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.