A Step in the Right Direction

In the two hours of our meeting, most of that time was spent trying to figure out why our coding from last year wasnt working. Major problems of the day were (1) our laptop that has the licencse version of RobotC is locked and no one knows the password, (2) our code wouldn't work with our robot and (3) we don't have the parts we need. Two things were achieved today. We found some parts at the end of the meeting for the robot that our programmers will be building to use as a sample for our code and we got our robot working with our code. It was a simple wiring problem and you know how that could be (like forgeting to carry a one changes 10945348 to 1194538). We can now probably move forward faster than before! Wish us the best of luck with our lack of skill and materials (for the moment that is).

Good timing and Good decisions

Although today wasn't a very productive day, we did do some important things. We talked more about things that we should do. The main thing that we did today was organize our materials. No one organized the materials when storing them from the previous year so its kind of chaotic. No final decision has been made for the design for the pushing system. The most important thing that we did today was start playing with RobotC. We have two or three people that will learn how to program in RobotC. Training will start at our next meeting on Thurday. Wish us luck!

On Time and On Target...but with some complications

This year is all about deadlines and organization for this team. We meet our first deadline set by the team and made a final decision about what we need to focus on as far as scoring. We decided that since it had the best ratio at 3:1(advantages to disadvantages), pushing block under the pendulum would be the best way and easiest thing to do with a back-up of hanging (ratio of 2:4). If we have time, and the skill, we will do some type of autonomous mode to park on the bridge or push a block under the pendulum. We started to disassemble the robot from last year and we encountered a problem with our NXT brick. It would light up and show the menu on the screen. Luckily, we found another NXT brick that does work properly. We decided to make a list of things we need since so many of our materials from last year are missing for some reason. Replenishing our supply is of the utmost importance since we cant properly build a robot without the needed materials and tools. We ended today with clean up and plans to meet Tuesday for more disassemble of the robot and hopefully make a final list as to what we should and need to purchase.

First Meet

Once again, Marquel here to keep everyone updated on our progress for this year game, Block Party. Today was mostly a day of brainstorming. We weighed our advantages compared to our disadvantages for each was of scoring points. Our ratios (Advantage : Disadvantage) are : Hanging 2:4; Scoring by pushing blocks 3:1; Scoring by placing blocks 2:2; Raising the flag 1:5; Autonomous 1:2. No final decision has been made but the people that came today thought that pushing should be top priority, then hanging and maybe scoring by putting block in the baskets, then autonomous. We plan to make a finish decision at our next meet on Thursday (September 19,2013) and start brainstorming ideals next week. That's all for today.

Welcome Back!

Hello again everybody. The is Marquel Rogers, a team member of Tiger Tron, coming back to keep everyone updated on our progress. This is our FIRST meeting of the year. We have some new faces and it's always a good thing to see new people interested in engineering. Today, we had 7 people show up. We expect more people to show up after we start telling more and more people about the fun of the usFIRST organization and the interesting world engineering. Today, for us, was mostly talked about gaining numbers, planned days to meet, talked about things we need to do such as fundraising and design, and showed the new members the videos we had from our last year competition. We've decided that we would meet Tuesdays from about 4 pm to 6 pm and Thursdays from 6 pm to 8 pm. I elected myself the person in charge of the engineering notebook. That's all for now. 'Til next time.