The next day, we had a time-consuming job to do in the one day we were allotted before qualification matches. After seeing the effectiveness of other teams (such as 1218) with a “stinger,” the team decided that we wanted to try our hand at adding this modification to our robot. This addition took all morning to add and it was necessary to cut off the ends of bolts to subtract some weight, but eventually the change was finished with still enough time for many practice matches. In these matches we tried out our stinger as well as two new human players as our main human player was unable to attend the regional. We finished the day inspected and confident in our robot.

Friday included many wins on the field in addition to a few defeats. Our drivers performed wonderfully as the entire team cheered them on. In addition to adding to our accolades on the field, a few students decided to help out the regional. Miss Daisy students volunteered to man the safety glasses table when the regional did not have enough volunteers. Many students sat at that table for hours cleaning glasses and making sure that everyone who wanted to enter the pit had glasses.

Saturday was incredible. Qualification matches seemed to speed by and we eventually ended up as the first seed. We sent our scouting leader out to pick our alliance partners and were extremely pleased to be paired with teams 233 and 246. As the day continued, the team’s spirit skyrocketed as our robot plunged into the finals and eventually became a champion of the Boston Regional. We were extremely thrilled to receive the Industrial Design Award and also won the Industrial Safety Award. Our team is thrilled with our success as well as the connections we made with teams in the Boston area. We love traveling to other areas of the country in order to meet new teams and have fun. The next competition for Miss Daisy is the MAR Championship. Here we come!

If possible, the Week 2 competition at Chestnut Hill was even more exciting and exhilarating than our competition last week. Chestnut Hill was intense for the entire team from the moment we got there. Things really got interesting when we lost our second match because a motor lead detached; then it really was game time.We spent the rest of the day battling our way back to the top from nineteenth. Daisy performed fantastically, and after winning every other match that day, we were thrilled to leave in first place.

Day two was equally exciting; we only lost one other match when our camera failed, but it was enough to ensure that all daisies were clinging to the edges of our seats. With the hard work of everyone in scouting, in the pits, on the field, and in the stands, we claimed the top spot, and selected 1218 and 2559 as our alliance partners. We won all of our matches in the elimination rounds, and went on to win our second blue banner of the season. Along with this, we won the Website and Gracious Professionalism awards. We not only made our grandmothers proud; we made the entire team and school district proud. We are absolutely delighted with the outcome of the first two events, and are now looking forward to our next competition at the Boston Regional.

On the second day, we selected second-seeded team number 1218 and team number 1640 as our alliance partners going into the elimination rounds. Two burned-out motors later, our alliance went on to win all of our matches to win the blue banner, and the team also received the Industrial Design Award. With Hatboro-Horsham behind us, we’re looking forward to more success at Chestnut Hill this week!

Thursday – Thursday’s build night left the team in high spirits, as Daisy was brought out for the first full test. The shooter was quite consistent and the drive system was performing up to expectations compared to a previous driving test. In the shop, the robot underwent several motor swaps, the claw has yet to be fully attached to the robot, and the shooter needs fine tuning. Aside from a few loose PWM’s and exchanged parts, Miss Daisy is looking fine.

Friday – Back in the shop, Daisy is still going through some tweaking and reassessment. The shooter needs to be adjusted slightly in order to prevent unexpected curveballing, and the claw is getting close to being attached to the robot. In addition, we began taking the dimensions for bumpers from the CAD team. On the side, Team #341 is working on our mobile museum project. Our team received a grant from Dow Chemical Company, and we are currently putting together a mobile learning center for community demonstrations. The museum includes several small robots and a field in order to show how cool robotics can be, specifically targeting the younger generation. We’ll also have displays and computer-aided learning stations where people can learn more about robotics holistically, as well as aspects such as pneumatics, electrical boards, and the design processes.

Saturday – Saturday began with more finalization of the robot. The claw design was finished and the claw was attached to the bot.We are very satisfied with its performance. All that remains is the hopper, or “armor” as some coaches call it (it seriously looks like armor; it’s pretty awesome). This will be our way of handling the balls during the tele-op period although a few kinks need to be worked out. Another round of testing was conducted at the end of the day, and Daisy seems to be moving smoothly and shooting consistently. Miss Daisy 2012 is almost complete, and it’s just about game time!

CADby David S.
Although the official FIRST Build Season period of six weeks is over, the CAD Team is still hard at work finishing up final robot touches to perfect the model. This week, we have finalized models for all sub parts in the robot, created some last-minute parts to be added onto the robot, and added some final assemblies that were not created earlier. But before the robot was bagged and tagged, the team took pictures of various parts of the robot in varying levels of detail. This allows us to observe the robot and identify parts or systems that are left to be created and create them, albeit without specific measurements. For instance, the build team in conjunction with the media team and the CAD team coach remodeled the cover for our robot. Originally, this was to be made with coroplast, but those prototypes revealed that the cover would interfere with robot functions, mainly the running of chain. Also, the team found that certain parts would need to be sturdier. As such, the build team made the parts that needed to be sturdier out of lexan, which is much more resistant to force and change compared to coroplast. But this means that the CAD team had to model these parts, for which we luckily had measurements.

CAD has also been working on our final wiring and pneumatic assemblies. As these are not exact compared to the robot, the team has no need to take exact measurements, which would be impractical anyways. While that is completed, the CAD team has also fixed various issues found while doing test renders of our robot, which mainly consisted of visible sketches and duplicate parts that were to be deleted.

Finally, the CAD team has also continued work on the Robot Binder. This binder, as stated earlier, was meant to our attempt at winning the Robot Design Award, and it showcases numerous sub-functions of our robot, with planar views, ISO’s, and physical pictures. Ultimately, his week has been the final stretch for CAD.

Animation by David S.
The animation team has made some very good progress over the last few weeks. We have basically finished modeling all items and characters that are to be used in the animation and are working on the finishing touches of texturing and arranging various scenes. We initially ran into some issues with “rigging” the model of the main character (giving him a skeleton and telling the software how that skeleton affects him and makes him move), as even some of the best of the team were rusty on how to do this. After some research, we were able to figure out the most efficient way to do this, and even learned some new techniques to improve our work. With this rigging as well as the scene composition nearing completion, the only remaining step is the physical animation step. This may prove to be the hardest challenge yet, as getting everything we want to show into the 30 second time limit is always quite difficult. We hope to have the animation finished and rendering by the end of this week, and are working hard to achieve this goal.

Media by Danielle G.
For the 6th week of build season, the media team worked hard on documenting the final efforts of the team. We filmed the testing of the robot in our Audion. We also worked on our second to last Vlog for the year. For this Vlog, we created a humorous Valentine’s themed segment. We also created a short film to thank our sponsor BAE for their support and funding throughout the season. With things winding down, we changed our focus to the creation of our Daisy Awards, which we plan to give to other teams during competition. These Daisy Awards are meant for our team to celebrate the achievement of others. We have also been busy creating or print design materials including buttons, pit posters, and pit banners. All in all, we have had a very successful week!

Web by Emily O.
A few minor updates occurred this week. The team’s week six vlog is now up on YouTube and the site. In addition, we have gone through all of the emails received for our Team in a Box and picked out some of the best to put on out web site. The best replies of the past two years are now updated on the site!

Design & Build by David C.

Tuesday – Today was a very exciting day for the team, as the robot started to come together for the first time. The team tested a finalized version of the shooter prototype (yes, still a prototype, sadly) and were very pleased with the results. The claw mechanism also is approaching completion; it was hooked up to the main robot and was successful in performing its function. The team is also planning to test an auto-balancing code that utilizes the gyro on the robot. The robot is close to done, but there’s still a lot of work to be done and parts (and awesomeness) to be added.

Thursday – The team continued to work on the different aspects of the robot. The claw mechanism was tested as part of the robot. A few tweaks are still necessary. Our Progress is only hindered by small problems at this point, but, as the coaches tell us, we’ve been in worse situations before. More testing of the drive system and shooter has proven to be very satisfactory.

Friday- The build team encountered a severe problem in relation to our robot’s design and the behavior of the game pieces. With our current design, the foam basketballs would contact each other and essentially stick together. This would cause the one ball to roll over the other and jam the entire system. We were extremely frustrated with this discovery, but had we not found this out, it would have been disastrous on the field. Core members stayed late in order to discuss a new design strategy as well as our plan for the remainder of build season. With the limited time remaining, we believe we have found a way to avoid such issues and still come out on top with the limited time remaining to us.

Saturday – Today, we built a new robot.

CAD by Pranav K.

This week, the CAD team was faced with the preparing the Robot Binder, where we included various pictures and text to describe our robot’s design and its various parts and subsystems. By this point, CAD had already designated pages for each subsystem that the whole team had predicted from the initial design stages; mainly drive, electrical, pneumatics, shooter, claw, and frame were used withe the assistance of the program in Adobe InDesign (similar to to Microsoft Publisher). We began to render various shots of the subsystems of the CAD models and incorporate some physical pictures of our robot and its parts. With some difficulties in discerning exactly how and where to place each image (once rendered), the CAD team is now on its way to completing the binder and having a fully organized system for our robot design. The team hopes to win the Robot Design Award, for which the binder is a required element.

In addition, the CAD Team is now completing the connections between the electrical board wires to motors outside of the metallic belly-pan. The general wiring of specific parts on the belly-pan from the distribution board to other parts (i.e. Jaguars, Spikes, etc) as well as connection of the cRio are now being made. So with this wiring, the team was able to see a more realistic model of the robot.

There is one large subsystem with which we have had difficulty: the claw. The CAD team members have had to re-create a new claw and replace it with our old claw. We have also integrated pistons with the claw that will control the movement of the claw from a retracted position to an extended position.

Overall, CAD is working diligently to create the best model possible, and we are eager to
continue our work.

Business by Allison P.

This week, the Business Team worked mostly on the second ever edition of Team 341’s newsletter and on the 2012 Business Plan. We have finished the What We’ve Been Working On article for our newsletter. We are still working an article about our travel plans this season for our second newsletter. Also, a picture collage will be added to the first page of our newsletter. Once all articles and other touches are finished, our second edition can be released and sent to our team and sponsors! We hope the second edition will be even better than our first publication.

We have begun making updates to the InDesign version of the business plan based on the areas that we marked for revision last week. After we receiving more financial information, we will be able to update the budget section of the business plan. We have also made a few revisions to the Competitive Analysis section and hope to soon update it completely.

One of our main jobs is to track the team expenses. We will shortly begin to set up and create a
spreadsheet to log expenditures. We will be tracking expenses by project team; this will be organized by columns for the date of the expense, the amount, and the vendor. The creation of this spreadsheet will be able to help our team stay organized.

Media by Emily O.

As always, the media team has been hard at work on our weekly vlog. This week, we interviewed our programmer, James and mechanical team member Eli on our robot’s progress. We also have an interview with our media coach, Kirsten. Our humorous segment highlighted the numerous awkward moments in robotics. It is quite hilarious!

While some of us were working on the vlog, others were preparing the awards we give out to other teams during each competition. The imagery team (basically the media team with a few differences) were seen in the shop using jigsaws and sandpaper, preparing the bases for our awards. Others started stripping wires for the petals of our daisy awards, initially conceptualized by imagery leader Patrick.

The media team also focused on finishing and updating a few other odd jobs. Our donation video, started last year, is almost done. We are also focusing on revamping our pit posters so that they hold relevant content for our competitions. They will be printed soon! In preparation for the competition season, a few of us started brainstorming questions for scouting. We hope to finalize this information soon. Additionally, students worked toward their submission for the Woodie Flowers award focusing on their mentor of choice.

Web by Emily O.

Much of the energies of the web team were spent in the media category this week, but nonetheless a few changes were made. Our footer was updated with our new sponsors for this year. We created this in Photoshop and then uploaded it to the website. In addition, the Ramp Riot blog was written and posted with results from the competition. Late in the week, we realized that the viewer for our CAD models was broken. After a bit of problem-solving and searching we realized that a link in the code was broken and fixed this for all of the CAD models. The coming weeks will hopefully see more time dedicated to the site and more improvements.

Monday – On Monday, the team began construction of the twin bot. The twin bot is an exact copy of the main robot; this is done in order to train rookies and to potentially create a more finalized design that may end up being better than the original machine. Miss Daisy has kept with this method since 2005, and it has proved to be very beneficial to the team. Monday is Miss Daisy’s short day, so the frame was laid out and a crew was assembled to continue this project.

Tuesday – The build team split up into its respective crews to continue working on specific projects: the shooter, the claw, the modified kit bot, and the twin. Today marked the beginning of the electrical team’s real job, that is, laying out the components within the machine to see the best place for everything. The build team gave input as the electrical crew did its job. Meanwhile, the frame of the twin was mostly assembled, though a shortage of parts and materials halted their progress. The remaining projects experienced good progress, and while the electrical team “hogged” the main robot, the build team took this opportunity to tidy up the shop and to work on miscellaneous projects in order to increase the utility of the team.

Thursday – Tonight, the team finished up final tweaks to the current layout of the electrical board. The twin bot continued undergoing construction; the base is almost fully assembled to be a copy of the original. The crew looks to start laying out the electrical components for the twin either tonight or tomorrow. Meanwhile, on the main bot, the prototype crew for the shooter began preparations to assemble their shooter to the main bot. The prototype, still constructed mainly of wood, should be running later this week. The group working on the kit bot has made good progress. The shelves for extra weight has nearly been completed; all that remains on their part is to have a claw constructed so it can lower the ramp.

Friday – The day started off with the team working on the main robot, making tweaks to temporary parts, uploading code, finishing wiring, etc. After dinner, the Miss Daisy XI drove for the first time. The team ran it over the center field barrier several times, satisfied with its performance. Although the robot still showed some minor issues, the testing was considered to be a success. We also managed to test the prototype shooter, which was attached to the robot, and important data was collected from observing the robot in action. Now, the main robot is undergoing several construction changes, including adjusting the prototype shooter and finalizing the tower in which the balls are to be stored.

Saturday – The build team finished the initial adjustments to the shooter and did some preliminary testing with the new design. The team determined that the shooter would be the main focus of work today, so chain was cut down, the shooter motors were raised on the tower, and an improved hood system was implemented at the top, though only temporary for now. The team ran through several shooting tests. Considering that the design is very rough at this point, the team is somewhat satisfied with the quality of the shooter (ie, it made 3-point baskets). More adjustments are necessary, but the team has a solid idea of how to approach this challenge.

Electrical by Michelle G.

On the electrical team in week four we made great strides in our work! The team successfully completed the main robot’s electrical board – starting with Velcro-ing everything down, and building a resting board for the battery. We were sure to make certain that the Velcro completely covered all attaching surfaces as to give a secure connection. The power distribution board is in the center of the electrical system, with (somewhat) symmetry flowing through to the rest of the components. After securing all parts to the board we began wiring all the power lines. We were sure to double check all crimps, after the trouble we had with last year’s board. To keep the board clean and organized we zip-tied all wires to the belly pan. This allows for a clear flow of the wires, making the connection paths more obvious. After this was done, we finished up with the PWMs. As we finished smiles spread upon our tired faces; for before our eyes was the prettiest electrical board yet.

CAD by Pranav K.

The CAD team, in week 4, continued its normal functions of creating various models of the robot’s subsystems. Various members created parts of the tower, which was being tested and assembled by the build team this week. The team put together prototypes for the shooting head and the pieces of extruded that are currently in place. This was done to get a rough visual as to how the plates surrounding the shooter would fit on to the actual aimer, which worked out relatively well in CAD. CAD also prototyped the orange belts to pull the foam balls up to be shot. However, the CAD team encountered the complication of the preset belts not being long enough, which ultimately required us to edit the belts numerous times to get it right. The CAD team plans to compare this to what is on the actual robot later and determine if any changes need to be made to our model, and if so, do them.

In addition, the electrical team made many advances, and the team sought to get our model corrected to what the electrical sub-team finally decided on. CAD had to replace some Jaguars (not the car) and move around various parts. The only thing the team has left to do at this point in the build season is to wire everything, which is also being taken care of by CAD team members throughout this week. The CAD team, as per instructions of our coach, also assembled the robot as a whole, bringing together several parts and assemblies previously created but never put together. The CAD team incorporated subsystems like the right and left drive train, the frame, the electrical board, and what is currently made of the tower.

Finally, the CAD team began to make the models for our Mobile Robotics Learning Lab as per the conditions of our grant from Dow Industrial. In a matter of days, the team managed to work diligently and create the frame, both drive trains, and a rudimentary electrical board to be put on the robots to be made for the mobile lab.

Animation by Andy L.

The animation team has finished our storyboard, and we’ve decided to focus our story on providing robotics teams to schools throughout the world. We have started character modeling and finished modeling two of our set pieces; one is a school’s exterior and the other is the inside of a classroom. We’ve also been playing around with lighting and rendering in Mental Ray. Currently, our animation team has a pretty strong understanding of modeling, texturing, and animating, but our knowledge of rigging has been lacking, so we have spent a few days researching how to work with skeletons, weight painting, and IK handles. Other than discovering problems with backwards compatibility between Maya 2012 and 2011, things have been running pretty smoothly.

Business by Allison P.

The business team has been making a lot of progress thus far. We started off this week by gathering and reviewing information about other project teams by interviewing many of those members. We also obtained a lot of information through the weekly reports submitted by the different teams. Then, we were able to incorporate all the progress and news the project teams made into our second ever newsletter. Thus far, we are still working on completing the second newsletter. We are in the process of writing more articles and adding more content to it, as well as identifying pictures that we want to include with the articles. We have heard back from our sponsors that they really liked our first newsletter. Hopefully, our second one will be an even greater success!

Another very important aspect of the business team is the 2012 Business Plan. We are finishing up our review of the 2011 Business Plan in order to find areas that need updating or fixing. We have highlighted those areas in the 2011 Business Plan and are hoping to update and fix everything next week. So far, it seems that the Competitive Analysis section needs the most work. After updating all the information in that section, we will move onto other sections, such as the financials/budget section.

Tracking team expenses is also one of the jobs the business team must take on. We have discussed setting up and creating a spreadsheet to log all of the expenses so that the team will be able to see all the expenses of each area of the team to compare them with all other years. We plan to start creating the team expense spreadsheet within the next week and hopefully begin inputting all the information soon.

Media by Danielle G. & Emily O.

This week, the team made major progress on the robot; so much so that by Friday, the media team was filming and photographing a moving rough version of Daisy. We were able to interview members of the mechanical build team and CAD team who gave us the inside scoop on their activities throughout the week. Diana asked some fun questions such as: “If you could go to any regional in the world, where would it be?” and “If Team 341 had a theme song, what would it be?” For our fun segment this week we decided to make a parody of a popular television commercial, the Most Interesting Man in the World. For this role we choose to highlight Mr. Trageser, who is a major contributor to the team’s success. His daughter, a previous member and captain of the team, initially introduced him to robotics. Working closely with Mr. Ostrow and putting in major hours working in the shop, Mr. Trageser has helped the team achieve victory countless times. We were able to tape wonderful interviews from Mr.Dixon, a previous coach, and Michelle, a current member, along with other goofy ones. To view this week’s vlog, click here.

Also this week, the media team wrapped up the fall recap video that highlighted all team activities between the end of last season and the beginning of this one. We continually strive to film all of our big events from IRI to Ramp Riot. We had some trouble picking out good footage as most of the Ramp Riot section was filmed in standard definition, but this collaborative team effort proved a great learning experience. This video turned out wonderfully thanks to the narration written and recorded by team members.

The team is making wonderful progress in preparation for our first FIRST^® competition. It is a great experience to be able to capture our journey on film and show the world. We hope that our vlogs and other short films excite and inspire our viewers.

Web by Emily O.

Our newest and current website launched late in 2008. This is the majority of the website a viewer would see today with some changes along the way. As a student developing the site at the time, I remember asking specifically if we should have made the site a bit wider. It seemed too compact. We eventually decided that it would be best to keep the site thinner because some people still used small, old computers. Now, with the evolution of technology, we are proud to announce that our site has evolved as well. We have made the site wider in order to allow for more room and content space. After widening the site, we updated the sponsor logos in our footer. We also made our header wider in Photoshop, with a new daisy head! We have been working on re-formatting the site as some content has moved around and cleaning up the layout of the content and pictures. As always, we have continually been uploading the vlogs and build season photos. Look for our fall recap video coming soon!

Tuesday – Tuesday’s build session was very…riveting…to say the least. As the drive base was being constructed, another group spent their time riveting high-traction treads onto the 6-inch wheels that will be incorporated into our machine. Meanwhile, the kit bot was being modified by a group of veterans and rookies to be driven in a wide orientation. This bot will be used in practicing balancing and other aspects of the game. More work was done on the claw and the shooter, as prototyping is nearing completion now that we have a solid blueprint from the CAD team.

Thursday – MOAR RIVETS. The wheel group managed to pump out 8 wheels – enough for one robot. The group continued to work on the wheels, for we need a total of 16 wheels for the two robots the team plans on constructing, as we have done for past few years. Not many exciting things happened tonight, as each build group continued to work on their respective projects. At the end of the night, however, another version of the shooter prototype was completed, and the team gathered in the shop to witness its testing. The ball was fairly accurate and consistent, showing promise for our final design.

Friday – The drive base was assembled today, so the team took out the bump that was constructed in the first week to test how well the robot could traverse the obstacle. The robot’s design proved itself to be sufficient, as the robot easily crossed over the bump. A build group continued to work on the kit bot, modifying it to feel more like a real robot come driver practice. Project leader Tito, who supervises the claw construction, led his group in assembling the claw according to the CAD blueprints. The claw frame is projected to be completed by tonight, with a finished product by the beginning of next week. The full drive system was fully assembled at the end of the night, with both gear boxes mounted and running smoothly.

Saturday – Saturday’s session began with using Miss Daisy 2006 (another shooter bot) in order to gauge the trajectory of the balls. The team set up the hoops and enjoyed shooting balls with the robot. Because the 2006 shooter is located on a lower part of the robot than what we have planned for our 2012 bot, we placed the 2006 bot on a cart to replicate what a trajectory would look like from a higher location. Of course, one of the mentors made a mistake and accidentally drove the robot off the cart trying to reposition it. Fortunately, the robot’s structure was very sturdy, and no damage was done. Afterward, the team decided to modify the 2006 twin bot so it will be able to shoot the balls for this year’s game, which are slightly larger than the balls used in 2006.

CAD by Pranav K.

This week, the CAD team has been working on not only new projects, but also in a new working structure. In years past, we have built the robot ahead of the CAD model, leaving the CAD sub-team to catch up to the robot construction. Although slightly difficult, this work flow was efficient in getting the robot built and also took in to account that the CAD deadline is after the robot submission. This year, however, the CAD prototype was built before any piece of aluminum was cut. While this is typical for the real world, it was always thought that planning would cut into the time used to build the robot, ultimately leading to a less than ideal final robot. However, we have seen great results this year because of eager new CAD members who are able to handle the work load beautifully.

Our CAD coach, Brian, issued general areas of work for each senior member with rookie members there to help them in measuring or to just learn how to CAD at an advanced level. In conjunction with the Electrical Team, CAD was able to create a model for the electrical board (although the physical placement for each part is unknown). In addition, the CAD team this year is attempting to avoid using any parts without a history, or list of actions done to create the part. So various members have taken downloaded parts, recreated them (with history), and placed them in our repository for other members to access. Notably, members have created various bolts, screws, nuts, washers, and other parts used in numerous subsystems of the robot. Furthermore, there are larger parts used like the Andymark Super Shifter, of which the subparts were remade, reassembled, and sit ready to be placed onto the robot frame. Several members have also taken the prototypes for various systems (i.e. the claw, the shooter, the frame, etc.) and have resized the parts used in the prototype to fit the actual robot model.

Business by Susan N.

This week, the Business Team has been gathering the contents for the second newsletter. We have interviewed the different Project Teams and asked them what they were working on this week in order to create the content.  Through the interviews we found out that the design of our robot has been finalized by the CAD team, the actual robot is being built by our mechanical team, the media team also interviewed different members from the project teams using cameras and mics to record clearly, the electrical build team and programming teams planned on how our robot should be acting by certain orders from a controller.

The name of our newsletter will be “Daisy Dispatch” and it will provide information about what the project teams are working on each week. The “Daisy Dispatch” template is finished and it really represents the team’s characteristics. We are excited to hear some reviews from our team members, including coaches. The newsletter is eye-catching and informative and will help to explain how our team works and show how much we are united as a team. The newsletter will enable us to keep our sponsors updated on the activities of the team.  The pictures that will be included in the newsletter are taken by our media team during work sessions.

Our second job this week was to continue reviewing the 2011 Business Plan to identify areas that need to be updated or redesigned. We are currently focusing on the Competitive Analysis section. After the review and update steps are done, the 2012 Business Plan to be published and ready for submission at our competitions.

Our third job was to create a spreadsheet to track the expenses of the team and categorize them by project team.  This job is in progress.

Media by Patrick W. & Danielle G.

We are well into the swing of things here on the Media team. Our week 3 vlog was one of our funniest vlogs to date. We took a trip to the Daisy Garden with James the Daisy Hunter and also interviewed Andy from our animation team. Everyone has been contributing to our team and has been showing a positive attitude. The media team is trying really hard to include all parts of the team in our vlogs. In previous years, the vlogs were very robot-focused. But, this year we have filmed segments on the CAD, Animation, Electrical and Business Teams. In doing this, we really capture a more holistic view of our team.

Aside from that, the media crew does not have many other projects going on at the moment. The fall recap video is wrapping up and we are just starting to revise our Team in a Box product. Next week should be very busy for us as we are continuing vlogging, revising Team in a Box, and starting to make our trophies for competition. But, we are looking forward to it as always!

Monday – Since Monday was a national holiday, Martin Luther King Day, the school was closed, but a handful of full-time members showed up bright and early (and some not-so-bright-and-early) to continue the previous week’s work. One of our challenges was that of the claw, which brings the basketballs to the robot. The build group assigned to the prototyping of the claw continued to construct and stabilize the robot; meanwhile, another build group worked with a coach to construct a jig. This would aid in fusing rubber strips together serving as the belt for the claw. Although the team could not complete the entire prototype, the small group finished the jig, meaning that the claw’s completion is not too far away.

Tuesday – We returned to work the next day, turning attention to the near-complete claw as well as the ramp. A large sheet of Lexan arrived at the shop, so we spent time to affix the plastic to the top of our ramp in order to give it a realistic feel. This will play into how we will design the drive system and the kind of treads that will be used on the robot. During this time, a working prototype for the claw was tested; it successfully drew balls towards itself when powered by a hand drill. The drill rotated a steel bar, which in turn rotated the belt layer drawing balls inward. Already planning on our improvements, the build team went back to work. After we had dinner, the design team handed the build members a scale design of the base of the robot. The team is currently planning the best way to finally begin constructing Miss Daisy.

Thursday – The arrival of crucial parts increased production tremendously. A few people broke off and began cutting pieces of metal for the frame of the robot. Once cut, a few veterans began training rookies how to tap holes in extruded aluminum for the frame. Simultaneously, a few members continued the production of the reflecting tape around the square of the hoops for the field. After dinner, we began teaching the new members how to assemble the wheels of the robot properly. A few members of the electrical team began placing layouts of the electrical board. More belts were added as well as machined cardboard supplements. This improved the productivity of the claw and the feeder. Although there is still the final product to be completed, this year is already heading on the right track with the efficient use of time and labor.

Friday – Prototyping on the claw and the feeding system continued through the end of this week. With cut parts and the right materials, we were excited to finally begin the building process… that is until careful measuring found a potential issue in the mounting of the drive train. A small group of veterans began laying out wheels and assembling the chain that would link the parts together. Another team of veterans lead rookies and were nearing completion with their small project: transforming the boat made for last year’s musical into a wide base drive system. We hope to use the robot for experimenting with a wide robot base and figuring out how well it handles, especially on the ramp. The main goal of this week long project was to train rookies the basics of constructing a robot. Also, our drivers took the 2005 bot (Miss Daisy’s only other wide robot) into the hallways to practice driving in preparation for robot testing and game strategizing. Work on the robot’s drive train slowly got to a slow start. Although a little set back from the weather, we are still determined to create a championship robot hopefully by the 5th week of build season.

Saturday – Due to weather concerns, the school was closed on January 21st, eliminating one day of build for Miss Daisy

Electrical by Michelle G.

The electrical team is happy to report that the layout for the electrical board has been decided. This may change as the robot parameters are still flexible. This week, we worked together to physically lay out the design with all components. These drawings were then given to the CAD team in order to make all measurements precise.

Programming by James D.

This week, James continued to work on the backboard-locating software he was developing for the robot. Little to no substantial updates have arose as far as this project goes. The Axis Camera–used to take
pictures from the bot’s perspective in-game–arrived for testing. James set up the appropriate information/user information for accessing the camera’s control system. We were intending to take
sample pictures to test with the program once it was completed, however Sean is still constructing the practice backboards.

Business by Sheila B.

This week, the Business Team continued finalizing content for the first newsletter. We did this by reviewing the information we obtained in interviews with the project team members and their weekly reports. We also identified the pictures we wanted to include with the articles and decided on the name for the newsletter. Our coach continued to explore options for creating and distributing the newsletter via internet research and discussions with other coaches. It was determined we will use a program contained on our team laptops and we will distribute the newsletter via email to our sponsors. We are excited to begin sending this out to our sponsors in order to keep them informed on how our season is progressing.

We have begun reviewing the 2011 Business Plan to identify areas that need to be updated or redesigned. We are planning the work process across the team since we need to update the text version and determine the timing/schedule needed to work with the Media Team to obtain updated photos, and to update the actual document using InDesign. Our initial focus will be on the Competitive Analysis section and we will then move on to the financials/budget section. The updates to the financials/budget section will require meeting with our head coach to obtain updated facts and figures.

Our head coach has requested that the business team assist in tracking our team expenses. We discussed creating a spreadsheet to log all expenses. The spreadsheet will be set up by project team so that we can see the needs and expenses of each area of our team and compare them from year to year. Once the spreadsheet has been finalized we will begin working with the coach to obtain this season’s expense information. The information in this spreadsheet can then be used in future year’s business plans when updating the expense information.

Media by Danielle G. and Patrick W.

It is the second week of build season and we are busily working on the creation the 2012 robot. The media team is working hard to capture all the hard work as well as to expand our fall recap video and vlog. The fall video features all of the events in which the team participated over the summer and before build season. James as talent interviewed Eric, a member of the design team. Eric spoke to James on the design team’s progress over the second week. The media team also filmed a mechanical and electrical sequence on the progression of the robot since week one. In addition to focusing on the robot, we interviewed the coaches and asked their opinions on the game this year. The most common comment quoted Will.i.am’s FIRST^® interview last year, in which he called FISRT “dope.” For a fun tidbit, we filmed a segment at a school basketball game in our gym. The team members talk about their thoughts on basketball and which came first, Rebound Rumble or Basketball. Throughout the segment, our team never forgets to be safe, as safety glasses were worn throughout the shot!

The Media team has worked together cohesively this week. Veterans are working hard to teach rookies new skills which can then be applied to video editing and shooting. This is a positive change, since the experienced members took the lead last week. Now, the new members are having more active roles in the media team, which is really exciting.

Web by Emily O.

The web team has been hard at work writing and posting blogs addressing past events. We have five new blog posts covering: Duel on the Delaware, Monty Madness, Ramp Riot, Basket Bingo, and IRI. In addition to our vlog updates on past events, we posted the first of our build season blog updates for each section of the team. These posts can be found on the Team News Page of our website. We have also continually been updating our photos from this build season, so be sure to regularly check our Build Season photo album on the media page or on Flickr. We have additionally added the IRI selection from Flickr to our 2011 season media page. Our list of team members has also been updated. If you know someone on the team, you can now see what part of the team with which they are involved.

Tuesday – The design team was still busy contemplating different robot designs, so the build team set out to create the many field parts for this year’s game. The team put together the barrier that crosses the center of the field. It was the first official day of build, so everyone was getting used to the long hours of work and the familiar scent of sawdust.

Thursday – The design team worked through concepts for a ball pick-up system, drive system, and a ball shooter based on the initial brainstorming sessions. The build team continued to work on the field parts. Several of the rookies helped the build coach, Mr. Trageser, affectionately known as Mr. Trag, build the frame to hold the backboards, while a smaller group created the basketball boards and hoops. Currently, the build team is working on a way to make the hoops more modular to conserve space.

Friday – The design team, tested a prototype shooter, in the school’s auditorium using the goals constructed by the build team. As the field parts and robot prototypes begin to take shape, the reality of the projects are starting to form in the team members’ minds.

Saturday – A handful of build team members arrived early in the morning to continue work on the bridge to make it sturdier. After this was done, the team performed various tests, using robots from the previous years. The team could see exactly what kind of challenge balancing robots on this bridge will present.

Programming & Electrical by James D.

This week, the programming team primarily set up for being able to program the robot this season. We began working on a few formulas to help with locating the backboard and rotating towards it during autonomous mode. Our main focus for these formulas is to:

1. Identify the optimum angle of trajectory
2. Identify the optimum velocity
3. Develop analysis techniques that allow the computer to comprehend where the backboard is in relation to the robot and to modify direction accordingly

On Thursday, we helped Mr. Ostrow connect the 2010 robot to a laptop and the driver station so we could program functions and test preliminary movements without the robot actually being completed. It was not easy to keep a wireless connection and after a good hour of working on the problem, we had to save this job for another day.

CAD & Preliminary Design by Kirk B. & Pranav K.

The CAD Team worked on worked on various ideas for drive trains and other prototypes for the 2012 robot. We were responsible for converting the team’s drawings and sketches into CAD. Even though most of our computers do not support the programs we need, we made significant progress working solely from three computers.

On Tuesday, the CAD Team assisted the Design team by creating models of their sketches and more abstract ideas. Thanks to Autodesk Inventor’s simulation ability, we were able to analyze the potential of numerous design concepts.

For Thursday, our CAD coach, Brian Sherman, gave us directions to convert our team’s refined prototype into a working Inventor model. While some of our members worked to fulfill this task, the remaining members refined our documentation system and to ensured that all models were up-to-date.

On Friday, we successfully identified parts in our repository that lacked histories and proceeded to recreate them. Ultimately, we managed to create a prototype for an eight-wheel Tank Drive-Train attached to a basic base frame.

On Saturday, the CAD team worked to create an updated prototype model. We also worked on turning robot model’s belly pan into a basic electrical board model. This season, we seek to create our best CAD model to date.

Animation by David S.

After the release of the Autodesk 3D Animation Task on Thursday, the animation team brainstormed various ideas for this year’s topic. The challenge is to create an animation that outlines how an alien race, the iiko, can help our society improve its educational infrastructure. To begin with, we spent a great deal of time identifying aspects of our educational system that we would like to change for the better. In our next step we came up with creative ways that the iiko would be responsible for alleviating our problems.

This proved to be more difficult than expected, for we all had different ideas and expectations. Once we finally decided on a specific idea, we set to work. By the end of next week, we should be done with the storyboarding and have started animating.

Business by Allison P. & Susan N.

This week, the Business Team worked on creating the content for our biweekly newsletter. We interviewed the various project teams, obtained images relative to what we seek to portray, and completed describing this year’s game, Rebound Rumble.

Our newsletter is a fairly new project and for this season, we hope to work on redesigning and develop it further. This includes creating a template that will hopefully be used for the next few years.

We are also in the process of reviewing the 2011 Business Plan. We targeting areas that need to be updated or redesigned. Overall, this has been a nice week for the Business Team. Although we do not have many members in this team, we have been able to make a lot of progress. In the upcoming weeks, we will make a final template for the newsletter and work on the 2012 Business Plan.

Media by Danielle G. and Patrick W.

This week was very exciting for the whole team because we got to see the game and plan for the 2012 robot. The game is very challenging and the whole team has thought of ways to overcome these obstacles and succeed. On Sunday, after Kick-Off, the team met to brainstorm. The media team both filmed and photographed this meeting. Mainly, the media team focused on filming the session which used students acting as robots. This helped all members of the team to really get a feel for the game. Using a lunch table for a bumper and buckets for baskets, 341 figured out strategies for assessing the new game. The media team captured these moments for future viewing by the team.

Later in the week, the members of the media team thought out their plans for this season. Kirsten and Scott, our media coaches, helped us map out the upcoming events and goals. The media team then chose leaders for each activity and thought out ideas for the 2012 Vlog. The Vlog, video blog, will be made each week of build season. Each week, we plan to show what every part of the team is working on. In the previous year, we mainly focused on the mechanical progress of our robot, but this year we want to also include CAD, design, and electrical into the mix. Aside from the Vlog, we plan to make a Fall Recap video and a update our Flickr with pictures from the recent events we have attended.

All in all, it has been a great first week of build season. We have had some problems and hiccups, but as always we problem solve and come out ahead. If the next five weeks go as well as this one did, we are going to have an amazing season!

Website by Emily O.

This week marks the first of many updates to the team website, www.team341.com for this season. We focused mainly on adding a few pages and bug fixes rather than re-designing. All of the albums from our Flickr are now updated on to the media page of our website. We already have two photo albums for 2012 on our media page, so check out what our team has been doing. A few other pages have been updated as well; our coach Kirsten is now officially married to Scott!

This week encompassed minor tasks, but the media team has an aggressive schedule planned for the upcoming season. Our team leaders for each project group will be blogging about their progress each week for the Team News page on our web site. Additionally, we plan to add all of our CAD models from previous years, redesign our navigation menu, and add pictures of our awards to add more interest to our awards page.

Most exciting, however, is our plan to create a new website dedicated to Team in a Box. This website will host most of our videos offered on our disc in order to increase the availability of our videos to new teams. We would also like to make this more of a collaborative effort and would welcome other team submissions to our project. If you love the disc, however, don’t worry. We will still keep the basic videos on the DVD to be sent out as a secondary resource for all who request it. We plan for updates, new pages and resources, and an entirely new website; the two student media team is up for the challenge!

After a couple of hectic days of pulling the last organizational and technical glitches together, we opened our doors at 12:00 pm on Sunday for our first ever Basket Bingo. The first round started at 1:00 pm, giving the participants enough time to survey the prizes and help themselves to the complimentary snacks provided by the team. There was one intermission, and the event went till well into the afternoon. After the event and a quick clean up, we realized that we had completed our first Basket Bingo event ever. We want to continue this fundraiser in years to come and have it completely student run.