Issaquah Robotics Log
2006 FIRST Competition

Build Period: Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3 - Week 4 - Week 5 - Week 6
Competition Period: Pacific Northwest Regional - Fix-it Window - Davis/Sacramento Regional

The mechanism team worked on the shooter prototype in the shop.

Quick work paid off and they had a working prototype working at the end of the meeting!

The drive train folks finished up their CADing and then started working on building the base. They also created a shopping/parts list.

The playfield team cut plywood for the ramp and goal which is now ready to assemble.

Kayla cutting plywood for the playfield goal

Finishing touches were put on the mural from yesterday, it's kind of amazing.

Also, we managed to get the green light box working. Throughout the evening, we were happy to savor the chocolate chip cookies that Elyssa's mom brought. C is for cookie that's good enough for me; c is for cookie that's good enough for me. Oh cookie cookie cookie starts with C.

We Love Cookies!

Yay! A break! Wait, what do we do with all this free time? A whole day with no robots? Well, some of us went skiing, there were birthday festivities to attend, and shopping to do, too. But today the first article about our team was published in the King County Journal by our new friend at the paper, Chris Winters.

One day until the open house with plenty of work to do. In preparation for this, the communications team worked on their display board. The platform and goal got closer to completion in hopes of being able to show it off tomorrow night. Drivetrain made a parts-list as well as did some assembly work. Wonderful Monday, yay!

Pressure does a body good. The playfield team put all the pieces together that had been finished over the past couple days and finished up the base to showcase this evening as well as the goal. With Death Cab as our soundtrack this afternoon, some final housekeeping was taken care of as the clock ticked closer and closer to the hour of our guest's arrival. By 4:45 the room was looking spiffy as we milled about in anxious, yet extremely happy robot induced joy and anticipation.

The display board was beautifully arranged and completed.

For some action, we demoed the shooter prototype firing balls into our playfield goal.

Tom and Cathy setting up for the shooter demo

the shooter in action

After the open house, the mechanism team got back to work designing. The big question was how to arrange the shooter, ball elevator and tracks to fit in the robot and carry as many balls as possible.

the mechanism team visualizing an idea

The software team gathered around one computer to work on creating a more specific task list, while the electronics team put quick disconnects on the motors and made a cable for playfield.

The fabrication team took a trip down to the shop and played around with aluminum. They were given a design to lay out on the blocks as practice and broke into two teams, each with one block, Kayla and Elyssa vs. Erik and Eric. Later, the mechanism team continued to work on their design and began CADing.

Erik and Eric working on their block

Kayla working on her part of the block

After the halls cleared out, we set up the prototype shooting mechanism and a video camera to measure its performance. Tom caught the balls and threw them to Alex who passed them on to David who threw them into the cardboard box that they came from. Peter then passed the balls to Erik who fed them into the shooter and the cycle was repeated. Meanwhile, Elyssa stood off to the side by the camera watching the height of the balls, so Erik could adjust the shooter's angle. After this, the software team was able to get the new portable set up while Elyssa and Cathy started (and pretty much finished) CAD for the electronics board.

Build Period: Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3 - Week 4 - Week 5 - Week 6
Competition Period: Pacific Northwest Regional - Fix-it Window - Davis/Sacramento Regional