The Solidworks files containing the parts and assemblies using 80/20 materials can be downloaded from https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=R3oycXlrQXA1R05jR0E9PQ
They are in Solidworks 2008 format.
The Solidworks files containing the parts and assemblies using 80/20 materials can be downloaded from https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=R3oycXlrQXA1R05jR0E9PQ
They are in Solidworks 2008 format.
Posted at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
If you haven't had a chance to see the 30 minute Quest program on KQED, here is a pointer to their web site and a couple of great episodes that are fun to watch. They do host the clips on the site and have all manner of resources that you will enjoy.
http://www.kqed.org/quest/
http://www.kqed.org/quest/television/view/914
This clip is about a Catamaran like system built by a local engineer who wanted a smoother (less sea-sickness) ride on the ocean.
Posted at 12:12 AM in Engineering | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I want to echo my thanks to everyone who
You all should be very proud. Our claw broke a few times, but you persevered and we ended up with a robot that can do everything Paly's does (they were part of the alliance that very nearly took first place at SVR). We have ideas for a new, improved claw, but even if we remove claw entirely we can score in autonomous mode, get balls off the rack when needed, and drive fast. Wow!!!
We will meet at 6 PM Wednesday. My goals are to:
* celebrate what we have accomplished already
* chart road to Championships including setting schedule
* start to generate ideas for even more successful 2009 season while this build season is still vividly in our minds
If you can come at 4:30, please let me know and we will unpack our stuff from SVR and clean up the lab a bit.
We have major paperwork coming for trip to Atlanta (I believe that damage to Omni Hotel and Georgia Dome was largely superficial and I expect games to go on as scheduled).
We need to:
Once again, you have made all the hard work worthwhile. You are a remarkable group of young women with awesome parents. Krystine did an awesome job of pulling it all together. Thanks everyone.
Diane
Posted at 12:14 AM in TeamNotifications | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
So what was today?
FIRST DAY OF COMPETITION!
Not that I'm sure you're reading this e-mail since it's almost late enough to be considered late, and we definitely have an early start tomorrow.
How did we do?
1) Programming now has an autonomous -- a work
in progress, really. It goes straight and stops generally when it bangs
into things (I hope it won't do this anymore). (The first such time was
when the Hawaii team was directly across. Whoops.)
2) Elevator is on the
robot! Unfortunately, this was at the very last minute, so it's not
actually wired. But it's on the robot! Bolted and ready for
metal-gluing.
3) I updated the code so that we would have a smaller turn radius on high gear. It looks like it's working!
4) Some brilliant minded person (that was sarcasm, really) decided the
robot should be named Katherine. Want a robot named after you? Be five
foot tall and weight as much as a robot.
What next?
1) Come to competition! Be at the San Jose Event Center at 7:45am. The doors open at 8am, so the earlier you get there, the better!
2) Solder the elevator motors.
3) Sign up for practice field -- 8:30am or after should be good.
4) Our first match is at 10:06am. Be there!!
5) Drive straight! Turn left!
For those that haven't heard, we're up against some really tough teams. In our first match, we're up against 1280 (Portland regional winners). Then again, we're teamed up with two really fast robots.
Next, Bell. Somewhere down the line, we're up against 100 and 8. (So
what teams are we with? Well, I don't actually know -- I failed to look
at that side of the paper. :S Best to know your competition, right?)
But really, I'm so excited for tomorrow! Mark's emcee'ing.
And does anyone know where the cookie costume is?
-K
Posted at 01:38 AM in RoboticsBuildNotes | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
This is such a terrific interview, I hope you all get to watch and send this link around. The video will be up for 90 days. They will also be covering the team at the regionals. Great job by everyone who helped and participated. Makes us all proud.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=view_from_the_bay/tech_gadgets&id=6002231
One of our contacts at the Girl Scouts is also linking to this from the NorCal web site at www.GirlScoutsNorCal.org/news. She and many other well-wishers have sent their congratulations to Space Cookies on all their hard work and the great interview.
Here are some stills from the video. Gabriela, Katherine, Lilian - you were great! Wendy gave you all the floor and you hit it out of the park. We all hope that this inspires other kids to look into robotics as an activity to explore their interests in science, technology and math.
Posted at 05:17 AM in RoboticsMarketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Message
Greetings Teams,
Good Luck to all of you in your regional competitions. Be sure to take the opportunity during your regional event to visit the FIRST Scholarship Program table. Here you can get information about the $9.6 million in college scholarships available to FIRST high school students. Your regional may also be hosting a Scholarship Row or College Fair where representatives from colleges are available to talk to you about their campus, programs, and scholarships. Be sure to take advantage of this opportunity. And please take the time to thank these schools for offering FIRST Scholarships!
The following scholarship have been added or updated recently on the FIRST Scholarship webpage (www.usfirst.org/scholarships) :
Go Teams!
-- FIRST Robotics Competition
Posted at 04:37 AM in TeamNotifications | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Sorry for the late notice, but FYI, we're are adding Wednesday to the schedule. Our schedule now looks like this:
On Wednesday 4-8 (parent and intern presence arranged)
Fix 2007 robot
Practice Driving (with 2007 robot)
Continue claw
Continue carriage
On Thursday 4:30-8 ( intern presence arranged, please find a parent to stay)
Finish Claw
Finish Carriage
Hybrid Mode
Continue driving 2007
continue through rest of to-do list before competition
Weekend: same times as always.
to do list depends on Weds and Thurs
Thank you for reading,
Gabriela, Katherine, Lilian
Posted at 04:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
This message is for anyone who participated in First Lego robotics before joining our team. If this includes you, please respond to frcteams@usfirst.org
Thanks!
Diane
-----Original Message-----
From: FRC Teams
Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 10:52 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: **FIRST EMAIL**/FLL to FRC Participants!
Greetings FRC Teams!
Did you "graduate" from the FIRST LEGO League to your FRC team? Would you say that FLL influenced your decision to join FRC? If so, we want to hear from you!
Many of you may remember last year we began collecting stories of team members who started in FLL and then moved on to FRC. This time, we want to hear specifically how FLL has impacted the decisions you have made - from joining FRC to what you plan to do after high school to your career goals. We want to know more of those amazing stories of how FLL has changed your life!
If you meet the following criteria, please let us know!
1) You participated in FLL.
2) You would say your involvement in FRC is a direct result of your participation in FLL.
3) You would say your future education and career goals changed as a direct result of your participation in FLL.
If you meet that criteria, e-mail FLLteams@usfirst.org with your name, your FRC team number, what regional you are attending, and a brief summary of how FLL has impacted you. With the information sent in, we want to use it to highlight you! This may be as a spotlight on you in the FIRST newsletter or we may send a camera to your regional and tape an interview with you! We know there are many amazing stories out there and we think the public should know.
If you know of previous FRC team members or perhaps your mentors who participated in FLL and have since graduated from high school and are in college or in their career, please pass this along to them as well.
We hope to hear from you. Please send in all responses as soon as possible, but no later than March 7, 2008.
Go Teams!
Posted at 04:31 AM in TeamNotifications | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Regionals are the events that take place all over. The first ones were this past weekend. If you go to www.usfirst.org and click on "events" you will get a list of the events. The ones that have already taken place will have "results" and some will have video available. If you watch some of the video you will understand how the game is played a whole lot more. You will also gain insight into what kind of strategies work for this year's game. Each week the robots get more sophisticated as teams learn from the previous events.
We will go to Silicon Valley Regional at Event Center at San Jose State March 13-15. This is considered to be one of the most competitive regionals and some of the top teams in the nation will be there. Some teams come specifically to try to beat Team 254 (the boys who meet at NASA too). They have won SVR every year they have competed except one. See their impressive collection of blue banners about the lab.
Thursday is set aside for making improvements on the robot we shipped (putting cables on the elevator, swapping the claw, completing wiring, programming, etc.) There are also practice rounds so we can put our robot to the test. All day Friday and Saturday morning are the seeding rounds. Saturday afternoon the best 24 robots (out of about 48) will go head to head to choose the best alliance of 3 teams . The top seeded 8 teams each choose 2 other teams to be part of their alliance to win the championship of the day. It is a very complicated process and often the top 12 teams become choosers. Our first year we were seeded 5th which is unheard of for a rookie team! Last year we were 47th out of 48, so we expect to be on our way back up.
During the seeding matches there will be 4 girls (including Krystine) serving as the drive team running the robot. Several more will be madly working in the pit between matches as the robot will undoubtedly need repairs, tuning up, replacing the battery, etc.
The rest of the team will be scouting the other teams. Sila is our head scout, and she will work with the drive team to determine the information that will be helpful to know about each team. Pre-match scouting is gleaning whatever information you can from the internet or by talking to others. Pit scouting is what you can learn by walking around the pits and looking at other teams' robots and talking to other teams about their strengths and weaknesses. Match scouting is what you can learn from watching the matches. Hopefully this year we will be able to compile the information in a way that it is more useful to the drive team during the matches. Scouting information becomes vital if you are seeded in the top 12 or so as you may have to choose alliances that will complement your strengths; if you are chosen, your information will help your alliance to plat strategy against the opposing alliances. Scouting goes both ways; the image our team projects to other teams may well affect how we are perceived and could determine if we are selected for an alliance. We want to be seen as competent (don't dwell on the negatives), cooperative, honest, and fun to be with -- do not exhibit obnoxious or overbearing attitudes.
There are other awards in addition to the ones for the winningest teams. Perhaps the 2 most important awards are the judges' award and the chairman's award. Our rookie year we did not win a single match at the championships, yet the girls were still incredibly upbeat and eager to help each other and other teams. The judges noticed this and also the fact that all of the girls could answer their questions confidently and correctly. They also realized that we were truly a girl-driven team. We won the judges award at the championship! The chairman's award recognizes extra effort beyond FIRST -- if we enlarge our commitment to the Lego robotics team(s) from EPACS, combined with our work with NASA and Girl Scout events, we will have a chance to win a future Chairman's Award!
The motto of FIRST is "gracious professionalism". You will quickly discover that the games are highly competitive, yet teams are very willing to share parts and expertise with any team that asks.
There are also many aspects of a sporting match including team mascots dancing together or leading cheers for their own team. We are inviting area Girl Scouts to join us. Talk to Lilian about the fun of wearing the Cookie costume and leading cheers.
The Championships are similar, except the best teams from the world are there and teams are divided into 4 divisions. Each division chooses a champion alliance and then those alliances go head to head for an overall championship.
Diane
Posted at 04:29 AM in TeamNotifications | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 04:24 AM in RoboticsMarketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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