One of the main events and focus points for the week of the 13th was the 8th grade night hosted at Bonney Lake High School. This is a yearly opportunity for incoming freshman to come to our school, take tours, and see what courses Bonney Lake has to offer. To try and hook kids on our engineering classes and the robotics team, we had our 2019 competition robot on display demonstrating its abilities as well as a drive base that was used to give kids rides around the commons. As soon as students, siblings, friends and parents saw the machines driving around, they were intrigued with the comotion. Pointing fingers and whispers about the bots grew as kids taking a ride on the drive base laughed and formed a line to go next. Everyone was surprised to hear that our students take the lead when it comes to the building of competition robots. "Start to finish" Lorelli our management lead explains, "our team members design, build, wire, program, and drive our robot with help from our mentors of course." Students came up to our table wide eyed and curious how they too could build such a cool robot.
The workshop was also open for students and parents to tour. The hands on experience the students enrolling get is only available in our district at Bonney Lake High School. We are excited to be introducing our first robotics class which will teach students how to build a robot in 10 weeks. This class will further the introduction of STEM to our students and will be paving the way for more classes in the future. Having this class available for future engineers will prepare them with knowledge for college courses and future jobs. The students that heard about the robotics class were very interested and by the end of the night all of the flyers had been taken home.
This outreach event was extremely successful and a lot of fun for everyone involved. Other than the 8th grade showcase, our team has continued prototyping and designing. Our prototype of the ball storage has been completed and the build team, along with the CAD team, have been collaborating to improve the design. They have also been working on the drivetrain gearbox, the second prototype of the turret, and the CAD team has designed the 4th design of the shooting mechanism. This second turret has been made more compact as to better fit with the ball storage.
This week our programmers have been working hard to read the encoded data from our new Falcon 500 motors as well as program the limelight tracker and color sensor. In the 2020 competition, each robot must launch power cells accurately to gain points in the match as well as spin a colored control panel that will allow teams to unlock the next level and advance in the competition with a ranking point. Our programing team has been working on a device called a limelight that tracks the reflective tape on the power ports. This will allow for drivers to aim more easily and keep cycle times to a minimum. The color sensors do just that. When it comes to spinning the control panel a certain number of times and adjusting the panel to a certain color, the color sensor will control how long to spin and where to stop. This is an essential piece of our gameplay and strategy that will elevate our importance and propel us forward in the competition.
The designs are in the finishing phases and to put the progress in the CAD team's words "we're designing the robot". Take a look at their design!
Another hard week worked and bot being built.