Final preparations ... Nov 2 and 7 meetings

We're in the last stages of getting ready for our first event, which means we spent the last two meetings tuning in autonomous routines, driver practice, and getting all of our documentation and display items together for our Nov 19 event.

Three items of note during these meetings:
1. We completely replaced our intake foam and rubber bands.  They were still performing, but were degrading, and we want to ensure no intake issues.
2. 11 is not equal to 10 ... OOPS!!! Somehow we missed that the max number of motors allowed on the robot was 10 - we had 11.  Fortunately we have plenty "under the hood" on our lift joint (see our critical design testing/iterations (and video) in this post: http://robobraves.blogspot.com/2011/08/iterating-optimizing-dog-days-aug-9-12.html . All we needed to do was remove one motor from the lift (reducing from 4 to 3).  The three motor lift with latex tubing spring assist is still plenty of oomph - all we needed after motor removal was a slight bit of autonomous routine testing.
3.  We shot video of our autonomous routines.  While we'd like to add sensor to improve reliability, we've run out of time for that right now and we're pretty good at managing beginning battery voltage and robot placement, Here's a quick look at our four routines:
http://www.youtube.com/uprobotics#p/u/2/MrAwPYNtpX0

Generally, we're pretty excited about things with only one more meeting - on 11/18, which will be used as a team celebration and pack up - before the event on the 19th.  See you on the field!!!

Autonomous Menu "complete" ... late October meetings

Only a few weeks until we compete for the first time ever.  We've spent almost all of our time lately on minor mechanical tweaks, a little bit of driver practice and really hammering away at our autonomous routines.  There are four of them - one to score in the isolation zone, another to score in the interaction zone, a third to scatter the stack, and a fourth just to sit still.  Special thanks to the KTOR crew for showing us a template we could use for routine selection using jumpers. 

After reading the vex forums (www.vexforum.com) we decided that using the jumper method would be best suited for our rookie endeavor.  While the routines aren't perfect, they all are highly functional, pretty much just using "wait" statements and paying close attention to starting battery voltage.  If time allows we may try to add some simple switches/sensors so we're less dependent upon voltage and wait time, but we feel pretty good about what we have as is. Here are a few photos of the mechanical setup that supports our routine selection:

Autonomy ... and settling into roles ... Oct 12 Meeting

Flurry of activity at our one-hour meeting today:
1. Bryan & Jonas concentrated on autonomous programming today, got one routine done, got a huge chunk of another one in the bag and tested as well.  Running an autonomous routine for the very first time and seeing it succeed was the highlight of the day for everyone for sure! Shout our to the KTOR crew for helping us with programming templates for EasyC.  That little help is going a long way, thanks! Bryan also brought a draft of our scouting form for review to the meeting.
2. Ben & Justin concentrated on a short mechanical tune up, then developed the start of a checklist for between match check ups to help ensure full functionality in all matches.  They then supported our driver practice.
3. Casey & Mitchell mounted, secured and labeled out pwm/jumper autonomous selector hardware and then spent the bulk of the time on interaction zone driver practice.  They are getting there!

We're certainly really coming together as a fully functioning team at the right time.  With a handful of meetings still to go before our Nov event, the anticipation is surely growing.

See you next week,
Kressly

Tuning Up/Getting Ready/Event Planning_ Sept 28 & Oct 6 meetings

One hour weekly meetings are flying by, but are productive. To those who have sent all the positive feedback, thanks!  As promised, but a little late, robot specs:
Drivetrain - 5 motor eight omni wheel drive.  4 motors driving 4 of six forward facing wheels with tank style control and one motor driving two middle sideways wheels controlled by joystick buttons.
Arm - 4 motor surgical tubing lift assist arm with a 60:12 (5:1) single-stage high strength gear reduction.  Y cables allow two channels to power all four motors.  Enough torque, rather quick, and shared load across motors with the surgical tubing help make it easy to operate smoothly.  Hard stops prevent arm from extending CoG to robot tipping point.
Accumulator - 3 object capacity, 2 motor powered tank tread covered with VEX foam intake.  Foam held in place by adhesive backing and woven #32 rubber bands.  Polycarbonate "sandwiches" objects securely and allows for flexible hold on different sized objects.  "Soft stop" keeps objects from falling out the accumulator top.

Accomplishments during these two meetings:
We've gotten in a little driver practice - mostly in the isolation zone, decided as a team to specialize jobs at the Nov event, divided up jobs, started developing a scouting information sheet, talked over tournament structure, and have an autonomous programming template built from a sample that will allow us to program our four desired autonomous programs.  The team is handling things in a very upbeat and professional manner and we're excited to watch things come into place.

Our goal between now and the Nov 19th event is simple - be as prepared as humanly possible in order to maximize the chances of success.

autonomous planning / promo shoot: Sept 19 meeting

Good to have the entire team at Monday's meeting.  We planned and prioritized our autonomous strategies (programming to begin next week), got some driver practice in, and shot a bunch of video and stills so we could put a 2011 promo video together.  Here it is:

Full robot specs are more to come next week!

-Kressly

Meet Kwelaha: Sept 14 Meeting

After a short hiatus to concentrate on the start of the school year, the Robobraves got back to work on 9/14 finishing off the punchlist items, tidying things up, and declaring Kwelaha (which is "Hope" in Lenape) mechanically complete.  After initial testing before the short hiatus, the decision was made to remove a stabilizing/connecting bar (this piece) from the underside of the accumulator.  This will allow for our bottom polycarbonate sheet edge to flex more freely, allowing for both balls and barrels to be collected in multiple orientations with equal proficiency.  Other than that one minor tweak, the design as previously discussed here looks to be very solid and we're thrilled at the results of our initial testing with a "complete" robot. Here's a short set of video clips from our testing:

From here we will be concentrating on autonomous strategy and programming, driver practice, and competition readiness.  The team is pretty excited to see it coming together and so am I.

Until next week,
Kressly

Darn Murphy! ... Aug 26 meeting

Murphy's Law (for those of you who don't know Murphy, look HERE ) stepped in today and prevented us from completing our punchlist (hey 2/3 done ain't bad, though).  However, the close to 30 minutes we spent on extracting and replacing a bent shaft in our arm joint was a good thing as this was most likely the cause of our broken gear tooth on the other side of our arm earlier in the build.  I like knowing root causes of failures, and I'm thrilled we learned this now as opposed to on the field of play.

         
Thus, we have no spectacular video to show just yet.  However, I will say I'm excited at the promise this newborn is showing and we did get far enough along today to show you these pics and can tell you her name is Kwelaha, which is "Hope" in Lenape language.  See HERE for pronunciation. You can also take a look at our flickr page for updated photos.  Enjoy and see you with video and more in the next week or two.   For our friends on the East Coast, stay dry this weekend!
-Kressly


















  

Down to the Punchlist - Aug 23rd Meeting

Sometimes things go as expected, even in competition robot development.  The August 23rd meeting was our smoothest yet.  We were able to transition fully to VEXnet control (woooo for fund raising!), practice driving the "whole" robot (accumulator arm not ready to run full-blown quite yet) using the VEXnet joystick (sweet), accomplish optimization of our surgical tubing assist while also making it easy to disconnect in seconds to work on arm joints as necessary, added one of the two additional motors to our arm lift joint (the other arrived UPS after the meeting), decided there was no need to take mass out of our already very thin polycarbonate sheets (that tubing and added motors ROCK!), and we were able to create a driver-control programming schematic, get it all successfully programmed in EasyCv4 for Cortex, and after two sets of bench tests and one set of tweaks - reversing a few motor channels - everything operates as it is intended in driver control mode!

We'll be updating our Flickr account and our Youtube Channel in the next few days to provide more visuals for you all, but for now here's our punchlist for mechanical "completion" of 1414's first ever robot.  A list we hope to complete Friday:
1. add hard stops to arm lifts
2. add soft/spring stop to accumulator
3. mount number plates
4. mount graphics
5. mount flag holders
6. mount final motor
7. finish motor and wire labeling
8. remove temp electronics mount and replace with final mount
9. Find loose connection for one of our drive motors and retape it
10. Make sure no drive shafts are protruding from chassis
11. Add angled tower supports
12. Mount graphics
13. Ensure current tubing assist allows for match starting position of arm
14. File sharp edges

With similar good fortune next time we should see the robot score her first game object on our practice field Friday!

Until then,
Kressly

Iterating, Optimizing ... the dog days ... Aug 9 & 12, 2011

Building a competition robot, especially object manipulators can be frustrating and slow at times.  Also reminding the team that we're committed to doing all we can to develop ERB (expected repeatable behavior) in our robot means that it's not OK for things to be "good enough" nor is it OK to work some of the time can slow progress even further for the average student making these last few meetings, truly, the dog days for us.

However, the members of 1414 are to be commended for how fast they are buying in, including our rather vigorous testing and iterating  I have asked the team to put our arm/accumulator through. 

On August 9, we cut, drilled, and fitted two polycarbonate sheets to the top and bottom of our accumulator, tying everything together neatly and keeping any game objects from falling out of our hold.  Then came the tedious part as the polycarbonate was banging into a drive motor, was holding our entire manipulator outside of the 18" starting size, wasn't positioned well enough to direct objects into the 30" goal, and was digging into the field preventing movement of any kind.  So, four interdependent variables led to a LOT of minor iterations, shigting of pieces, moving chassis rails, trimming and filing edges, etc.  However, by the time we broke up for the day we were able to successfully "hand test" (not under power) a manipulator that fits, reaches, rests appropriately on a rail hard stop, and scores objects successfully in the 30" goal.  WOOT!  We also brainstormed, researched, and tentatively selected a robot name (we will share it when we are sure).

August 12, then was all about testing the arm and accumulator under power.  BUT, before we could do that we discovered loose motors, a broken gear that needed replacing (caused by an alignment issue we believe we have fixed), and the fact that our foam attached to the treads has split in a few places (this didn't require any work, and we believe it is not a long term issue, but have to keep an eye out as we wear in the system.  We also wound up learning a HUGE lesson on the effectiveness of using latex tubing as a spring assist for motors that lift.  All of the details of our testing under power can be seen here:

See you next time,
Kressly

materials choice, a key to success... Aug 5 meeting

Today we "finished" the basic mechanical portions of our accumulator and arm by solving two problems:
1. Increasing the coefficient of friction on our tread intake to maximize "grabbing power" for barrels and balls.  To do this we covered our two tread lengths in adhesive backed VEX foam, "sewing" each together with a #32 rubber band and then weaving copious amounts of #32 rubber bands over the foam to attach it firmly to our tread system.  We believe that this careful and inexpensive choice of materials will be a key to object manipulation for 1414.
2. Tying our two accumulator sides together into a single arm with a fixed intake width to cinsistently engage game pieces.  We accoumplished this through the use of VEX threaded beams and cutting VEX metal to fit and fix our width.  After 3 or so iterations, we're happy with these basic distances and will add some polycarbonate sheeting next meeting for rigidity and to ensure objects can't be dropped.

By meeting's end we were able to hand test the mechanism and we're very pleased thus far..  Look for more video and pics soon, but for now here's a few photos:

That darned third dimension... July 18, 21, 26, 29 meetings

Sorry...not much blogging time lately.  Last two weeks were dedicated to some driver practice and working on the arm and accumulator.  Progress is slow and steady and that darned third dimension up and bit us as we couldn't quite fit our intended arm hypotenuse length into the 18"x18"x18" starting configuration.  Since our arm lengths have depth to them to house our forthcoming accumulator we wound up shortening the hypotenuse a few inches.  "Fit testing" after showed, however, that we would still be able to reach the 30" goal as intended.  After that, on the 26th and 29th we continued fleshing out the accumulator, getting it all to fit, getting intake tread mounted, etc.  Slow work indeed, but progress non the less. More details, photos, etc coming soon.

multi-tasking, with purpose ... July 12 meeting...

In my eleven years of student robotics competition experience, I've seen many, many teams make the same unrecoverable mistake over and over - working like crazy on the robot until the last minute before an event without spending much time practicing to play the competitive game well.  The result of getting too geeked out on the technology like this nearly always results in a robot and a team that underachieves in competition. I'm determined not to let that happen to the Robobraves in our rookie VRC season. So, armed with that idea, along with our fully functional drivetrain and a clear plan for iteration 1.0 of a single-jointed arm accumulator that reaches all goal heights (see previous blog entries for details), we began dividing and conquering at Tuesday's meeting.

Half of the team, with clear instructions, began driver practice with the drivetrain while the other half set to work on the arm hypotenuse.  Half way through the meeting, the groups switched giving all present team members some experience measuring, cutting, filing, assembling, and applying corresponding safety procedures as well as simulating what play might me like in the Gateway interaction zone in a two-minute time period - moving toward goals, avoiding an opponent robot, delivering game objects and taking clear instructions from an on-field coach.

During both activities, professionalism was stressed - measuring carefully, cutting straight, not over filing, knowing the value of keeping everything straight and square, using the safety glasses as necessary, moving as efficiently as possible with the drivetrain while simulating game conditions, getting to know how to slide, spin, and turn the robot to take full advantage of the drivetrain attributes this robot possesses.

We've got a long way to go, but by meeting's end the team had a better sense of the drivetrain, playing in the interaction zone, operating from the player station, thinking about efficient and effective movements as well as having improved just a little with our manufacturing and assembly skills.

On the surface, it looked like not much happened at today's meeting, but in reality, this was really our most important step thus far. Look for all meetings from here forward to include some kind of driver practice as the relationship between man and machine both off and on the field of play is critical to team success. 

Meeting photos, here and as always, learn more about our parent organization, Upper Perk Robotics at uprobotics.org

-Kressly

iterations and calculations ... 7/5 and 7/8 meetings

The 7/5 meeting time was eaten up with drivetrain iterations.  We were unhappy with the fact out two stacked center/sideways wheels weren't always contacting the field tiles.  However, the field tiles were laid on top of overlapping carpet remnants, thus the first order of business was to yank/roll up the offending carpet and lay the field tiles flat on the floor so we could retest the drivetrain to see it we "really" had an issue.  Sure enough, the sideways wheels still weren't performing as desired because...

a. the mounting rails for those wheels weren't flush with the rest of the chassis and/or....

b. my basement floor isn't totally level

We retested one more time, taking closer looks at everythnig and concluded that both a AND b were the culprits.  However, we also concluded, that ANY floor we compete out could be less than level, so after flushing the rails we also went through three more iterations of the center/sideways wheel layout. v1.1 we split the wheels across the horizontal of the drivetrain using three gears and the same single motor. Results were somewhere between "no change" and "worse." v1.2 we went back to the stacked single shaft for both of these wheels, spreading a greater front to back distance between the two center sideways wheels.  We liked these results but felt we could do even better with a longer spread between the two rails, thus we landed on v1.3 (as seen below) which, by far, tested the best!  We'll keep it this way to practice and only tweak if performance worsens with wheel wear and addition of object manipulator(s).

So, with those additional (and much needed) drivetrain iterations, we were out of time to begin manipulator discussions an calculations.  Thus, our July 8 meeting held three agenda items:
1. Trim shaft to size for for v1.3 of our drivetrain
2. Use Pythagorean Theorem and cardboard lengths to plan for a single jointed arm with the lowest possible pivot point (to keep COG down) that could reach well over the 30" goal (33" to 34" should give use the clearance we desire).
3. Learn about the basic types of robotic object manipulators and decide what our best option would be.

We got right to business as the first two Robograves arrived and too care of item 1 in short order.  All attending also learned a little about cutting and filing efficiently and safely. For item 2 we assembled with notebooks, calculators, our theorem, cardboard strips of varied lengths we cut last time, and a loose piece of shaft.  After reviewing the theorem, doing a few iterations of math in notebooks and on our chart paper, then testing it out with our cardboard and shaft, we were able to set our target arm distances of 15" vertically from the floor to the pivot point and approximately 22.5" from tip of manipulator to the pivot point (hypotenuse of the triangle).  Here's part of the process:


To complete item 3 on the agenda, we reviewed definitions and examples of different types of robotic object manipulators, then applied the knowledge to the Gateway game and our agreed upon manipulator priorities to conclude our most desired manipulator was an accumulator of some kind.  So all together we can safely say, we now would optimally like a single jointed arm that elevated and lowers an accumulator. 

So, we concluded our meeting researching internet video of past VEX competitions that had single jointed arm accumulators to get ideas.  We learned a lot by doing this including Bryan's revelation of,  "It's best to look for finals matches at events because they are the best robots ... and they are almost ALL accumulators!"  This was excellent validation for a team that hasn't "been there" or "done that" ... yet!

With our agenda items taken care of there was even time left for our two video research groups to sketch some ideas for what our arm/manipulator might look like and  make very detailed engineering notebook entries for the day.

I like the way our team is starting to come together and looking forward to beginning our manipulator build.

Until next time,
Kressly

We got ourselves a robot....

After wiring and electronics mounting, 1414 went live with drivetrain bench and field testing today. We're thrilled that all of our four priority criteria for our drivetrain were at least partially, if not fully met in v1.0!

Video of first bench test:
http://www.youtube.com/uprobotics#p/a/u/0/L-QsAbyEWws
Video of field testing:
http://www.youtube.com/uprobotics#p/a/u/1/jfmh34Dwf6M

After testing our meeting concluded with notebook entries, a quick tutorial on the Pythagorean Theorem, and a homework assignment to use the theorem to figure out dimensions for a one jointed arm to reach over the 30" goal (we figure 34" will be a safe height given the diameter of objects) with the lowest pivot point possible.  Thus, our next meeting will include manipulator design work along with a few slight alterations to our drivetrain based on testing.

Meeting photos are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/uprobotics/sets/72157627031284576/

lemon squares, chocolate chip cookies, and a completed chassis

Snacks are a key element to any team meeting and I'd like to thank team member and parents for stepping forward and providing snacks during meetings - it's very much appreciated.

Today was dedicated to bringing team members who were absent last meeting up to speed and then we focused on completing assembly of our drivetrain and chassis v1.0.  Reversing those backwards rivets (woooooopsie, Kressly) was the first order of business, then mounting motors, integrating the two wheel channels, then lastly installing two center sideways omni-wheels (thanks again FRC/VRC 148) to complete the initial design.  Along the way we made little adjustments to position of shaft collars and spacers (a practice we need to continue next time) to allow for more modular and quicker dis- and reassembly.

Here's the product of our labors:

More pictures from the meeting are here

Does this drivetrain and chassis meet our brainstormed priority criteria of: 1. omni-directional, 2. robust, 3. zero turning radius, and 4. quick ???? That's what we should learn at our next meeting when we add a microcontroller and fire up a live VRC 1414 robot for the very first time on Thursday.  I can't wait ... stay tuned!

-kressly

The rivets go in which way?

Very belated and brief entry here for our June 7, 2011 meeting.  The meeting was very focused an on track with 3 major agenda items:
1. Finish our brainstorm "what" lists and prioritize items,
2. Review related vocab and get to know the tools.
3. Begin building drivetrain.

Building on our  "Stubots" experience from the last meeting, we were able to accomplish all three.  Photos are here.

Note:  We didn't get as far with our drivetrain build as we'd have liked before meeting time ended.  The conversation went something like this...
Team member(s): "Mr. Kressly these rivets keep falling out.  They don't hold."
Kressly, "Yes they do. You must not be pushing them all the way in."
Other team members: "These rivets stink! They don't work!"
Kressly: "Yes, they do! Is the robot done yet? What's taking so long?"
-Meeting adjourned.  I look closer at the student work after team members depart and discover I taught them to put the rivets in backwards.  Whoops! Guess we'll be switching those next meeting and I'll be doing push ups or finding another way to make up for the time-wasting screw up.

Finished drivetrain next meeting... I promise (I think) :-)

-Kressly

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men ...

5.31.11: As Robert Burns once wrote, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley."  If you compare this post to our last one, you'll see I'm a liar 3 or 4 times over. 

In the last post I promised at this second meeting we would, "concentrate on the brainstorming process, learn about our tools, learn gear ratio, and do some more in depth work with our vocabulary and design notebooks.  Look for the student team members to take over and rotate into blog entry duty starting at the next meeting.  Getting everyone's perspective here should be a lot of fun."

It's amazing how fast two hours go when a group is thoroughly engaged.  That tidbit plus the fact that, even as a teacher of 18 years, I can be a lousy predictor of time needs for the group collectively forced us to adjust the agenda on the go.  So, you WON'T find student team members writing blog entries yet (perhaps that will begin after the school year concludes), nor will you read about tools, gear ratios, or in-depth vocabulary work (all of those to take place at meetings in the future).

You WILL, however, hear about our work with the brainstorming process and our design notebooks.  Since the "homework" given at the conclusion of meeting one was to read the Gateway rule book, the basic flow of the meeting went like this:

1. Close, group reading of the Gateway game rules along with Q&A for clarification.  Here the six team members and I took turns reading this section of the manual until we had a really good understanding of the game.  We referred our field mock up and game objects from time to time as needed.  For reference, the rule book and corresponding info is found here. 

2. Next, our team members played a few rounds of "Stubots" to better display an understanding of the game and its potential strategies. This is an excellent interactive (and fun) way for team members to better understand a robotics competition game and the rules prior to brainstorming for a solution.  Special thanks to FRC team 116 in Herndon, VA for the idea.  They've been playing "Stubots" for years as an early part of the competition robot development process.  As the team played each round their rules understanding and game strategies became more sophisticated.  Understanding that corner goal scoring is easily "descored" and that there is value in "handing off" game objects from the interaction zone to the isolation zone are two items that pop into mind quickly. Three short videos of this part of the process can be found on the UPR Youtube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/uprobotics#p/a/u/0/lHSSlXj25zI
http://www.youtube.com/uprobotics#p/a/u/1/Rb7w6o_loPk
http://www.youtube.com/uprobotics#p/a/u/2/ZdMuD0ojQ88

3. After Stubots we began the brainstorming process.  First, as individuals, team members listed all of the autonomous and tele-op strategies they could think of.  Then, in small groups they combined their lists and presented the combined lists to the whole team.  This set of lists was posted on our meeting room wall.  Next, as time was running out in the meeting, we began our focus on the "what" of the game ... as in, "What do you want to be able to do?" not "HOW" or pictures or anything else.  Team members started making their individual "what" lists and shared out verbally what they had on them.  While this is still a work in progress, it already seems all team members are in favor of a robot that is quick, agile, maneuverable, potentially omni-directional that is able to score in all goals on the field.

4. The last part of the meeting was students making their engineering notebook entries (define problem-->list task(s)-->reflect/evaluate).  All students wrote about the problem of understanding the game and its rules along with the problem of what to build to play the game.  The reflective process that takes place here is a favorite of mine as, over time, it will mark real growth and learning, and will eventually prevent us from repeating mistakes - even in future years.

In all, a great meeting.  Pictures from this meeting, and other UPR meetings/events can be found on our Flickr account, here. Thanks to Mrs. Meyer for the donuts, LMHS and Bob Foreman for the field tiles, and Mrs. Smith for doing some photography/video.  Homework for our next meeting includes re-reading robot rules, finishing off individual "what" lists, and reading/signing up for the VEX forum.

I have a pretty good hunch what we'll be doing at our next meeting, but I'll refrain from listing anything now.  I don't want to have to quote another famous poet to try and cover up for my improper planning again!
-Kressly

VRC 1414's first ever meeting

5.11.11:  VRC Team 1414 assembled at my house for the first time this evening.  We'll be meeting in the basement for our pilot year.  It was great seeing parents at team members (4 UPR veterans from our FLL teams and two rookies).  Mitchell, Bryan, Ben, Jonas, Justin, and Casey got to know each other pretty well through an introductory go around, an activity known as "three truths and a lie", and by scripting and executing an introductory video for the UPR Youtube Channel. 

Each team member received their safety glasses and binder packed with Inventor's Guide (thanks UPR VP John Niziolek), Engineering Notebook and entry spec sheet, full copy of the VRC Gateway Manual, and vocabulary handout.

I spent a chunk of the meeting going over key concepts we will focus on this year, including the UPR motto of "tachquiwi" (which is Lenape for "together"), professionalism,  the fun/learn balance, documenting like you will evaporate (just turned that phrase five minutes before the meeting and I really like it), sharing with the community, iterative design, elegant simplicity, ERB (expected repeatable behavior), and LYD (loving your data).

We also unpacked all of our VEX equipment order and got things in proper storage, made our first design notebook entries using the simple "Identify Need/Problem --> Perform Task(s )--> Reflect/Evaluate -->" loop (which they caught onto faster than I thought they would), and watched the Gateway game animation just before calling it a night.

The most important part of the meeting came early on when I went over all of the donors who have funded this start-up (see http://www.uprobotics.org/donors.html), what it meant to have them believe in us so much, and how we could pay them all back with our time, effort, attention ... and respect (which Jonas was quick to point out).

Special thanks to all parents for getting the team members to the meeting promptly and to Mitchell's mom who sent along cupcakes.  I have a really positive feeling about how fast this group was able to work together and look forward to seeing their cohesiveness and productivity grow along with their design skills and knowledge.  They all left the meeting with homework to read the Gateway manual and to peruse the Inventor's Guide for lessons to learn. 

Next meeting in a few weeks - we will concentrate on the brainstorming process, learn about our tools, learn gear ratio, and do some more in depth work with our vocabulary and design notebooks.  Look for the student team members to take over and rotate into blog entry duty starting at the next meeting.  Getting everyone's perspective here should be a lot of fun.
-Kressly

are. you. ready?

Headed toward the second full year of the Upper Perk Robotics as an organization, we've compiled enough resources, donations, and interest to launch our initial VRC team comprised of five middle school students (four of whom are graduating from our FLL teams). I will coach the team along with Bob Foreman providing software support.  We've ordered VEX equipment, tools, safety glasses, other goodies and complied a binder for each team member with a full VEX Inventor's Guide, VRC game rules, and a blank engineering notebook for each student.

Special thanks to the UPR board members who have supported this venture, our parents, and our donors found here: http://www.uprobotics.org/donors.html .  If you'd still like to donate, feel free as well still have a wish list of necessary goodies: http://www.uprobotics.org/donate.html .  We will do our best to honor the belief you all have shown (and will show) in us with our efforts.

I'm readying for our initial team meeting, set for 6:30 pm on May 11 where the team members will get their binders, learn about VRC and the game, and get a taste of engineering notebooks, professionalism (stealing directly from FRC148), and our important acronyms ERB and LYD ('expected repeatable behavior' and 'love your data').

Watch this space for updates and entries written by all of our team members throughout our spring/summer/fall adventures.

namaste,
Kres