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

Today was a big meeting for fabrication. Six hours of non-stop drilling, filing, and deburring netted us a nearly complete set of parts for the shooting part of our mechanism! Yay! The fabrication team also had time to start building parts for the grabber. Kyle had another one of his marathon CAD sessions, finishing the shooter, grabber, and the troughs and associated supports. However, members of the assembly team found that there was a previously unnoticed conflict between the shooter, gearboxes, and the support bracket for the electronics board. Some redesign is required. After the meeting, a few of us went out to dinner at Red Robin for a late-night stress relief party.

An extra mechanism meeting was called today to try and finish up the CAD for the mechanism and get the shooter assembled. We solved the shooter-gearbox-electronics conflict by modifying the shooter support and the electronics board support, so everything plays nicely now. Another disaster averted. The shooter is coming together, but needed more fabrication work in order to get it working properly. We also put together a shopping list of parts needed for Monday's meeting.

Another of the dreaded rules quizzes was scheduled for today. While no-one looks forward to them, we know they are necessary to keep our spotless penalty record intact. Alex finished up the beautiful t-shirt art, and the last few people turned in their money for t-shirts. Fabrication was busy burning out the drills in the shop, marking and machining a multitude of parts. Software also got some time to program today.

Aujourd'hui, as the French would say, mechanism had quite a day. They started getting the grabber and elevator assembled, but to their dismay found three parts that were not designed! So, fabrication, have fun with that. Electronics also started the design for the OI controls. So until tomorrow… Adieu.

Our super cool multi-colored amazingly awesome t-shirts got ordered today, pretty excited about that. Also, software got encoder-based driving all figured out and wrote little bit of code for auto-aiming. As for those parts that hadn't been designed yesterday, Kyle CAD'd up some new mounting plates. Speaking of adventures, Cathy had the privilege of driving all the way to Kent to get some other mounting pieces that had been water-jet cut, oh yay! So, as usual, we are a little bit behind, or a lot a bit, but soon, very soon, we shall be done.

It's the most wonderful time of the week, duh dah, duh dah, duh dah, there are la la la la, and the rest of the words to the song have escaped my mind. Anywho, fabrication got most of the new parts off of paper and into reality. New mounting positions for the feeder roller and rails were located, too! But by mechanism, not fabrication. On the electronics front, many students learned the exciting art of soldering so a few of the many OI controls got connections. Spirit also worked on a list of trinket parts to order so we will have tons and tons of little key chains for our regionals.

Playfield folks hauled all the parts up to A-8, re-assembled it so software could do some work as well as get some driver practice in. And exciting news, the robot can drive up the ramp without a hitch! Software also worked to solve an encoder driving mode oscillation, which means very, very little to this software illiterate log author… Anyways, most of the girls left around 3:30, but Elyse stayed behind and soldered more OI parts, actually she finished up about half of that whole project. The remaining girls went on a top secret spirit/girl bonding mission to get prepared for festivities this week as well as made girl unity sweat pants that have IRS on them. Hope people know we are talking about robotics and not taxes…

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