Issaquah Robotics Log
2005 FIRST Competition

Build Period: Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3 - Week 4 - Week 5 - Week 6
PNW Regional: Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday

Once again this year, weather delayed the kickoff, but this year it was the Seattle weather. After a noon kickoff event, we had a brainstorming session. We discussed various drivetrain and arm possibilities. After the meeting ended at 6, several students stayed to inventory the kit. It looked like there were only 2 missing parts (a couple of motors) but a subsequent update from FIRST informed us that it was actually an error in the part list, so we've got a complete kit this year!

Several students had models or drawings with their robot ideas, and some nice models of the "tetra" that's the main game piece. We did more brainstorming and worked on a logo and T-shirt design.

After a quick trip to Home Depot by a couple of the mentors, we built a full-size (and full-weight!) tetra to experiment with.

We did more brainstorming and decided on the overall design of the robot. We'll use the default chassis and gearbox; one group of students is "doing the math" to determine the best gearing ratio, number of motors, and whether to use 4- or 6-wheel drive. We may also experiment with the number of wheels since the chassis seems conveniently flexible in that regard. The robot will have an articulated arm with motor-controlled joints at the shoulder and elbow, and a pneumatically-controlled wrist joint and gripper. The gripper will be a plate with two fingers. Another group of students is "doing the math" to figure out arm placement and joint locations.

Several students collaborated on a playfield parts list, and we decided to contract other teams to see about sharing the painting of the colored triangles.

We divided into subteams, set a schedule, worked on the details for the arm, and started building the transmission.

Build Period: Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3 - Week 4 - Week 5 - Week 6
PNW Regional: Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday