Electrical is amazing, duh

And once again the time has come for the godly electrical subteam to make a blog post. As I write this, Electrical has gotten a new tool with which to wield its magic, it's called...(insert drum roll)... A NEW TEMPERATURE CONTROLLED SOLDERING IRON! YAY! Be happy! This tool will help us as the plug on our other one fell off and the metal was heating until it turned blue (aka really hot). The new one even came with a beautiful sponge. 

--> New soldering iron

Anyways, it is time for the amazingness that is electrical to reveal what it has been brewing since the beginning of the school year... we have been soldering things and teaching our new members. Wow! So amazing! We managed to make these programming practice bots, which was really fun and gave us something to do.

--> Programming practice bot

--> New people and that one sophomore (he claims to be in college)

But that was our second project! Mostly because we are on such a roll. Although not pictured, our first project was a robot kit that turns into a robot with sensors that runs away from things when its about to bump into them. It just needs to be said that it was absolutely adorable. 

For the last meeting or so, we have also been conducting research on how to pneumatics, courtesy of Davin, who thought of it. Pneumatics were not used on the robot last year, so we looked at them on Slippery Biscuit and also found two leaks where pneumatic fluid was leaking out. One of them was caused by the tubes not being plugged in all the way, Zuzanna's fault. :P

-->pneumatic tubing that was loose 

And thus ends the amazing journey of electrical since the beginning of the year. We are looking at the horizon and seeing personal projects and more soldering (sponsored by DeSilva). Also, don't forget to stop by if you need some healthy sarcasm.

--> Very bad quality soldering picture

Stay smelly,

Electrical Subteam

Over the summer, each member of the design team was given a project to design, ranging from a drive base to an articulating turret ball shooter. The instructions given were very casual, and most of the team was busy with summer internships and trips, taking time in the sun over staring at a computer screen. Those who created something shared their projects with the design team, received feedback, and then we moved on to the preseason project.

Skunk Works loves to share the passion of STEM with young children, inspiring them to look towards robotics as a way to build their future and improve the world. As a team, we have used past years' robots to demonstrate what we build on the team. These machines are (to us) mechanical masterpieces, but they are purpose-built for the FIRST competition. So our design team preseason project is to create a purpose-built demonstration robot. The design parameters are for the robot to be able to fit within an 18*18*18 inch cube and weigh less than 35 pounds - easily transportable to outreach events. Since we have thousands of balls from the VEX competition laying around, the robot will be designed to interact with those balls, allowing kids to feed the robot and catch launched balls in a safe and fun matter. Three teams of five are competing to create the ultimate demo robot, may the best win!

(Design Team gets down to business)

Stay Smelly!

The Design Team

The Design/Build subteam is busily getting ready for the next competition! We decided that we would be building a shooting mechanism to hopefully use at our next competition. 

The Design team spent 3 weeks prototyping and designing two separate shooters. It was a very hard decision to choose between the two of them and we were all very pleased when we found a way to combine them into one design. Tonight we will be assembling our newly designed shooter and getting ready to attach it to the robot.

 Next we will be testing it on the robot and hoping to practice using it enough to be ready for Ellensburg! Other members of the Design team have been working on very important documentation so that we have a strong record of everything that we have done and any problems that we have had. That documentation helps us to make a better design next season. We are also working on a turreted shooting design that the programmers will be able to work with and learn to program. That way next season or in any of the coming seasons, if the need for that type of shooter arises we will be ready. 

Another project that the design team has taken on is an update to our outreach robots. Our mini-robots are a favorite at a lot of our events and we want to make them work better and have a new system for popping the opponents balloons. Lastly, members of the Design team are working to modify our cart for this years shorter designed robot. With the new modifications, transport of our 2016 robot to and from the pits will be noticeably smoother.

Stay smelly!

The Design team

As the build season has drawn to a close, the competition season has just begun. We, the electrical team, are still quite busy. Throughout build season the electrical tool shelf has become a place of havoc. We spent 2 meetings, amassing about 6 hours, just to organize the shelf. Before, it looked as if a small tornado tore through it. Now, the shelf looks as if it were organized by angels themselves. 

Beside that, the electrical team has been busy with other work. Chiefly among these is working on the Operator's Interface, or OI for short. Before, the drivers were driving with very wobbly joysticks. So, the we very lovingly tore apart the OI to make some key modifications. As well as the OI, electrical has been working to fix Tote Bot. Unfortunately, Tote Bot was in an accident. This included it losing one of its wheels. We are currently in the process of fixing this tragedy that has occurred, but Tote Bot will let well soon. Besides our own work, Electrical has been helping our friends in marketing. We helped to assemble a button table, and the stands for their flags. Right now, the Electrical is incredibly happy with the new and improved (or just improved) shelf. We will continue to be working as new jobs arise. 

And as always, 

Stay Smelly,

The Electrical Team

The business subteam is hard at work refining the chairman’s presentation before the next competition. We are updating the presentation data and Garnet, Alex, and Josh are working on our awesome Chairman’s video that we will show the team very soon! Everyone is so excited to see the product of their hard work. The business team is also busily working on making our Chairman’s notebook even better and creating a takeaway for the judges that will really knock their socks off.

("We have to rewrite this sentence AGAIN?")

Stay Smelly!

The Business subteam

The programming team is hard at work on vision finding with the tower. Autonomous programs have been going great and as soon as the mechanical subteam gives us a shooter we will begin work on a high goal shooting autonomous program. And since we have been spending most nights at the beautifully constructed practice field, we promise that we will not intentionally break anything. Too badly. 

The video team has had a long week. We've been given two jobs as of late, our Chairman's video and our robot reveal video. Chairman's is obviously the more important of the two, so of course it's the one we've had the most trouble with. After weeks of hard labor, our video was finally where we wanted it to be. With just a few more seconds needed to make it perfect, disaster struck. The dreaded blue screen of death. For unknown reasons, our video editing computer passed away. As you can probably guess, we all almost died of our collective heart attack. However, after almost five hours of non-stop work, we were able to recover the footage, mostly intact. Thank goodness we have an IT expert (thanks Garnet).

The second video, the reveal video, has also given us some trouble. With just a few days left until we go to competition, we've had no time to film our practice robot in action. But, the programmers and build team need to make sure it's working correctly, so we understand. However, we still need to get it done, so we're heading to our practice field to bug them, so we can get some really sweet shots.

So, while writing this has been fun, we need to head out as soon as possible so we can get those sweet shots.

(Lookin for the beauty shot)

Stay smelly,

Video Team

Hello!

Market has been keeping busy. We printed our side banners, and we have to say: they look fabulous. Our standards are also almost done, and they also look fabulous. We've redesigned our pit, and it looks fabulous. We may or may not be a little excited. 

But mostly, we're excited for the competition! Our first competition is on Friday, so we've been packing everything up and making sure everything is present and accounted for. Prepare for lots of skunk tails.

(Marketing makes everything look better)

(Like, lots of skunk tails)

Stay smelly!

The Marketing Team

Hello!

Here in the Marketing subteam we've been keeping very busy. We finished the website awhile ago (as you can see), but we've still been updating things and making sure all the images are working (they have a nasty habit of disappearing on us). We've also been redesigning everything. We finished our logo early on in Build Season, but that was just the first of many things to design. Since then, we've been working on standards, banners, the OI, shirts, buttons, and a variety of images for the Chairman's and business teams. 

(You know, just a couple of things we're designing)

Stay smelly!

The Marketing Team

Right now the programmers are hard at work creating systems and controls for our 2016 robot. We are eagerly awaiting the completed robot so that we can start to test. Luckily we will have time with the practice robot even after bag day! We have been working on getting the camera systems set up and tested as well as getting the OI commands set up. We are confident that the robot code will be done in time for testing.

Stay smelly!

The Programming Subteam 

(No caption necessary)

(Ross and robot)