Team 148: Robowranglers

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2017 Build Log 25: No Sleep ‘Til Bag Day

With bag day coming extremely fast, the Robowrangler shop is buzzing with excitement and work.

Our first priority is to get every element of our robot working and functioning together to the best of it’s ability. After a group huddle last night before dodgeball, the team is focusing on doing our best to get every subsystem to coordinate. 

The team is also preparing for our Open House. We’re cleaning the shop and taking footage of our robot. The media/marketing team is creating a reveal video for this year’s robot that will be shown Monday night at our event in the shop. 

We are excited and looking forward to a great start of competition season. 

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2017 Build Log 24: Across the Spectrum

Today we shared our resources and shop with team 3847 Spectrum from Houston, TX. They used our field and shop to practice for their “Week Zero” competition, and we exchanged advice and tips for the remaining build season and the competition season that we are all so eager to dive into.

As competition season approaches, so does the debut of the robot and our team’s open house, which will take place on February 20th. To commemorate the event, the media and marketing team have applied for and gained approval for a snapchat filter that will be exclusive to the unveiling of the new robot. The open house will start at 6 p.m. in the Robowranglers’ shop in the CTE Building. 

After hours of hard work tweaking and perfecting sub systems on the robots, our teams decided to set down the ratchet-wrenches to take the pent up energy and frustration from robots out on each other through a friendly game of ultimate extreme Robowrangler dodge-ball.  -

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2017 Build Log 23: Scouting Out

The scouting team, led by our mentor Grant, had their first official scouting meeting today. Grant taught the rookies the basics of this incredibly important subgroup. They also discussed what they plan to do during competition season this year and set out guidelines for the scouting sheets.

The awards team joined forces with the media-marketing team to finish filming our Chairman’s videos. Two of the members of the media team spent the day perfecting the logo for the robot, to be shown off in the upcoming robot reveal video. 

During the meeting and filming, the engineering group tested our robot several times to determine what still needs perfection and fine-tuning. The electrical team worked on rewiring the robot for peak performance. With the build deadline a week away, we must put even more effort into making sure our robot is 100% ready for competition season.

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2017 Build Log 22: Drive Team

Yesterday, Ms. Emerson announced our official positions on the team for the fast-approaching competition season. The pit crew, media team, scouts and ninjas were assigned, along with the drive team. Coleman and Katie are the driver and operator duo; Danielle and Nicolas are the human player and pilot. It took a lot of deliberation on the behalf of the mentors, but we are confident that they made the best choices. 

The electrical team spent the majority of the meeting today working on batteries. The Chairman’s group worked on the their awards video for most of the meeting. Meanwhile, the Media/Marketing team filmed and edited footage for the RSN check_in clip, which will air during tomorrow's broadcast.  Be sure to tune in tomorrow at 6:00 PM tomorrow  to see us and several other teams report in on our progress on the last week of build season. 

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2017 Build Log 21: Our Favorite Time

The Chairmans group brainstormed for their presentation today. They met in one of the classrooms and discussed general plans for what to include. The media/marketing subgroup filmed the activities around the shop for both the fast-approaching reveal video and the weekly RSN check-in clip. 

The various mechanical subgroups have been testing the possible final versions of the shooter and hopper prototypes to make sure that the mechanisms that go on the robot are as best as they can possibly be. The Sparkies, our electricians, spent the day wiring up the drivetrains and prototypes. 

As Stop Build Day approaches, we’ll need to work even harder to make sure that our robot is at its peak performance. However, our season isn’t all work and no fun. Our school held the annual Favorites Dance, and several team members attended and enjoyed themselves. 

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2017 Build Log 20: Butterbot?

As build season is reaching the final week, we are faced with many decisions. Some concern the robot, and some concern the role of all of the students on the team.

About a week and a half ago a form was released on Slack, the app that our team uses to communicate, and it had a list that was to be filled out with our interests in competition positions. The form had 9 options for jobs, and we had to fill it out from our 1st to 9th choice. The competition positions will be announced after the mentor leadership team meets this weekend to discuss the top picks and placement of the team’s students. 

With the construction of the robot at a peak, the team has set out a whiteboard in the lab for students and mentors to write down possible robot names. During tonight’s and tomorrow’s meeting any member of the team can write down anything that they think would fit the personality of this year’s Robowrangler robot. The team will vote tomorrow during the day on robot names, and from those, the top 3 will move on to another vote that decides this year’s robot’s name. 

2/10/17

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2017 Build Log 19: Time Crunch

Tonight started with our weekly RSN check_in. For this week, the Robowranglers made a special video that features our shop. The video gives a tour of our ‘148 crib.’

You can check out the full version here!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4f7OkKbW7E

The drive train group is attaching new belly pans to the assembled drive trains. The subgroup is hoping to have them done by the end of tonight’s meeting. Another group of students continues to work on different mechanisms to use for different types of ball indexing prototypes. 

The Chairman’s and Woodie Flowers subteams are continuing to give the essays their last touches. They are doing final reviews and revisions on the work done so far and are looking forward to submitting the essays.  

2/7/17

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2017 Build Log 18: Gears, Gears, and More Gears

This Monday, the drive train subgroup has switched focus from assembling the drive trains to wiring them. With all of them assembled, we’ve been getting them driving so we can start driving practice, running cycles, and seeing how the robot will function in a match.

The team is continuing to work on an intake prototype. We’ve attached a version of the prototype to one of the drive trains and we’re practicing in-taking game elements and scoring them. 

The field construction subgroup got together to add a few last touches to the field as we start to drive. The group constructed the side barriers to the airship and are hoping to have them attached before the end of the night. 

2/6/17

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2017 Build Log 17: Soft Taco Saturday

For today’s meeting, a subgroup continues to work on high fidelity shooter prototypes. The team wants to have no doubts about which shooter we choose for this year’s game. We continue to refine different aspects of the design, and we want to ensure the efficiency of the shooter in order to score as much as possible as fast as we can. 

The drive train subgroup has finished assembling the final drive train, and has handed it over to the Sparkies to be wired soon. The other assembled drive trains (along with older prototype drivetrains) are being used by the ball storage prototyping subgroup. They’ve been using one to prototype different ‘hopper’ configurations (internal ball handling), and  to see the flow of balls from the intake into the inside of the robot.

A small group of students have been working on old robots, they are getting these running so that we can practice defense with this year’s drive train. 

2/4/17

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2017 Build Log 16: Driving into Week 5

Today, we had a separate sub-group build several bumpers to attach to the prototypes so that testing will be more accurate. Attaching bumpers will give us a visual of the size constraint for our robot. 

Another sub-group has begun on the second drivetrain, to be used for our practice robot, and the electrical group has begun work on the control board for the competition robot. We’ve also dedicated two worktables to prototyping the hopper, which transports the balls from the intake to the shooter. Speaking of the intake, we have attached our (hopefully) final prototype to the drivetrain and began testing it. 

The awards group has been working on the different submissions, and the media/marketing group continued work on the FedEx challenge. 

2/3/17

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2017 Build Log 15: Robot Fun!

The meeting tonight started out very very busy with all of the groups setting off for work right away!

First, the Chairman’s team met and continued to work on the Woodie Flowers essay. They gathered around the essay projected on the white board and they continued to make adjustments and improve what they’ve written so they can submit their best work.

A small group of students made their way to a local elementary school, Bowie, for their science program. They took Renegade into the new school’s gym and played a fun game of Stronghold catch with the school’s second grade classes, who were all dressed up as astronauts and aliens!

The night ended with a full team huddle on the game field. We spent our last hour reviewing what the CAD team has done so far. We discussed the design, and were so excited to continue to refine and improve what we have created!

1/31/17

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Build Log 14: Time to Drive!

The drive train has taken the game field! At last night’s meeting the prototyping group finished assembling and wiring the drive train. It got it’s first test runs on this year’s field and the subgroup is making efforts to make sure that they chose the best drive options for the functionality of our robot this year.

The media/marketing team filmed and worked on the Fedex Challenge! We took our reaction picture to the kit of parts that Fedex sent us and we are going to be posting a new part soon. They’re also doing their weekly prep for the RoboSports check_in tomorrow evening.

In week four, we are looking to start to finalize different aspects of our design and our CAD team continues to make progress in mapping out the looks of this year’s robowrangler bot!

1/30/17

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2017 Build Log 13: Driving?

As build season is coming to a halfway point, the team continues to make big strides.  The robot CAD is coming along, and our different subgroups continue to prototype different robot elements in order to ensure that we make the best choices concerning the functionality and success of our robot. 

The drive train subgroup finished the assembly of our first drive train and the electrical team is working on getting the drive train to move on the field. We should be able to see it take the field for the first time sometime tonight or at Monday’s meeting!

The media/marketing team continues to document the progression of the season with photos, video, and GoPro footage. They are still working on the different parts of the FedEx challenge, and the two minute clip that is featured in the RoboSports Network weekly check_in. 

We are excited for the start of week 4!

1/28/17

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2017 Build Log 12: The First Rivets

With the Robowrangler’s first delivery of sheet metal, and our first taste of Sheet Metal Christmas, the team is hard at work.

Because of flu season, half of the team is bed-ridden. All of the students who aren’t ill and can make tonight’s meeting are ending week 3 with high spirits!

As the sub group aligns the sheet metal to make the frame of the first drive train, mentors make a call for all of the rookie team members and new mentors to come to the table where veteran students are getting rivets.They gather and line up and put their first Robowrangler rivets into the new sheet metal!

We are looking forward to starting to bring together all of the parts of the robot and making the CAD design in real life. 

1/27/17

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2017 Build Log 11: Kicking it into High GEAR

To start off the second meeting of the week, the team moved the Robowrangler tree houses (airships) into the disassembled field and finished re-configuring the field.

As seen in the back of our RoboSports Network check_in, our subgroups continue to test and gather data on different shooter prototypes. The team continues to refine certain elements of each design in order to give the robot the capabilities that we believe will help us travel to the middle of our goal map, The Festival of Champions.

The subgroup that was working on different drive train options is expecting sheet metal soon! The sheet metal will be powder coated black as always and it will be ready for shipment after! The Robowranglers are ready for a small sample of sheet metal Christmas!

1/24/17

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2017 Build Log 10: “A Monday”

After a day of rest on Sunday, the Robowranglers are back in the shop working. This Monday night we took to hard work despite it being ‘A Monday’. 

The field construction subgroup has completely finished working on the two airships! The team is working on re-configuring the field to match this year’s game, and will move the two airships onto the field soon.

Today, the media/marketing team is preparing for the RSN interview during tomorrows meeting. The team selects one or two students to talk on the show along with a mentor, and before the meeting tomorrow the selected few will prep for the interview by talking about what they choose to share about our build season so far. Check out the RoboSports Network Check-In broadcast tomorrow at 7pm ET! 

1/23/17

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2017 Build Log 9: Eye of the Storm

Today’s meeting started with a group huddle in the middle of the game field. First the team talked about the progression in the different prototyping groups, which included updates, and new successes within each project. After the team had a briefing on the past week, we went around our circle and discussed the different characteristics of our robot and team that will set us apart from other teams this year. In 2015 our factor that set us apart was that we had two robots tethered together, and this year we talked about what might give us the same edge. 

Today marked the first meeting of the Chairman’s team in the 2017 season. The team met and worked on the Woodie Flowers and Chairman’s essays. 

The field construction subgroup continued working on the airships all day. The top half of the field elements have been built, and the only thing left until the airships are completed is the boards that hold the top pegs that the gears go on. 

As the meeting came to an end, the marketing/media team packed the media bag for SACOT, the STEM Advocacy Conference of Texas.. The group of students attending the conference will leave tomorrow morning.