot on the way down. The good news is that we know how robust the robot really is. There was no major damage and the frame is still straight. The only thing we found was that one of the wires dislodged from the power distribution board but that could be because we were driving it without the battery being secured and it could have caught the wire in the fall. But it still gives us some ideas to play with and build off of. Keep an eye on the web-site (www.pantherbots.net) and check the updates page for the video, just be forewarned…it’s difficult to watch for those of us who were in on the build. I was there to see it happen and it still makes me cringe.

We also now know where we need to really work on some things (like guides so that the balls don’t go flying out the sides of the conveyor and getting the wires soldered to the motors for the conveyor and roller), oh and all this has to be done in less than 14 pounds.

I think that’s really all for tonight (although it was a rather busy night!) so I am going home and signing off as always…

Love, Peace, and Robot Grease,

Mrs. S

P.S. 18 days till ship…

Good morning. I know it seems odd that you’re getting many of the ‘evening updates’ in the mornings however I have discovered that by the time I get the majority of you shooed out the door and headed home I am simply too tired to sit and type so we may have to switch to calling these ‘morning updates’ J.

In life you will have days that you are on top of the world and get so much accomplished that you even impress yourself (along with those around you) and then there are days when you feel like you have done the ‘Texas two-step’ literally (this is when you take one step forward and two-steps back for those of you who are too young to know what the Texas-two step is…(geez I feel a little older now having to explain what that is…) Saturday was our step forward (nah more like a giant leap forward) and yesterday was our two steps back.

We suffered a setback yesterday but it was a learning lesson for me as well as our electrical team. To recap we left Saturday night and had a fully assembled practice bot and the frame for the primary bot. We were running into some coding issues so we left here feeling pretty good Saturday night. Then came yesterday…ugh…

During 2^nd period yesterday Cody (our lead programmer) came in along with Chance (Cody’s apprentice). They wanted to do some more work on the coding to figure out why the cRio wasn’t responding (we have two so this was pretty much a ‘try to figure out what’s going on’ test). Well things took a dramatic turn (and not in a happy way). They decided that they wanted to try our newer cRio and so swapped them out. Bingo bango things started looking up because now they could get communications with the Rio. Got the code loaded, connected to the laptop to control the robot, hit the enable button (which allows us to use the joysticks to control the robot) and whammo…smoke, black smoke (which if you are a mechanic you know is not good) poured out of one of our jags (these are motor speed controllers, much like the gas pedal on your car). Needless to say everything was shut down immediately.

Based upon the burn marks (it melted the plastic housing) we believe that a metal shaving fell into the jag at some point and caused the short. Now, contrary to popular belief (and I was surprised how many of the team thought this wasn’t possible) aluminum shavings are in fact conductive. While the conductivity of aluminum is slight it is still enough to create a short circuit. I had the electrical team remove all the jags and we removed each one from their casings and blew them out with compressed air. This process (along with remounting them) took most of the evening and before we knew it 9:30 had come (and gone by about 15 minutes). We called it a night at that point and now are back to where we were yesterday morning.

The only other thing of note is that the programmers were able to get the cRio that was giving us problems up and running again.

Moms and Dads who are reading this, Mrs. Snyder would like to call a parent meeting for Saturday. She has suggested either when you drop the kids off or sometime mid-afternoon. Please let her (or me know) if there is a particular time that would be best for you. I hope that we will be able to show off a fully functional bot and let you see what your kids have been up to for the past three weeks. I think that’s all for now. I will see you guys tonight and hope that you have a great day in all your classes (or at work for all the parents.

Love, Peace, and Robot Grease,

Mrs. S

We have had a busy busy day…Ok so last time I emailed I finally got to tell you that the robot was finally mobile (YIIPPPEEE) and I promised you a video but email does not like files larger than 5MB so you will have to go check the web-site. Follow this link:

http://pantherbots.net/wordpress/?p=233

and you will get to see driving, shooting, and dancing…

Last night mechanical spent the night working on the practice bot setting up the launcher, harvester, and control wheel. Electrical and programming worked on the primary bot (for which we are seeking a name) fine tuning and tweaking.

Today the team shifted focus to the practice bot (which may seem illogical to some but there is a method to our madness). Our goal was to have a fully functioning single bot by the end of tonight and we actually almost reached our goal. Now, why do I say almost? Let me first tell you what we completed…

On the practice bot we have completed…well…almost everything. We have one hold up and that is an issue with the cRio (this is the component that holds the programming code for the robot). The robot is physically built and completed (see the attached photo) however the cRio and the computer don’t want to see each other…at all…so at 11:41 we are calling it a night (so far it’s been an almost 13 hour day) and going to pick things up here on Monday. We retested the shooter and harvester and both work beautifully. This machine is a thing of beauty.

As far as the primary bot we it will need to be built now. We have some things that we need to do like coat some expanded steel with a non-conductive covering, figure out a way to cover the motors for the conveyor and launcher, and get everything painted. Then we can re-assemble everything and get it ready for lock-up. In the meantime we will be starting driver tests next week.

Look for a high-priority update tomorrow regarding driver try-outs. I would like to have a drive team selected by the end of next week.

In the meantime I will see you guys Monday. Get some rest, catch up on homework and as always,

Love, Peace, and Robot Grease,

Mrs. S

P.S. The countdown has begun…20 days till lock up…