The last six weeks have been leading up to this night. All the subteams have completed their work with the robot and are continuing to prepare for competition. Design is updating their CAD models, Chairman’s is assiduously working on the Chairman’s Award, and robot related subteams are making final tweaks. Everyone is excited to see how far the robot has come from just a simple idea to a physical product!

It is full steam ahead for the all subteams as we have 10 days before bag-and-tag day! Bag-and-tag day marks the end of the build season, where we seal our competition robot, completed or not, in a bag until the Milwaukee regional. There is a real sense of urgency for many of the robot related subteams as they work extremely hard to have a finished product by the 23rd. Many of the other subteams are also being very productive, with the Chairman’s presentation completely written, and being memorized by the presentation team.

Today we also had Cybersaders, a rookie team we have been mentoring, come into our work space to use our practice field with their robot chassis. It was cool to see our two teams, students and mentors, working together to conquer this year’s game!

So far this years game has been a challenging one! After an entire week of consensus the team finally decided on a robot design and we’ve been busy building, testing, and improving it. Along with the robot we’ve also completed making our field elements and have begun to perfect our shooter.

In other news we’ve submitted the Chairman’s essay and are continuing to work on the Woodie Flowers and Entrepreneurship awards.  We have also started doing safety demos during our Saturday meetings to prepare for our competition safety test.

Our team has created a set of rules called the guidelines. These procedures have been created by our own team and is constantly being updated. If you are interested in learning more about the guidelines, click here.

As of February 17th, buildseason is officially over. Our team is incredibly proud of everything that we have accomplished in these short six weeks. Two robots have been built, three awards have been submitted for, and each student on this team has discovered new capabilities as we took on this epic challenge.

Looking forward, we have less than four weeks until our first competition. Mechanically, we are working to create an auxiliary manipulator for our robot which we will add at the Wisconsin Regional. This will involve a significant amount more work, but in our effort to create an outstanding robot we feel it will be highly beneficial.

Chairmans is currently busy preparing various competition documents, communicating with sponsors, and writing the speech and video which are included in the chairmans award. Additionally, this week we shipped FLL robot parts to Costa Rica to begin the first robotics program in the country. We are thrilled to spread our impact internationally in this way and offer such an incredible experience to these students.

The end of buildseason is a bittersweet experience. On one hand, it is great to have a few extra hours to catch up with family and non-robotics friends after the intense pressure of the past six weeks. On the other hand, however, buildseason is a time of intense excitement, accomplishment, and community and we are sad to see its end.

We look forward to the excitement of competition, though we know there is far more to accomplish before our first regional.

We are about halfway through the sixth week of build season and only five days away from robot bag & tag. It is becoming imperative to finish the basic construction, controls, and programming, of our two identical robots quickly and efficiently. Mechanical is certainly stepping up to the challenge, stripping and redoing all the gearboxes  in only one night. The rest of the team functioning similarly, with great endurance in the face of the countdown. Yet, there is concern on the face of every member because although we make progress, the deadlines still creeps at us, like a large and unwavering brick wall.

On a slightly happier note, Chairman’s has submitted their entrepreneurship award and website has been improving the website. Also notable are the significant amounts of work seen in the areas of field elements, safety, and scoutagy.

Only two weeks remain in build season and everyone is working hard to meet the deadline! Last night, Drive Team started working with the robot and we are very happy with the stability that it demonstrated. Mechanical is now hard at work on the second robot, after handing the first robot off to controls for work on our lift. In addition, Programming has written code for driving and the lift mechanism. We are very happy with our progress on the robot up to this point, and with only 17 days remaining we are in a pretty good place.

This week, non-robot related sub-teams have also put in a huge amount of time and effort in their respective areas. Not only has Safety gained a new sponsor and done several demonstrations to the team, but the website sub-team recently updated the sponsor page — be sure to check it out! In addition, Chairmans finished several awards and called over 40 potential sponsors this week.

We have a long way to go before our first competition, but as a team there is no doubt C.O.R.E. will rise to the challenge. Stay tuned for further updates as we near the end of build season and prepare for competition!

It’s week four and it’s crunch time! Mechanical is working furiously to build the robot while design continues to make detailed plans for them. Controls is also hooking up motors and making a compact control panel. This will make it possible for the drive team to start driving this week so they can get familiarized with both the base and controls of the robot. Programming is making it easier for drivers by adding shortcuts to the controls and also making them more accurate. Field elements has finished the last parts of the field and are now making a drivers station for competitions. Finally chairmans are working on getting sponsorships and writing up awards as well as creating a promotional flyer for the Wisconsin Regional Competition (Link here). By next week the robot should be up and running, ready for practice!

Three weeks into the season and things are taking off! This year we’re building two robots so that if one robot breaks down we can figure out the problem using the twin robot. Most of the base is complete so that means that drivers will soon be able to practice driving and manipulating field elements. We will be able to start practicing on the field starting on next Saturday morning. Design is now planning our lift system and controls is making sure that our motors are up to speed. The Chairman subgroup is also busy submitting awards. We are nearing the middle of build season, and are in a pretty good place.

Build season kick off has started and our team is already off to a great start! Just recently we reached consensus on a basic design for our robot. Consensus is a process we use to come up with a game strategy and basic robot design. We listen to everyone’s ideas and then decide on one everyone agrees with or can support. First we split off into three groups lead by mentors and experienced students. In those groups we list off things we want to do and come up with different strategies before coming together for a discussion. Once we decide on a basic strategy we move onto designs for the robot. Students and mentors propose designs to the team.

Here are some examples of students presenting their ideas. If two ideas are similar students can work together to present the idea together.

After listening to designs we combine and remove proposals. Students then present prototypes for their design.

When the team has heard all designs and seen all prototypes we reach consensus on which basic robot design.