Science Fair Projects - Egg in Bottle

Science Fair Projects - Egg in Bottle

Lunch Pre-Orders for Midwest Regional

Team, please post your lunch orders for the Midwest Regional on this blog. The order form can be found here: http://www.midwestfirst.org/2009_Chicago_Preorder_Lunch_Form.xls
your post should include your name and your meal choices for each day. I am posting my choice as an example.

Week Four Update 1/26 - 2/1

My how time flies when your're having fun!

Alpha Realm progress: Our media team is busy collecting images for use by other subteams, marketing and PR are off to a slow start, but are expecting to pick up speed in time to provide input for the website. The website is under re-development and the members are working on individual tasks to bring the site current. Mentoring is going well. The mentoring subteam is receiving more requests for support from rookie teams than they can travel to, so teams are being invited to meet with us for help resolving their problems. The outreach team is in the final stages of preparation for the scrimmage and will involve the mentoring team to provide a help station at the event. The Chairman's Award team is gathering information and is just beginning to plan the presentation.

Beta Realm progress.  The prototype robot was completed Sunday (except for the scoring mechanism). The drive motors, collector and storage subsystems were all powered and unit tested wirelessly. While driveable, the drive train was still missing a modification to a sprocket. Final solutions to building the manipulator subsystems are still in the works, but we should have a fairly complete robot with functioning drive, collector, and storage subsystems in place in time for the scrimmage. 

Miscellaneous. Funding for the Wisconsin Regional has been secured by reallocating resources. We are now confirmed (again) for Wisconsin. We are still registered (not paid) for the Championship. All students need to turn in permission slips (for missing school) for the two competitions. Students also need to re-register for ASM (this is a new session!)

Week Three Update - 1/27/09

We have just about recovered from being 3 days behind schedule and expect to meet our 2/1 deadline for the build of our competition robot! Our electrical and control systems subteams have completed not only the benchtop tasks, but have transplanted the new system onto an old bot. The test bot has been turned over to programming and they are developing VIs to address the anticipated programming tasks. Electrical and control systems are now designing the layout of the boards for the competition bot.

On the mechanical front, we have tested the old bot on the new surface with rover wheels while attached to a trailer with rover wheels. The drivetrain subteam has completed their initial drive design, ordered parts, and expect to be finished by the end of the week. The manipulator subteam has successfully prototyped their concepts for 2 of the 3 tasks and are in the process of resolving the last concept. The integration subteam has seen all of the plans and presented a mockup of the completed robot at last night's meeting. All Beta Realm subteams are confident that the robot will be alive by Sunday!

Website, fundraising, outreach and mentoring all reported progress with their goals, but they could use more support from the team. The February Scrimmage details have been sent to the 18 participating teams and posted on our blog. The details will be on our website's event section soon. We continue our weekly visits to help other teams and expect a second team to begin meeting onsite with us. Due to news received Friday and shared last night, our major funding hurdles are not over. Be sure to pass any sponsorship leads on to Jackie Moore for follow up. Communicate via the google group between meetings for details on how each member can better contribute to the efforts of our Alpha Realm subteams. Full participation in both realms is what defines a committed Chicago Knight!

Balls, Balls, Balls!

Let's keep a running total of the number of balls teams attending the scrimmage plan to bring. Simply add a comment to this post, listing the last total you saw, the number you plan to bring, and the new total. To start off, the Chicago Knights has 7 balls, bringing the grand total to 7!

Chicago Lunacy Scrimmage: Saturday February 7, 2009

Here are the final details for  the 1st Annual Chicago FRC pre-ship Scrimmage!

Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009

Doors open at 9:00; open field play until 9:50; first match begins at 10:00; last match starts at 4:00

Match times will be assigned based on order of teams in-queue. This allows teams who walk in ready to roll to start right away, while not leaving out teams who need help before they can play. We will generally follow the format used by FIRST for practice matches at the competition (5 minute matches), making adjustments to fit the needs of the attending teams.

Location: 2021 S Wabash, Chicago  IL  60616

What we will supply:

full size playing field with competition style floor

all game elements (except balls)

1 table and 2 chairs for each team

access to electricity

plenty of quarters for the parking meters!

What to Bring With You

your robot and tools!

robot cart to protect wheels when not on field (simple furniture dolly will work!)

laptop and wireless router

power strip

ethernet cable for tethered operations

balls, balls balls (with your team number written inside)

money for food (fast food places within a mile of site, concession stand available onsite)

your gracious professionalism!

How to get there

From I-94W (northbound Dan Ryan) - exit at 22nd street (exit is on the left for the local lanes and on the right for the express lanes). Stay in the right-most lane and turn right (east) onto 22nd street (Cermak Rd). Continue east to Wabash and turn left (north). Go one block north and begin looking for metered street parking. 

From I-94E (southbound Dan Ryan) - exit at 12th Street (Roosevelt Road) and turn left (east). Continue east until you get to Wabash and turn right (south). As you approach 20th street start looking for metered street parking. 

On public transportation, take the Red line to Cermak (12th street) station and transfer to the eastbound 22nd street bus. Take it 3-4 streets to Wabash and exit the bus. Walk north a block and a half. OR, you can take the State street bus to 20th street and walk 2 blocks east to Wabash.

The building address is 2021 S Wabash.

There will be a sign and/or red/white/blue balloons outside to help you find it.

Week Three 1/18 - 25

We started week 3 a few days behind, but we did finalize our robot design! Sub-teams are now busy working on their individual deliverables. First priority is to develop a task list and assign responsibilities with emailing RoboticsLady the list of needed materials a close second. Generic updates for week 3 will be posted here with detailed private information sent via the team google group! Next major deliverable: Complete robot built by February 1st!

Week Two - 1/11 - 1/17

at the Marathon Build Day, we assembled our control system and started assembling our kitbot, while assisting the other teams. Given that we are not likely to use the kitbot, we opted to use the kit wheels on an older robot to test the ability to actually drive on the playing field. There was more traction on the icy streets than on the playing field surface!

After rescheduling a meeting due to weather, we used the new information we gathered from testing (and the Team Update) to adjuste some of our assumptions. We broke into small groups and practiced presenting design ideas based on the previously accepted design goals. Thursday, finalVoting on final robot design was deferred to an online vote (due to inclement weather) to allow as many team members as possible to weigh in.

The control systems and programming groups worked on completing the customization and implementation of the C-RIO with mixed results. The initial benchtop testing was successful. The C-RIO was updated successfully, but the driver's station update was not. In the meantime, the electrical team started preparing to implement the new control system on the old (2007) robot.

In other news, Francis W Parker school finalized their recommitment to sponsoring the team, other FRC teams have begun sending in their RSVP for the 2/7 Lunacy Scrimmage, venue confirmation is underway (based on number of teams who RSVP), we have been moved from the wait-list to registered for the Atlanta championship (now we need $5K right away!), and Chris was accepted into Rensselaer (and received a 4 year Leadership scholarship).

Marathon Build Day - January 10, 2009

Saturday, January 10, 2009, the Chicago Knights hosted a marathon build session. Mentor dedication to their teams was evident as many came out in spite of the inclement weather.

Attending teams:

Rookies: (2781) Queen of Peace, Burbank
. (2831) Perspectives School of Technology - Calumet Campus, Chicago

Veterans: (1739) Chicago Knights, Chicago
. (1755) Julian HS, Chicago
. (2081) Icarus, Peoria
. (2381) Ark of St Sabina, Chicago
. (2136) IMF, Chicago

Super kudos to the 4 students from veteran team Icarus (FRC 2081) and to the parent, Hugh Toner, who brought them. They not only made the trip from Peoria to help us assist the Perspectives-Calumet team, but they worked with other teams as well!

Jonathan Hildyard of National Instruments did an awesome job with LabView and all participating teams benefited from his expertise.

In spite of the weather-induced late start AND the extremely high number of too-large corner pieces in the KOP, all teams left with only about an hour's worth of work remaining before having a fully implemented control system. Two of the six teams completed their chassis, one reused an old robot, and another opted to work on their custom frame. The remaining two teams know how, but couldn't complete their frame due to having received improperly sized corner pieces.

I suspect by now, those issues have been resolved. We will upload our pictures to a shared online service ASAP and send you the link to it when it has been completed. If you have other pictures to share from the day, or pictures of your now functioning kit bot, please feel free to do so!

Also, don't forget to send me your feedback about the day. I am interested in knowing your overall impression of the day, what value (if any) did you receive from the day, and any special moments that stood out for you. In addition, if there were things we could do better/differently, please let us know that also! This will become an annual activity for us. Your feedback can help us plan better next time.

Week One: 1/4-10

We met as a full team debriefing the game and defining our game strategy. As one group, we brainstormed, discussed detailed ideas, produced a prioritized list of ideas for playing the game, robot design options, and design goals. Using team assigned weighted values, we identified our design criteria and prepared to return Saturday to host a marathon build session for ourselves and 5 other teams.

The goal for the build session was to have each team leave at the end of the day with a completed kitbot and a fully implemented tethered control system.

Vote for Lunacy Design Options

Post your choices before 5:00pm Tuesday! Valid choices are

1A, 1B, 1C, (choose only 1)

2A, 2B, 2C (choose only 1)

3A, 3B (choose only 1)

4A, 4B (choose only 1)

see the related message in your email for details

Website Stuff

Current Members:
Mentor- Ray Llanes
M. Braun (History Page)
J. Johnson (Events Page)
J. MacDonald (Mentors Page)
P. McCloud (Bio's Page)
L. Moore (Home Page)
J. Taylor (Thank You Page & Public Relation Liaison & News Page)
S. Williams (...)

Things Needed:
-Camera
-Photoshop
-HTML lessons
-Media team to give us "media"