TorBots

February 16th, 2009

We're completely done.

24 hours early.

See you at LA!

(Ed. note: We were going to write this yesterday, but yesterday's update was written before the robot was actually finished...)

February 14-15, 2009

It's scrimmage time.

TorBots members helped with set-up/take-down of the Los Angeles Pre-Ship Scrimmage field at Crenshaw HS over the weekend. Teams from all across the LA area tested their robots on a field run by actual FIRST volunteers and mentors.

Unfortunately, our robot didn't do so well today... a couple of errors in programming and a design flaw (balls caught in the helix) caused a motor to burn out.

We saw the magic smoke.

On the other hand, we saw Mark Leon, head emcee for the California-area regional competitions. He had blue hair.

Tomorrow will be a long day. Members should come. Yup.

Up to February 13, 2009

Um... we forgot we had this...

But in this time, we finished the website, finalized our plans for the robot, discovered a flaw in our design, and are attempting to fix it.

We will be using a turret shooter on the top of our robot, which will drive on four wheels with two-speed gearboxes. Moon rocks will enter the robot through the bottom, and travel up a spiral to the shooter.

And the website's done!

We will be traveling to Crenshaw High tomorrow and Sunday for the Los Angeles area scrimmage. Hope to see you there!

(Did I mention the website's done?)

Up to January 22, 2009

We have our frame ready and are still working on the prototype shooter/ball launcher.

The programming team has been hard at work and has made progress on the vision tracking system. Kudos, Jason and the programming team!