Last Build Session before Christmas

Driving to the Mountain...

No matter what fails or falls apart, the robot must have LEDS!!!!

Encouragement For Any Dejected Engineer

[Disclaimer: Not necessarily selected for our team's current robot work conditions.]

Thanksgiving Work Session

This team build session we worked on attaching a linear slide to the arm

 and also worked on the gatherer and bevel gear attachments. 

We also refined the debris gatherer and 

tested the new tread design and it worked well.

Volunteer Service at FLL Tournaments

Our team is involved in helping younger-leaguers with their tournaments. Last week and today, our members went as judges, referees and field technicians. 

Team Meeting 11/5/15

We are now continuing the design of our articulated arm and improving the treadsbot design. 


Engineering joke of the day!

Optimist: "The glass is half full!"

Pessimist: "The glass is half empty."

Engineer: "Guys, come on! The glass is twice as big as it needs to be!"

11/6/2015 Tread Prototyping

With a slight change to the configuration of the tread wheels, the robot was able to climb the mountain.

Yeah! Autonomous code functioning in Android Studio!

FTC Team Meeting 10/29/2015

                    Banners on the Cheap  $12 !!!

The Banner is Here!

Greetings team and all those interested! Our team spirit subteam is thrilled to announce that the team banner for the tournament has arrived!

Team meeting 10/22/15: We continued to build on the robot prototype. Some of us also coded teleop programs for the robot in Android Studio while others worked on an articulated arm design.

10/15/15 Team Meeting

We voted on tee shirt designs from our team creations

and decided on the hand-drawn dragon. We then voted on colors 

and decided on green!

The banner is already ordered and tee shirts are on their way!

Team Meeting October 8th

Planning what to build

Building the first treads prototype

Testing the tread prototype

It's a bit too slippery - we need more traction

Our weekly game of "Find Jacob"

Field mountain almost complete!

10/1/2015 Team Meeting

Assembling the lower mountain 

Assembling the upper mountain.

Assembling the beacon

Our extremely spacious work space ;)

FIRST RES-Q Scoring Rubric

Mission	Scoring Period	Points
Robot Parked in a Rescue Beacon Repair Zone/ Robot Parked in a Floor Goal	Autonomous Scoring Period	5 points
Robot on the Mountain and Touching the Floor	Autonomous Scoring Period	5 points
Robot Parked on the Mountain Low Zone	Autonomous Scoring Period	10 points
Robot Parked on the Mountain Mid Zone	Autonomous Scoring Period	20 points
Robot Parked on the Mountain High Zone	Autonomous Scoring Period	40 points
Rescue Beacon Illuminated for an Alliance	Autonomous Scoring Period	20 points per slide
Climber in a Shelter	Autonomous Scoring Period	10 points per climber

Mission	Scoring Period	Points
Debris Scored in a Floor Goal	Driver-Controlled Period	1 points
Debris Scored in a Mountain Low Zone Goal	Driver-Controlled Period	5 points
Debris Scored in a Mountain Mid Zone Goal	Driver-Controlled Period	10 points
Debris Scored in a Mountain High Zone Goal	Driver-Controlled Period	15 points
Robot on the Mountain and Touching the Floor	Driver-Controlled Period	5 points
Robot Parked on the Mountain Low Zone	Driver-Controlled Period	10 points
Robot Parked on the Mountain Mid Zone	Driver-Controlled Period	20 points
Robot Parked on the Mountain High Zone	Driver-Controlled Period	40 points
Climber Released/Slid Down the Zip Line	Driver-Controlled Period	20 points each
Climber in a Shelter	Driver-Controlled Period	10 points per climber

Mission	Scoring Period	Points
Robot Completely Supported by the Pull-up Bar	End Game	80 points
Claim an All Clear Signal	End Game	20 points per Signal

Team Meeting 9/17

The girls making our 2D model of the field (above) 

 The finished 2D model (above) The boys working on the 3D model (left)

The finished 3D model (right)

The 2015-2106 FTC GAME:   FIRST RES-Q !

Game Description

Game Video

2015 Game Reveal

The 2015 FTC Game Reveal is September 12 noon!

Summer Training Complete!

Officially team F.I.R.E. again this year!  Team members with their training robot: K9.

Engineering Exercises
Building a Catapult

Demonstration and Demolition !

Team #6972 has begun its 2015-2016 season with a 6 member crew.  Our first gathering this year was with FRC team YETI at Charlotte's Convention Center to man FIRST's booth and give robot demonstrations. Our second gathering was a demolition party to take apart last season's robot (Goodbye Scorch!) to make way for K9 (the Android learning model).  Check out the photos below!

The 2015- 2016 FTC Season:  

The Year of the JAVA

This season will bring exciting new changes as there will be hardware and software updates.  The NXT will be replaced with Android based ZTE Speed phones and the ROBOTC programming will be replaced with JAVA.  Read all about it here!

FTC Tech updates

FTC North Carolina State Competition 2015

Congratulations

We  would like to congratulate all the teams competing in the 2015 FTC North Carolina State Competition and congratulate the winners.  Thanks to our Operational Partner, NC A&T State University for their stewardship of this FIRST program.  There were several category winners this year:

Award	1st	2nd	3rd
Inspire	Aperture Science	Syntax Error	Tundrabots
Think	Llamas Inc.	Aperture Science	F.I.R.E.
Connect	Purple Panthers	Wannabe Strange	Aperture Science
Rockwell Collins Innovate	Mechanical Marauders	Aperture Science	Tundrabots
PTC Design	Purple Gears	Syntax Error	Thunder Ducks
Motivate	Sisters of the Motherboard	F.I.R.E.	Ashebots
Control	Wannabe Strange	Ashebots	Aperture Science
Judges	Borobots
Alliances	Captain	1st Pick	2nd Pick
Winning Alliance	Mechanical Marauders	Tundrabots	Unparalleled Processing
Finalist Alliance	Aperture Science	Tungsteel	Back to the Drawing Board

Advancing to the Texas Super-Regional will be Aperture Science, Mechanical Marauders, Syntax Error and 

Tundrabots.  Good luck teams! 

Valentine tournament details:

here

One week 'til State Tournament!  
Adding ball bumpers and modifying ball gatherer.