Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Day 3

(There wasn't a meeting yesterday because we didn't have enough mentors, but I'm calling this post Day 3 anyway).

NOTE: Weekday meetings will start on 3:30, even on Wednesdays (because teachers still have to work until 3:30 on Wednesdays).

The first hour or so was spent making more decisions:

First, we voted on whether we should be able to pick up gears from the ground, versus only being able to load them from the human player. In a narrow finish, picking up gears won, 10 votes to 1.
(Only students were allowed to vote, and unfortunately not very many students came today)

After that, we spent a good deal of time "researching" (watching YouTube videos that were only slightly related to the current topic) different drive bases and wheel types. After we finally felt confident to vote, we watched more YouTube videos voted.
The results went like this: A lot of people (presumably 11?) for Mecanum wheels, and 0 for anything else.

Such continues the strange and largely undocumented tradition of using Mecanum every other year. We're doing it this year, and we did it in 2015, 2013, and (presumably) 2011 and 2009 (maybe girl robots just like mecanum more than boy robots????)

After we finished voting, the team (all 11 or so of us, plus 5 or so mentors) broke off into (unofficial) subteams - drive base, gear manipulation, and software. While the drive base and gear manipulation subteams worked on prototypes (on day 3!!!) software continued to perform the annual Rite Of Passage known as Installing The New FRC Software.

Unless the world ends, we will have a robotics meeting tomorrow, from 3:30 to 6.

GO ROBOTOTES!!!