"Month" One

We held an open house on December 18th! We explained what FIRST, ate snacks, and let visitors play with last year's robot.

The first Saturday January 4th was Kickoff Day for us and the other FRC teams. We watched the broadcast that introduced us to Reefscape, this year's game.

After the initial reveal, we got to work reading the rulebook and analyzing the game animation. As a team, we decided what our scoring priorities would be and began our preliminary designs for our robot's potential components.

Once we decided on our initial concept, we set to work. While our build team started work on Kitbot, our design team began working out the actual dimensions we wanted to start off with.

There was a minor glitch in our progress as we had issues installing the newest version on Fusion 360. We managed to figure it out fairly quickly though, and our CAD team got to work. 

We were scheduled to meet on January 18th, but the building pipes were at risk for bursting due to the extreme cold. Our coach talked to the principal; she could let us in to grab supplies, but we weren't allowed to work in the building. So what did we do? We got to work loading what we could need that would fit into our cars and worked out of a garage.

There, we were able to begin planning and prototyping our cage-hanging mechanism, as well as where and how we would place our electronics.

We also celebrated the birthday of one of our mentors!

We managed to get a preliminary working model for our algae intake. It is designed as a ground intake that takes the algae in, holds it until we reach the processor, and deposits it.

We are planning to have two coral intakes: one to pick coral up from the ground and deposit it in trough, and one to pick it up from the coral station to place on the trough or the next lowest level of the reef. So far, it seems like our designs will function as intended.

We decided to start a blog!

We plan on posting progress updates of our season as often as we can.

Thank you for reading and we hope to see you again.