This week was filled with quite a few setbacks, but at least with each setback the sub team grew, and each member learned from their mistakes.

Electrical was able to create a way to use the magnetic encoders if they get to use them. Though the encoders ended up being too large to use next to the gearboxes, so the work done on the code cannot be used for autonomous, but at least they learned how to work with and program the magnetic encoders. They were also able to cut the PDP board and wire the electronics together, they mounted the electronics to the electrical board, and were able to make progress on the camera tracking.

Meanwhile, mechanical encountered it’s own setbacks, such as various things needing to be readjusted because they got in the way of each other. They found that they were able to update things as they went along, and get the rope payload, and gear payload. A CAD was also done in order to help with the system integration.

Business/Graphics were able to send out the December-January Newsletter, and complete more button designs. They hope to get the rest of the survey results for the t-shirt orders soon, and have almost completed the back to the game shirt featuring all of the sponsors. You can find the weekly videos on our youtube channel here .

This week, five members were asked the questions:

How have you grown so far throughout the build season?

What achievement do you feel is most self fulfilling?

“I learned how to admit my mistakes. As long as I know what I did wrong, I can do better the next time. I think that being able to do something without someone telling you its wrong does sound pretty good to me. I feel that once I trust myself to do stuff confidently, I can do stuff without doubt. Which means FASTER.”

~Timothy Kaneshiro

“I have learned a lot this year about working in a team. I think that I’ve grown in my teamwork abilities because I have learned that there are things that we have to do even if we don’t want to in order to benefit the team. I’d say my most self-fulfilling accomplishment this year is just being a contributing member of the team.”

~Shadrack Nabea

“Throughout the build season, I feel that I have definitely learned a lot and and gained a lot of experienced these past few weeks. The achievement I feel as the most self fulfilling is getting the drive code and the gyro code working. I am not very skilled in that area but after I worked hard and spent a lot of time working on it, I could see myself becoming familiar with it and all making sense to me.”

~Lina Kang

“So far this build season, I feel as though I have learned a lot more about my team and the responsibilities of FIRST Robotics. We’ve gained two new members in the business team and they have both found their respective niches – Vanessa G. is our entertaining and charismatic video editor and Nolan is our naturally talented journalist. I have also learned just how hard working our returning members are – both Dom and Vanessa N. have to balance build season responsibilities with soccer, as well as a social life, and Gavril is determined enough to vectorize a train design and all of the logos. As far as business responsibilities, I have learned how to make Google surveys and have learned about the requirements for each of the FRC awards. I think we are also growing as a team because we were recently approached with a sponsorship offer – this is a new PR experience for the sub team, as well as an exciting opportunity for the team. It has been incredibly rewarding to spend more time with my business sub team members, but the most fulfilling personal achievement has to be learning to manage not only my responsibilities, but keep track of all the responsibilities of my sub team members. I think my adaption to pressure and time constraints embodies that hard fun aspect of FIRST, because the difficulty leads to a rewarding payoff – getting stuff done and being able to move post its! Also, I’m proud of finding the only box of cheese free taquitos in the entire NEX commissary (you’re welcome Orion). :)”

~Jessica Jones

The team had its first official sprint review on Tuesday, sprint review is where each sub-team takes time to explain the tasks they have finished throughout the week. This becomes important, and sprint is also a main part of communication between sub-teams.

Business was able to inform them about the t-shirt design, and complete the finals for the general t-shirt, along with the game shirt, revolving around this year’s theme, steamwork, and have sent out the t-shirt order form for the general t-shirts. They then worked on the button designs, along with completing the newsletter.

Though they struggled with dimensions and other measurements, mechanical was able to work on the practice frame and drive, along with making plans for mounting the gear payload. Though they are currently still working in smaller groups on various aspects of the robot, they hope to soon collaborate together on the final robot build.

Meanwhile electrical has been able to get the magnetic encoders to work and also finalize their plans as far as how the electrical board will be mounted, and where the talons will be located. They had to make sure that the drive program was ready for when mechanical gets them the practice robot, including wiring and preparing the electronics.

“I think some members tend to lack confidence in their own abilities despite the fact they are fully capable and have a lot of potential. I’ve learned many life skills including working within time constraints, communicating with others, and finding ways to effectively contribute to a team. ”

~Vanessa Gerber, Business

“In robotics, I have learned a great deal of technical skills. But more importantly, I learned how to work with a great deal of different type of people that I may not always agree with.”

~Orion Sun, PM

I’ve learned that GRIP and image processing is a lot harder than I had initially expected. It has posed a significant challenge and some parts of it are beyond my coding abilities as of right now. However, I am learning and getting better. Hopefully, I can assemble a working code somewhat soon.

~Tyler Birchard, Electrical

The week started off a little different for each sub-team, but one thing in common is that the new members have gotten barely used to everything, and have already been thrown right in, but the returning members and mentors don’t expect them to be experts just yet, and are there to guide them.

Electrical immediately got to work on the drive and winch programs. Even some of the returning members struggled a bit with the programming, but they were able to understand it when they applied themselves. Though the team had struggled with their measurements a little, they were constantly busy with new tasks, and working hard.

In a similar way, mechanical was constantly working, they had done two prototypes, each time they tested making adjustments in order to get the best results. They are currently working on the third prototype, and though they also had a few mishaps during the week, they are able to draw up the plates to send to the water jet, and start planning for their mounting.

Meanwhile, business/graphics have been working on the t-shirt designs, and buttons. While another group from the sub-team were working on interviews and the newsletter. This year’s theme seems to have many constant ideas, but they are struggling to come up with new designs to elaborate on.

The following questions were asked to at least one person from each sub-team:

How was the second week of build season?

What new experience has made the biggest impact on your life?

“Finally getting into the work of my sub-team I was able to get into work I’m knowledgeable in. It was a great experience to finally be able to design again, and feel satisfied with our products.”

~Gavril Ibaan, Business/Graphics

“Over this past week, we have certainly made progress. Most of the ideas are actual designs with numbers now. I have been working on the frame part of the robot, so that everything else has a place to mount to. I am sort of disappointed that our side doesn’t have a cool prototype, like the rope climbing development team. Still, we have a good design, and it has been fun trying to design a drive with 8 wheels, which is new for me.”

~Christopher Kaneshiro, Mechanical

“The designs are getting more and more finalized as we are almost finished with the final designs.  I am mainly working on the rope payload, and we are on schedule.  I was really excited when our prototype was able to lift a 100-pound robot 40 inches up a rope, so we are on the right track.  Right now, we are close to done with the design of the rope payload, so after the practice drive is all finished, we will be able to mount the rope payload onto the frame.”

~Michael Abagon, Mechanical

“This week I have been making sure that the electrical team is staying on task for the good portion of the time. Electrical has been working on camera tracking and has made tremendous progress from not knowing very much to getting the robot to recognize our targets. Other things are getting our drive code finished which also includes our code that controls the winch. The experience that affected me the most would be the camera tracking even though I didn’t work on it directly I enjoy seeing the progress that Tyler B. and Anthony is making.”

~Kaikoa Viveiros, Electrical

During week one, the members of the team went to kickoff the 2017 FRC season at McKinley High School to watch the game reveal. This year’s game is Steamworks, a steampunk themed game that includes getting gears to the airship to start the rotors, and getting fuel into the boiler in order to fly the airship. This game is the first one to allow a human player on the field, the pilot, as they are called, are there to pull the gear up, and start the rotors. On the first day, the team separated into pairs to read and analyze the game rules and divide them into sections. We used different organizational techniques like tree maps and scoring matrixes to better understand the game. The next day we began planning the robots for stimulation matches, after having quite a bit of stimulation matches, and brainstorming we agreed we would like to begin designing our robot to be able to load gears onto the airship, and climb up a 4 ft. rope, and hold there. We were soon able to look through the robot rules and make another thinking map for that. That same day, we split up into different groups of around 4-5 people and shared our ideas for how we would hang and take and install gears, The next day we split up into groups of what we wanted to work on, and after about two days came back together to share our end ideas. After voting on our final choices we split into our respective subteams.

The following questions were asked to three club members:

Are you excited about this year’s game design?

What was the blueprint idea you decided to work on?

“I’m excited about this year’s game design because there are a lot of different aspects to this game that makes it unique. There are multiple ways to play this game and I feel everyone will have a different approach to the game. The idea I worked on was a conveyor belt to position the gear to be scored. The gear would be loaded from the retrieval zone and transported to be vertical to be scored on the peg.”

~Bryson Goto, Assistant Project Manager

“I am excited about this year’s game because there are a lot of interesting aspects to the game that could make the 2 minutes and 30 seconds very exciting. The blueprint idea that my group worked on this week was a conveyor belt idea. It was a system that was able to top load the gears and install the airship.”

~Dominique Au, Business

“I’m excited about this game because the game elements are not as complex but still give a challenge.  This year seems to be an interesting game to watch. My idea was a gear retrieval/ input design that would have a funnel to grab a gear from the loading station and rotate down to a position to drive into the peg.  The peg would slot into a hole and allow it to slide up with the lift while not getting stuck.”

~Tyler Yoshioka, Mechanical