Monday 22.01.2007

welcome to the third week!

got the new transmission adapter in the mail today, along with some 80-20 and some other cool stuff. w00t!

we started by cleaning the project room (a much needed action)
we can actually walk in in now without tripping over things (mostly) and melissa organized boxes and pens while kersten, nandini, and anne worked on inventoring the shipment as well as designing more ramp stuff.

then it was off to IDEO for a transmission-putting-together-taking-off-random-stuff-from-the CIM-motor-delrin-cutting-shaft-widening-laithing-filing extravaganza with jimmy (thank you!)

after getting back, and eating (wonderful dinner supplied by the macewan family), we worked on ramp stuff with ed, while doug and mr. crone worked on the rack downstairs.

currently working on ramp. more later.

AS A REMINDER, MEETING TIMES HAVE BEEN EXTENDED FROM 3.30 TO 8PM. PLEASE BE HERE. WE ARE IN THE FINAL STAGES OF DESIGN AND BUILD SO IF YOU WANT TO BE A PART OF THE ACTION, BE HERE. plus it's fun... :) yay!

over and out.

-chrissy

Sunday 21.01.07

ok so today...

jimmy came over to casti and talked about arm stuff (mostly sprockets and gearing down that monster of a CIM motor) and ramp stuff...
we tested the ramp stuff...and the hinges aren't really working, so we are going over to ideo tomorrow with a to-do list and a bunch of stuff to check out! yay!
thanks to trae for working with the programmers today! they worked a bunch with the electronics board that emily made.
speaking of emily, we also skyped her around 3. she says good job and keep up the good work!

Doug and a bunch of the parents were working hard on the rack...sawdust flying everywhere! the crate is half-finished and the rack is all ready to put together! yay!

see you all tomorrow at the new meeting time, 3:30

be there or be not there (and tell us)

Groups!

Hey everyone!
Today we worked more on everything. We split into teams, so Chrissy and Nandini worked on the arm prototype and then the batteries, Julia and Anne worked on the 80-20 version of the ramp prototype, Kersten and Melissa worked with Doug on the flipper things to hold in the new ramps, and the freshman all worked on the crate or rack at some point during the day.
So the ramp people still need to attach the ramp and figure out how the springs should work, the arm people need to see what sprocket they want to use, and the flipper people are mainly waiting on the order to arrive so they can start work.
And the crate is doing well- the back half is attached to the base.
Meeting tomorrow is from 11 to sometime before 6 (probably around 3 or 4).

Do it.

Chrissy and Julia made a run to Ace Hardware during period 6 today and bought door hinges, wheel axle/bolts (6") and nylon nuts to go along with them, steel (?) cable, washers, and maybe a few other things... When Ed came, he brought more steel cable, crimps for the cable, and eye-bolts (I don't actually know what these are called).

The proto chassis now has wheels and a ramp (pictures coming)! The ramp is made out of foamcore mounted on spring hinges and has a damper/support-component, too. Watch the magic unfold...and the foam core break apart. It's not a big deal, but it means we've entered the next stage in the ramp prototyping process: creating an 80-20 frame for the ramp. Not only will this give us a much more realistic sense of weight, it also will make for a much more durable product.

There's also a lot to be done in every other area of the robot--the arm/tower and chassis. Ed helped us break these to-dos into separate tasks with deadlines (see the white board), and we'll each be focusing on two of these for the next while.

And, finally, Kersten learned the importance of "saftey".

Oh man (good stuff and not so good)

Accomplishments:
-holes for wheel axles and delrin rod chain tensioners drilled through bottom 80-20 chassis rails by jim
-IFI wheel and treads purchased
-2 banebot transmission adaptors purchased
-chassis and arm 80-20 structures completed (almost--see pictures by following "Build Team Photos" link and selecting Prototypes album)
-some foam core cut for ramps

Discoveries:
-Something went weird with our predicted axle lengths. The ones we've used in past years weren't long enough, so Chrissy and I are making a trip to Ace tomorrow during p. 6 to buy some (and other ramp, etc. parts, too)
-L brackets are too long for the planned 3.5" between the chassis rails around the wheels (L-brackets are 2"-see pictures). We used L-brackets cut down to 1x2 holes, but only had 3, so we need to cut another tomorrow.

To do/buy/figure out:
-Do we have enough chain for our chassis? (When we hand it over to programming, it should have motors and chain, so we can have a working chassis)
-everything ramp related
-washers so the spring hinges aren't floating around on bolts prevented from screwing into nut plates further because they're hitting the 80-20 on the other side of the nut plate
-cut a hole off an L-bracket for the chassis
-(grippers)
-Comment if you think of anything else that needs to be done soon!

Announcements:
-New meeting times (see side bar)
-We're meeting 3-4 on Friday, and on Saturday (10-4) AND Sunday (starting 11)

Bad news:
-um, let's just say everyone should read the game manual (but don't freak out, please)
-get ready to do some brainstorming...

on that note, see you tomorrow and get ready for a productive meeting :)

Building--hurrah

Our order arrived from Mcmaster today! Lots of fun stuff :)

Chrissy and crew piled into a convertible bug with the 8' and 6' long pieces of 80-20 (what a sight) and made a visit to IDEO. Jim cut the 80-20 to length (thanks, Jim!), and the assembling has begun.

Accomplished so far:
-80/20 for arm, tower, and chassis cut to length
-Chassis assembled except for bottom layer (with the wheels, etc)

To do:
-assemble arm/tower
-drill 3/8" holes in pieces of 80/20 for wheel axles (I started drilling 1/4" pilot holes, but stopped when I realized that the shape of 80/20 means that they won't actually be able to function as pilot holes). Plan 2) Make another visit to Jim tomorrow or Thursday to get this holes drilled. If he's unavailable, do it in our shop... Whoever does this, remember that the holes for the middle wheels have to be 1/8" lower.
-assemble bottom of chassis with wheels/axles and put together with the rest of chassis
-tape together sheets of foamcore to make a thicker piece to use as a ramp

Other decisions made/things to purchase:
-We're going to buy the adaptor that allows us to use 2 CIM motors with one transmission box (we have the additional 2 CIM motors already from previous years)
-Buy one 8" dia, 1" wide IFI wheel, but we do NOT need any more sprockets (and we're not going to invest in larger sprockets either to gear down anything--Ed says we'll be ok)
-Buy seven 1" wide wedgetop treads for IFI wheels (fyi, website doesn't work on macs...sheesh)

Last comments:
-WE NEED TO MAKE COPIES OF BLUEPRINTS SO THAT EVEN WHEN SOMEONE AND HER NOTEBOOK IS GONE, WE STILL KNOW HOW TO BUILD OUR ROBOT :) I'll make sure this gets done tomorrow.
-Our Friday meeting is going to be shorter than usual...exact time tbd.

That's all for now. Hope you all don't have too much homework!

ps-Ed was here tonight, if I didn't make that clear. thanks, Ed.

One more day...

Word has it that our order is arriving tomorrow! If it does in fact come, at least a few of us will be making a trip to IDEO (arriving at 5:30) where Jim has agreed to cut it for us.

In the meantime, we've been sending out emails and all that good (but not so interesting) stuff. We also took a look at this year's new transmissions, and we're hoping to use 4 cim motors, 2 per side, to drive our robot. Each gearbox FIRST provided in the KOP only hooks up to one motor, so our two options are:
1) buy 2 adaptors that'll allow us to run one transmission with two CIM motors
2) buy 2 more transmission gearboxes so we have a total of 4 (this poses some mounting issues...)

Ah yes--and thanks to Allie and Nandini for starting in on estimating the weight of our prototype! We're definitely going to need to keep track of this throughout the season!

Please check your email if you haven't recently and respond to my email about travel. I (Julia) need answers from everyone by tomorrow morning at the latest--thanks to those who already replied!

see ya!

Stuff ordered

Today we met and ordered the stuff we need to prototype from McMaster. It should be here in a day or two, and then we can start building.
We also skyped Emily, who answered some or our questions about general stuff.
That's about it. See you tomorrow!

Crate and FINAL BoMs

YAY! Our drawings and BoMs for the prototypes are done, we will order the materials tomorrow, and we can finally start building them when the parts arrive this week... only a few days behind schedule.
We also sent an expedition to buy the materials for the new crate, after which Mr Reichling and George Schnurle helped the freshmen with building. If any of you freshmen reading this want to elaborate on that or can say what the current crate situation is, feel free to comment or post.
We'll send out an email later tonight saying when we're meeting tomorrow.
Cheer(io)s!

BoMs, blueprints, prototypes, and mechanisms

Today we worked more on the prototyping process. The design for one of the gripper ideas was finalized, and we managed to actually build a working model. It looks like a nice, simple gripper that could work well for us. The ramp-holding mechanism was ironed out and sort of sketched out (to be completely blueprinted tomorow). Since most of the BoMs are done for the three big prototypes (chassis, arm/tower, and ramps), we started compiling them and figuring out what we already have (esp in the 80-20 dept) so we can send in an order tomorrow.
Ed stopped by and reminded us that our drawings were actually rather insufficient (and so were our design specifics), so then we went and worked on them. We now know how we're going to hinge ramp stuff (like, the alignment and mechanisms for the support and secondary ramp), what the tower will look like (that's been modified), and what our prototype chassis will be (80-20) (it was under some contention earlier).
If you want to know the exciting changes that we made, come to the meeting tomorrow from 10-3!
Also, crate materials shopping will be starting at 11, so hopefully we will have fun with that and have some of the crate finished by the end of the meeting.
Cheers!

Blueprints continuing to progress

Today we met with Mr Reichling to talk about our crate. It's looking pretty good and we will go buy stuff and maybe start working on it on Saturday.
After that we worked more on blueprints and BoMs for the arm idea (having nixed (for now) the elevator idea), the ramp idea, and the various grippers. Melissa now knows all we will ever need to know about solenoids, Ida, Anne, and Alecia worked on modifying our 'harpoon' gripper and started a BoM for that, Julia worked on the chassis sketch and BoM, and Nandini and I worked on this ramp thing that we're going to do.
Everybody, try to keep thinking of gripper designs that we can put on the end of our rotating arm. If you're lying awake tonight or eating lunch tomorrow or bored during tomorrow's meeting, try to think of ways to manipulate inner tubes that don't require any motors- we're all for simple, passive devices that don't require as much designing and are more reliable.
That's all for now- see you tomorrow.

Blueprints in progress

Today we inventoried the 80-20 parts we already have and made progress on blueprints. In the process of doing so, we decided on the following dimensions:

chassis--
27"x 37" with the top at a height of 12.5" (so this includes wheel radius)
(for the prototype, we'll still use the slightly large welded frame we have and mount an 80-20 frame of the right dimensions on top)

rotating arm "tower of power"--
44" from the top of the chassis to the height at which the sprocket is mounted (near the top of the arm-frame tower). We estimated a sprocket of max diameter 5", so presumably as much as 2.5" will extend beyond this height). This gives us an estimated robot height of 59" (12.5"+44"+2.5").

Don't forget to draw a blueprint (with dimensions and the 3 perspectives we talked about) of one of the grippers we want to prototype (or a variation on a design we've discussed that you think might work well)!

Before we Prototype...

We now have two major arm designs--rotating arm & elevator-forklift--ideas that we plan to now prototype (if reaching the floor with an elevator-forklift design doesn't become to much of a problem) and grippers to test with those arms. We also have 2 ramp ideas we want to try out.

So, stuff to prototype:
- hi-mounted rotating arm
- elevator/forklift
- grippers to test with above arms
- 2 ramp ideas

Before we prototype, there are some important things to do first:
- Create blueprints (not Kersten-Julia-Chrissy sketches) for the two arm designs with side, front, and top views (dimensions and all that good stuff, too)
- Also make blueprints for the different grippers
- Come up with BoM (Bill of Materials)--stuff we need to build prototypes
- Inventory parts we have (like 80-20 L-brackets, bearings & steel rod for the rotating arm?), so we don't spend $ unnecessarily
- Enlarge our calendar, so that we can coordinate with Prog/Electronics on the same calendar.

Other robot info:
- The length of a rotating arm will be roughly 5' (we have better numbers than this)
- To build our prototype chassis, we're going to use our pre-season welded chassis frame for the lower level. The rest of it will be 80-20 (to be purchased)

Ed showed me (julia) some Solidworks basics last night, so we'll be able to model our robot this year. (A cool thought from Ed: if FIRST has modeled the rack, we can get an idea for how our robot design will interact with the rack all on the computer).

Lastly, we still a parent to help us build the Rack (field element). We're pretty sure we've found a place to put it (the cafeteria), so please reply ASAP if you can help out (an email also went out to parents about this). Students, please ask your parents if they can help out!

Sunday, Jan 7

Hello!
So today the build and programming teams met. The build team did some brainstorming and prototyping, and we've clarified and narrowed down some of our design ideas. If you haven't seen the project calendar with all the deadlines, take a look. It's on the board in the project room.
We also talked with Emily today and discussed our designs.
See you tomorrow!

Get Excited for 2007!

Hello Team!

Thank you so much for signing up for Castilleja's Robotics Team: FIRST
Team 1700!
This will be our third season as a team, and we expect to rock! This email will outline the major dates for the 2007 season, what to expect and how to get involved. Please look it over, mark your calendars, and get psyched!

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), was founded in 1992 by Dean Kamen, "To create a world where science and technology are celebrated... where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes". In 2006, its flagship program, the FIRST Robotics Competition, reached more than 28,000 high school students on
1,133 teams in 33 regional competitions. FIRST's multinational competition teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. Its goal is to motivate young people to pursue education and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math, while building self-confidence, knowledge, and life skills. Check out the website:
http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/

Sat Jan 6, 2007 KICK OFF DAY! Meet at Castilleja, in the Choral Room, at 12 noon. Team leaders will be returning from San Jose State with the Challenge Announcement, Game Rules, and the Kit of Parts. Be ready to brainstorm, inventory all the cool gadgets and gizmos, and start working on the challenge. Plan on working with the team until 5pm. ALL PARENTS
are urged to stay at 12 noon for a special parent meeting to discuss team supervision, meals and logistics. Be there or be square - Lunch will be served!
As a reminder, the kick off day is the SATURDAY BEFORE school starts. Although we would love if everyone could come, we also realize that some of you might be away of vacation. Please let us know ASAP if you are unable to attend.

Sun Jan 7, 11 am to 5pm - continue brainstorming/ possibly prototype the robot.

Mon - Fri, Jan 8 - 14 (Global Week) We will meet daily after school 4 - 7 pm to work on the Challenge.

The team will work daily in the evenings after school, and weekends, to prototype and build the robot, develop the programming that controls it, create the team web site, and our team animation entry. Find the project that interests you most, work hard and HAVE FUN! We ask that Parents help provide supervision and meals.

Feb 20, 2007 Robot Shipping Deadline - Fed Ex will pick up our Robot by 5pm. Please note that the Ship Date is during Ski Week. This is usually the most intense time for build and programming, so we ask that everyone be here for it.

Feb 22, 2007 Website Design Deadline - our Website is up for Award consideration.

March 1 - 3, 2007 Pacific Northwest Regional FIRST competition in Portland, Oregon.
About a dozen team members will go. This is where we won the KPCB Entrepreneurship award in 2006.

March 15 - 17, 2007 Silicon Valley Regional FIRST competition at San Jose State Event Center.
All team members participate in this exciting tournament. This is where we won another KPCB Entrepreneurship award, and
the Engineering Inspiration Award in 2006.

April 12 -14, 2007 FIRST National Championships in Atlanta, Georgia.
About a dozen team members will go. This is where we won the Daimler Chrysler Team Spirit Award in 2006. Keep in mind that the Nationals are during the second weekend of spring Spring Break (meaning that we will leave the wednesday of break).

We'd love for the whole team to go to the out-of-town competitions, but unfortunately that is not financially or organizationally feasible. Team members will qualify to attend the out-of-state tournaments by hard work and dedication to meeting the goals of the team and through their "gracious professionalism."


Thank You and GET EXCITED!

PLEASE send me an e-mail saying that you have read this, and let me know if you are able to make it to kickoff, a simple yes or no in the subject line will suffice :)
THANK YOU!!!

Team Lead
-Chrissy Crone
(Cell: 650-339-2028)

Technical Lead
-Julia Lee
(Cell: 408-482-5196)

Non-Technical Lead
-Hannah Sachs
(Cell: 650-248-8687)

More cool stuff

photos from our trip to IDEO (and more)!

check out Jim's awesome shadow on the wall (in the welding fieldtrip album):

http://picasaweb.google.com/castilleja.robotics

Field Trip to Ideo + WELDING

so today we (kersten, julia, and chrissy) brought the crew (nandini, melissa, ida, caroline, mary, and sherri)to ideo to 1. show them around the shop and 2. watch jimmy (who most generously skipped his meeting)weld the side rails onto the prototype chassis, so now it is all (most) ready to put wheels on.

upon return to casti, we got to work drilling holes for wheels, playing with the electronics board, taking the old tread off the wheels and putting the spiffy new tread on. we're also working on putting together some new wheels, so yay!

have i mentioned how excited for the season i am?

...

i am SO excited for the season!!!

Field Trip to Alan Steel!

Today we went to alan steel. As usual, it was a ton of fun and we saw some really neat stuff. We also bought the additional aluminum we need to finish building the prototype chassis, so we can move forward with that next week. We'll also put treads on the new wheels because we bought a hose clamp! Get excited!
Happy Birthday, Erin.

1st Build Meeting!

YAY! The build team has met!
Tursday night we convened in the project room in the science wing (not the presentation rooms, fyi) from 5-7, as usual. Thanks to Nandini, Caroline, Sherri, and Melissa for showing up. We took the wheels we are going to re-use off Rosie (last year's robot) and assembled the other wheels to be used for this year's robot. We also drilled more holes in the proto-type chassis. Yep, lots of hands-on work : ) Hooray!

CalGames (October 27-28)

Dear gang,

Sorry I haven't had a chance to write back sooner!

It was really good to meet up at Google last Saturday with the CalGames folks from the Western Regional Robotics Forum (www.wrrf.org). Julia, just a warmning - the website sort of sucks. The information on it is outdated so I'll forward you information from Ceal Craig (one of the coordinators) after this email.

So, on the CalGames note, here are my thoughts:

I had lunch with Chrissy on Friday. She and I think it's going to take a lot of effort, and that we should make sure that we have a critical mass committed to doing this beforehand. This is not to be pessimistic or anything, but given that it is a volunteer-heavy event, if only like FIVE of us go, it's going to be painful. I *really* don't like it when someone commits me to doing / supporting something people don't pull through.

Kersten, I TOTALLY agree with you on the volunteering hours / community work thing. We can certainly recruit a lot of Casti students to come and the community hours thing is an incentive. Does the October 27-28 dates conflict with any school events?

On that note, I believe there is another option - if we DON'T want to enter as a team for the $600 entrance fee, there's nothing that says that we can't bring a gang of volunteers and new robotics rookies to HELP OUT! This would be low key, no prep in advance, and really great for exposing new students what a robotics competition is like, and of course, give them community service hours.

So here are my goals:

1. Bring at least 10 students to CalGames, of which at least 5 are new students. This is a great opportunity to expose newbies!

2. If we are serious about entering the competition, we should be serious about attempting to do well. I am not comfortable bringing new students to the competition and putting them at the wheel without at least attempting to leverage this opportunity to repair Rosie. I *do not* a new student's first experience with robotics to be a stressful one, where they watch us scramble before each match to make a new PVC chain tensioner. I just can't see myself being there watching that happen again.

If we don't have time to spend taking this competition seriously, we should considering going the less stressful route of putting our hearts into VOLUNTEERING FOR IT. I am not going to do anything half way.

3. Here are some realistic things that we can do to leverage this as a learning opportunity. Deadlines are GREAT for getting us to learn and getting us to do stuff during the off season.

* Build a new chassis. Kersten's learning to weld, and Julia is learning to put together weldment drawings in Solidworks. Chrissy has an Aluminum REM trip in the works. If we set aside some time and commit to this, I will do my part and convince Jimmy to give up a Saturday to work with you to design and weld an aluminum frame. This can be your test run before the US FIRST season. (Kersten, you'll discover that welding steel is a cinch, but aluminum is a whole another world that takes like years to learn)

* Improve the autonomous code and sensor / actuator systems. I'll work with Erin and Alecia to do this but this means we actually need a working robot that uh, drives straight when we ask it to.

My goal is help get people excited and bring people up to speed during the off season. CalGames can be the catalyst for that, but it doesn't need to be. Does that make sense? If CalGames takes all the wind out of me to coordinate and make happen, which means I have less time to teach people how to program, how to do electric stuff, gather materials and set up for the 2007, I would not be comfortable signing up.

Yeah.

Signing out,

Em