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

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!!!

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

Jose made progress on a new camera mount (in front of the drum) and on the turret wiring. He will continue to work this tonight.

Thanks for the bumper measurements. We will work on those tomorrow and Wednesday evening.

Looks like Friday is a school holiday. My schedule looks decent and I can probably work 1/2 day. Other mentors?

Note to Randy: I set the monitor out for Kevin to bring. It takes a 12V input at 3A. That's only 36Watts and is well in the range of the proposed batteries.

See you Wednesday!

Dean

Today we plan to:
1- Move the camera so that it can't be damaged and so that it will fit the height requirements/ game rules/ height
2- Refine the groundhog so that it can feed the balls better
3- Put the chains on the wheels
4- Get sensors wired
5- Refine the electrical stuff
6- Add game light
7- Review the rules of the robot
8- Practice with the robot on the practice field
9- Chassis refinemet/dimensions

Hello all!

Tremendous effort from all teams culminated in a running robot last night. I think it was safe to say that all parties were pretty impressed by the initial capabilities and everyone is looking forward to the fine tuning we'll do this week as we wrap up the robot build.

This is not to say we're done with the build! Still need to machine more sprokets and clean up wiring. I will bring my label maker tomorrow night and it would be good for the electrical team to get labels on every wire running into the electronics package.

Several of us worked on a method of cleaning up the wiring from the turret. Randy had a good suggestion that we need to mock up. If we can make it work it is possible it will make things a little simpler. I will pick up a few parts to try. One of the possible implications would be that the camera might have to be moved slightly to one side. Stand by.

Keep on running! Only a week left!

Dean

On sataurday we plan to have a small group of about three people complete ALL the balls. In other words sew them and rivet them.
The groundhog team will be createing groundhog possibilties and will hopefully create the final design for the hopper.
The turret team is planning to test the turret shooting at a moveing target sooner or later.
The chassis team claims to be done so they will be helping all the other teams.
Good luck and let's get 'er done!

Practice field is 95% complete!
The floor is down and the corner station is built. Still need to work on the boarder and the middle human player station. Teams will need to take extension cords with them when practicing. There are lots of outlets just not where you will want to drive from.