"I'd like a side of fries and a fully functional robot, please..."

hey hey hey!

large goal = finished! (huge and in the gym, go check it out! it looks great)(also thanks to Eric (sara's bf the swedish carpenter)for helping us put it together!)
small goal = (mostly) finished!

Robot- jen, sophia, and I checked out the pitching machine over by the softball field today, and it actually looked pretty good. But instead of using a pneumatic tire (which we don't want because it would have to be the EXACT same pressure each time we shoot the ball for our shot to be consistent. Any variation in pressure means a variation in where the ball ends up. Not good)we were thinking maybe a solid rubber tire. (p.s. this is all if the wheel for shooting is vertical)Another thing to keep in mind is that on the pitching machine, the width of the wheel was about the diameter of the softball, so we'd want OUR wheel to be about 7 inches in width.

Does anybody know where to get a large-ish wheel that has a width of 7 in? or 6 in? 5 would be streching it. or in this case contracting. (click) Emily? the robot store doesn't have very many wheel options for us as far as i can tell, and Mcmaster is huge, where do we start looking for something like that?

We're going to PORTLAND because...
it will give us practice with the robot. more compition means we get better! Also, since the portland regional is before SVC, we'll be able to fine-tune our skills so we can use SVC to show off. :) we also have confidence that our PR team will get us some money. soon.

because my mother is a lead parent rep, (she meets with JLo and Blair once a month)she will be arguing on our behalf for money. just for the update, her argument is "why are we sending people to china and india if we can't even support our own science and technology programs? especially robotics!" good question mom.

Random thoughts (actually not too random but whatever)
hoo-rah for Mr. Berger and his amazing cooking skills.
wow upside down is mom
Doug's shelves make me happy every time i look at them
build team rocks
sleep lots this weekend, because soon you will not be gettting very much.