Robodogs Blog

Saturday January 7,The Robodogs began the 2012 build season at the annual Kickoff Presentation at North Carolina State University’s Dorton Arena at the NC Fairgrounds. Many of the robotics teams from North Carolina were in attendance also. The event started early at 9:30 A.M. and  rookie teams were all welcomed this year.

The Kickoff Presentation is an annual event that FRC teams wait for all year. The event is an announcement of the current year’s game and is the official start of the six week build season. Also, this is the time when the robotics teams pick up their kit of parts. The kit of part is a collection of parts that are crucial to create their robot.

This year’s Kickoff announced the new game, “Rebound Rumble”. The point of “Rebound Rumble” is to shoot miniature foam basketballs into hoops of three ranging heights. But there is a catch, there are “boards” that are like balancing tables that are situated in the middle of the field that must be used to cross if one does not wish to go over a bump. During the autonomous time period a Microsoft Kinect can be used to control the robot, called Hybrid mode.

After kickoff the team arrived at Southeast Raleigh High School to brainstorm about design ideas. This process yielded a lot of unique ideas from all of our members especially our rookie members. The team engineering lead- Ryan had each person

 Monday January 9th, 

Only a few days into the build season and the whole team is working hard to make this another great year.

Our engineering division is hard at work testing designs in autodesk- Inventor . Meanwhile, the coding division started to practice wiring our 2010 robot-Cerebus to come up with ideas for this years coding . That way our drivers will be able to practice driving while the other engineers continue to build.  The business division having been doing their jobs by taking daily photos for the website updates. The veteran members from the business division have been working on the team’s business Plan for the season by emailing sponsors and continuing community activities

Tuesday January 10,

The Engineering division is almost done with the “bump” for the practice field and they construction for the backboard including the hoops needed to score is underway. This will help the drivers practice, but it also makes the coders’  programming less tedious. The rest of the team is finalizing designs and parts lists/ inventor designs are being made to aid in furthering decisions. The animators are hard at work modeling pieces that could be used in this years prompt. Animators are still unsure what FIRST will come up with this year.

The  coding  division is working on understanding the Kinect software and are  trying to understand how to integrate the Microsoft Kinect into their programming in autonomous or on the robot in general (they are still unsure if they will being it). As always,  business division is busy taking pictures of all the divisions at work as well as redesigning the teams’ logo.

Wednesday January 10, 

This is the leadership meeting that Division leaders and sub division leaders come together to discuss what they have accomplished this week. Engineering lead and team/business lead met to decide on sub divisions and which applicants qualified to be the leaders. Sponsorship updates were sent out this week also.

Thursday January 11,

The Robodogs are almost done with week one! The designs for robot are pretty much complete and the mentors have given their advice about what each division should be doing. Engineering had the extrude 20″ x 20″ aluminum come in today, and the gussets that were ordered are on the way. The Base subdivision is completing their parts list, Special Functions is still coming up with Inventor models to complete their idea for designs, control continues to practice coding/wiring the 2010 robot.

Business finished the logo design for the front of t shirts and continues to layout designs for website updating. The Chairman’s outline has been started by the veteran’s as we rotate our rookies out from animating on MAYA (we want them to have as much experience as possible).

Friday January 12,

A lot was accomplished today Engineering began working on the shooter mechanism and the drive train was solidified. The practice field is still in the process of being made by our veteran base member and mentors. The animators have continued working with MAYA and a storyboard has been drafted. In our Mac lab animators are creating their models for the animation. Meanwhile, website editors are filtering through the website for photos to move and re boot the history content.  Mentors even came in and started working with team members on their designs. Things have been going pretty well for Team 435, and we hope all the other FRC teams are having a great season too!

 Our members were mentoring two FLL teams from a local Raleigh middle school this year, and it was a success. Last year these two teams were small in numbers, but this competition season the numbers doubled!! Robodogs are so happy for our FLL teams.

Robodogs also helped run two weekends of FLL Regional Competitions based out of our base school Southeast Raleigh, and presented the 2011 robot and FIRST FRC/FTC to the public during the event.During this event The Robodogs also held a coloring contest for all the JFLL and FLL participants which was a success!

 Saturday January 7,

The Robodogs began the 2012 build season at the annual Kickoff Presentation at North Carolina State University’s Dorton Arena at the NC Fairgrounds. Many of the robotics teams from North Carolina were in attendance also. The event started early at 9:30 A.M. and  rookie teams were all welcomed this year.

The Kickoff Presentation is an annual event that FRC teams wait for all year. The event is an announcement of the current year’s game and is the official start of the six week build season. Also, this is the time when the robotics teams pick up their kit of parts. The kit of part is a collection of parts that are crucial to create their robot.

This year’s Kickoff announced the new game, “Rebound Rumble”. The point of “Rebound Rumble” is to shoot miniature foam basketballs into hoops of three ranging heights. But there is a catch, there are “boards” that are like balancing tables that are situated in the middle of the field that must be used to cross if one does not wish to go over a bump. During the autonomous time period a Microsoft Kinect can be used to control the robot, called Hybrid mode.

After kickoff the team arrived at Southeast Raleigh High School to brainstorm about design ideas. This process yielded a lot of unique ideas from all of our members especially our rookie members. The team engineering lead- Ryan had each person

 Monday January 9th, 

Only a few days into the build season and the whole team is working hard to make this another great year.

Our engineering division is hard at work testing designs in autodesk- Inventor . Meanwhile, the coding division started to practice wiring our 2010 robot-Cerebus to come up with ideas for this years coding . That way our drivers will be able to practice driving while the other engineers continue to build.  The business division having been doing their jobs by taking daily photos for the website updates. The veteran members from the business division have been working on the team’s business Plan for the season by emailing sponsors and continuing community activities

Tuesday January 10,

The Engineering division is almost done with the “bump” for the practice field and they construction for the backboard including the hoops needed to score is underway. This will help the drivers practice, but it also makes the coders’  programming less tedious. The rest of the team is finalizing designs and parts lists/ inventor designs are being made to aid in furthering decisions. The animators are hard at work modeling pieces that could be used in this years prompt. Animators are still unsure what FIRST will come up with this year.

The  coding  division is working on understanding the Kinect software and are  trying to understand how to integrate the Microsoft Kinect into their programming in autonomous or on the robot in general (they are still unsure if they will being it). As always,  business division is busy taking pictures of all the divisions at work as well as redesigning the teams’ logo.

Wednesday January 10, 

This is the leadership meeting that Division leaders and sub division leaders come together to discuss what they have accomplished this week. Engineering lead and team/business lead met to decide on sub divisions and which applicants qualified to be the leaders. Sponsorship updates were sent out this week also.

Thursday January 11,

The Robodogs are almost done with week one! The designs for robot are pretty much complete and the mentors have given their advice about what each division should be doing. Engineering had the extrude 20″ x 20″ aluminum come in today, and the gussets that were ordered are on the way. The Base subdivision is completing their parts list, Special Functions is still coming up with Inventor models to complete their idea for designs, control continues to practice coding/wiring the 2010 robot.

Business finished the logo design for the front of t shirts and continues to layout designs for website updating. The Chairman’s outline has been started by the veteran’s as we rotate our rookies out from animating on MAYA (we want them to have as much experience as possible).

Friday January 12,

A lot was accomplished today Engineering began working on the shooter mechanism and the drive train was solidified. The practice field is still in the process of being made by our veteran base member and mentors. The animators have continued working with MAYA and a storyboard has been drafted. In our Mac lab animators are creating their models for the animation. Meanwhile, website editors are filtering through the website for photos to move and re boot the history content.  Mentors even came in and started working with team members on their designs. Things have been going pretty well for Team 435, and we hope all the other FRC teams are having a great season too!