North Carolina Regional Quality Award Sponsored by Motorola
Virginia Regional Engineering Inspiration Award
Virginia Regional Winner
The team works for six weeks to build the robot for the FRC Competition. The following descriptions are what the team accomplished each week.
Beginning on Saturday, our team viewed the FRC kickoff live telecast and broke into groups to discuss and present different parts of the Game Manual. Monday, the team went to Flexicell (a generous sponsor that donates their workspace and machinery for our use) and gave a tour to the new members. Tuesday through Friday the team worked on robot design and formulated useful strategies in the new game. Saturday, we went to Flexicell, to begin building. Our team also began a new program this past week called eCycle. This was in response to Dean's request in the FRC kickoff telecast. More can be read about our eCycle program here.
The build team began the week prototyping six different drivetrain concepts, in an effort to discover which would best traverse the 12 inch tall field bumps. On Wednesday, we settled on a drop-center six wheel drive. What we decided was the right combination of simplicity, speed, maneuverability, and pushing power. The next step was testing the different shooter concepts we came up with. We started some prototypes using elastic surgical tubing and springs. We also began drawing up our six wheel drivebase using Solidworks for final fabrication. The website team continued to develop the website and the chairman's team formulated the essay.
Team members studied diligently for their exams during this week.
Due to inclement weather, the team was only able to meet once at Flexicell.
The team worked hard this week to make up for the time lost due to the weather last week. The build team assembled the drive train and built the shooter. The website team, one of the few groups that could work remotely, continued updating the website. Programmers worked to get the drive train and joystick Java code working. This week was efficient and a nice recovery from the snowy weather.
This week was the end of the build season. The website was finished, and went live. The robot was shipped on Tuesday, but the weight limit of the parts (that can be transported on the first day of reigional competition) was raised from 40 pounds to 65 pounds this year, due to the effects of precipitation. The programmers finished the dual-tank system and the arcade system Java code.
Deep Run High School. 4801 Twin Hickory Road. Glen Allen, VA. 23059. (Map)
