Greetings from Seattle!

Stopped at Seattle Fabrics yesterday and picked up some fabric for a "Target Vest". The heavy-weight fabric I had ordered for the vision targets was all out of stock, so I had to settle for a lighter weight fabric. Picked up a scrap of neoprene, too. It's interesting material. Very grippy! You never know what we might need it for!

I will try to make the target vest later in the week.

See you Tuesday night!

Dean

Made the ground hog bumper this evening. It will mount with two 1/4-20 by 1" bolts. Maybe 1-1/4" long if we use lock washers. Put a couple of mounting location options on them, just in case...

I have to make a last minute trip to San Jose tomorrow. I won't get back until about 9:30, so I'll probably miss you all. If Kevin isn't too swamped with Senior Project work, he'll bring the bumper.

Dean

This is a link to the news clip on robotics from yesterdays news story.
http://www.2news.tv/news/local/39718902 ... HI&t=a

Yesterday was a fun day for most (software was very busy). We spent seven hours at our practice field. The team was able to spend an hour with some media from Micron and channel 2 news. This gave Sherwood and Ian some camera time (they are now television stars).

Team Tator showed up so we had a little scrimmage match that was a lot of fun to watch. It showed that both teams still had a lot of fine tuning that needs to take place. One of these seasons the team will be able to give software more than one day with a completed robot to work out bugs. We try every year it just hasn’t happened yet. By the end of the day the robot was able to track the target and shoot moon rocks into it. GREAT JOB software team!

To help with some shipping logistics the robot was brought to my garage and crated for shipping. Randy, Zach, Sandra, Daniel and I got the robot crated and ready to go last night at about 10:15 PM.
GREAT JOB TEAM BULLBOT!!!

I have updated the website and added some new stuff. On the home page I added a slidshow and put the FIRST logo under the menu bar on every page. I also added a new page on the competition. It is done unless I or someone else finds something then I can fix it.

the chains are on and working
we prototyped with carbors some steeper hopper sides with cardboard.
We also made 3 orbit balls (sort of)

Cut the wood for the bumpers last night per the drawing I was given. I will bring the pieces tonight and we can finish up the brackets and fit them together around the chassis.

Kevin came home concerned about the bumper color. Green was something the team had decided on quite early and the fabric was brought to a Saturday meeting about a month ago. This green is NOT the vision target green. It is a dark, forest green. I will bring it tonight for the team to approve. If we choose not to use this color we may have limited options. The only place that will sell us Cordura Nylon in town is Buck's Bags, and they have only a limited color selection. (Normally they don't sell fabric, but will make an exception for us.)

I will only be there for a short time tonight, as getting the bumpers finished is a priority.

Dean

I know there are people looking at some exotic stickers for the 'bot, but how abuot thinking about the basics for a bit? There are are some requirements we must adhere to: First, we need to have the team number on all sides of the 'bot. Second, we need to display sponsor logos. It is a REQUIREMENT!

Last year we put logos on the bumpers, but with green bumpers this year that may not work so well.

Thanks.
Dean

I will also be taking a half day Friday to help out. Looks like we still need to pick up a chain break!

We made significant progress tonight with lowering the loader brush.
We lowered the brush wheel down 1/2" and moved it in toward the elevator assembly an 1". The brush relocation also required the drive motor mount to be relocated. Looking forward to testing tomorrow!