Winter Testing

Trying my hand at arts-y robot photos.
Many thanks to Royal Robotics for hosting this practice field!

I may have mentioned before (I can't remember everything I write!) but I am a huge fan of Formula 1 and Formula E. The similarities to FRC are quite striking. Million dollar deals, hundred-million strong fan base, cars... These are all things that make Formula 1 what it is today. Anyway - this time of the year especially, the parallels are exciting to see. Waiting for reveals, testing videos, shakedowns, reliability and performance tuning - not just talking F1 with that list, we're doing the exact same things in FRC. (Seriously - teams! More reveal videos! Do it! Also, I'm told Baby Yoda is watching. Don't disappoint Baby Yoda.)

This time certainly feels like winter testing. Our drivers are getting their first hands on the controllers. Our full systems shakedowns, mechanical tweaking and tuning, software tweaking and tuning are all full-steam ahead. (Was that a 2017 joke?). We're looking to prove out our reliability, while starting to push our performance.

Reveal Your Secrets, Part 2

Now witness the firepower of this fully (mostly) armed and operational battle-station-robot!

This is totally how it works. Every time.

Reveal Your Secrets, Part 1

Resting up as we get close to bag day. Wait, never mind, just resting.

Well, if this was a normal build season, we'd all be wrapping up the final weekend of build before bag day. Our robot would likely be... needing some TLC during the 6-hour un-bag if that was the case! Fortunately, we are catching up, finishing parts, attaching them to the robot, and starting to ramp up and tune software for maximum control and functionality. Tonight, we will unveil exactly what the robot looks like right now, and our plans and goals for the first competition in two weeks time.

Hope you all have a good week six, and I hope you've still got the endurance and capacity to continue build season beyond six weeks! (Cause like, we've never run 8-9 week build seasons before with a second robot...)

The Mistake

Cuttin' stuff. Forward progress.
Oh wait! This was our Help Hub in action!
Team 4089 called on us to help manufacture some parts, so we gladly helped out!

Everyone makes mistakes at some point. We as a team have failed and err'ed and walked down dead end paths many, many times so far this season. What's important for us is recognizing early that a mistake was made, what it was, and moving forward. (Software makes the most mistakes. I threatened to take the 'backspace' key away from our lead programmer and he made quite a face! :-D) We are getting deep into build season, and if we make more mistakes now, we lose more precious time.

Monday night we had a meeting - we're behind, we've made mistakes. We need to really check ourselves, avoid distractions, move fast, and remove the opportunity for mistakes. It's a big ask for any team. Throughout the week, the team has continued progress, continued the usual fun, music, and banter, but has shown a new underlying focus and vigor.

Someone's quote that I've seen somewhere on Chief Delphi - "if you don't have time to do it right, how will you have time to do it twice?"

Check yo' self. (Bro.) (Sis.) (I'm super hip.)

A Quiet Place

This machine ran once....
Once... >.>

We're not freaking out! You're freaking out!

We're a little behind. We're working hard, but the devil is always in the details.

We have cut some metal, and we do have a running chassis, but for a lot of the week, this shop has been a quiet place. It's been kinda refreshing... ish...