The team has arrived in St. Louis to the America Center for the first day of the competition! Stay tuned for more info on team 6651.
By: Andrea Finn
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
And We're Off!
Golden Bots are ready for takeoff to St. Louis for the World Championship this morning!
By: Andrea Finn
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Final Preparations for St. Louis!
Last week, the team cut and spray painted wood for use as a battery container. Also, we built and painted a tool box cart to use at the competition this week.
Today, the drive team is getting some practice driving time in on a practice robot from the team in Freeport, IL thanks to our mentor, Mr. Wu. We also are organizing all of our supplies and determining what we will need to take to St. Louis.
Time is quickly winding down until Worlds! We will be meeting once more on Tuesday to pack up for the competition and load all of our supplies in the vehicles so that on Wednesday we can depart for St. Louis. Thanks for your continued support of the team! Enjoy the rest of your weekend and stay tuned for more news on Goldie this week.
By: Andrea Finn
Monday, April 10, 2017
Midwest Regional - 2017
Hey everyone! Golden Bots had a stressful, yet exciting weekend in Chicago two weeks ago. The team geared up for the competition and felt ready for our first ever FIRST Robotics competition, or so we thought. The team arrived for check-in at the University of Illinois at Chicago early Thursday morning. Ready to practice on the field, we soon learned that a new rule had been implemented this year: the bumpers were now included in the size restraints. Our team began to think of ways to minimize the size of our robot. However, as a rookie team we struggled to think of effective ways to make our robot the correct size for competition. Realizing we needed help, other teams quickly gathered around our pit jumping in to help us. Without the other teams' help we would not have been able to fix our robot in the time we had. We are grateful for those who assisted us, such as teams 16 and 1939.
After Goldie finally met the size requirements, we began to practice. We quickly learned our gear holder did not work as effectively as we had hoped, due to Goldie's size being changed, so we began to make adjustments to it. During a practice match, our gear holder then completely broke off of our robot, which set us back to square one. Again with the help of others, we succeeded in rebuilding Goldie. We began to practice again, but we had problems climbing the rope. Each tweak seemed to get us closer to completely climbing, but we knew we weren't earning enough points for our alliances, so we attempted a defensive strategy to block the other alliance from scoring. Drew's driving was successful as a defensive robot, until Goldie stopped working after taking a hit. Each practice match after that, proved to us that our robot had some kind of electrical problem. The builders quickly figured out which cables were coming loose when the robot took a hard hit and they got to work fixing it.
Although Goldie never successfully climbed the rope, the team never gave up. We finished 44th out of 53 teams and unfortunately on the last day of competition none of the other teams asked us to join their alliance. This officially meant we were done competing for the remainder of the Regional competition. Despite not advancing, our team continued to work on the robot. Even if we were done, we knew we could better ourselves by learning more about the robot if we continued to work. Throughout all of our trials of adversity, judges came to our pit to interview the team and although we struggled, we always had smiles on our faces. All of our challenges at the competition taught us to persevere and stay determined no matter what. The amazing judges noticed all our hard work and determination, which earned us the All-Star Rookie Award! This means that team 6651 - Golden Bots is headed to St. Louis for the World Championship! We thank all of our mentors, teams 16 and 1939, the inspectors, the judges, and everyone else at FRC for giving us the opportunity to compete at the World Championships. Also, a huge thank you to all of our sponsors for making Sterling Robotics a reality. We couldn't have done it without your support! Catch Goldie in action April 26-29. See you in St. Louis!
by Andrea Finn.
After Goldie finally met the size requirements, we began to practice. We quickly learned our gear holder did not work as effectively as we had hoped, due to Goldie's size being changed, so we began to make adjustments to it. During a practice match, our gear holder then completely broke off of our robot, which set us back to square one. Again with the help of others, we succeeded in rebuilding Goldie. We began to practice again, but we had problems climbing the rope. Each tweak seemed to get us closer to completely climbing, but we knew we weren't earning enough points for our alliances, so we attempted a defensive strategy to block the other alliance from scoring. Drew's driving was successful as a defensive robot, until Goldie stopped working after taking a hit. Each practice match after that, proved to us that our robot had some kind of electrical problem. The builders quickly figured out which cables were coming loose when the robot took a hard hit and they got to work fixing it.
Although Goldie never successfully climbed the rope, the team never gave up. We finished 44th out of 53 teams and unfortunately on the last day of competition none of the other teams asked us to join their alliance. This officially meant we were done competing for the remainder of the Regional competition. Despite not advancing, our team continued to work on the robot. Even if we were done, we knew we could better ourselves by learning more about the robot if we continued to work. Throughout all of our trials of adversity, judges came to our pit to interview the team and although we struggled, we always had smiles on our faces. All of our challenges at the competition taught us to persevere and stay determined no matter what. The amazing judges noticed all our hard work and determination, which earned us the All-Star Rookie Award! This means that team 6651 - Golden Bots is headed to St. Louis for the World Championship! We thank all of our mentors, teams 16 and 1939, the inspectors, the judges, and everyone else at FRC for giving us the opportunity to compete at the World Championships. Also, a huge thank you to all of our sponsors for making Sterling Robotics a reality. We couldn't have done it without your support! Catch Goldie in action April 26-29. See you in St. Louis!
by Andrea Finn.
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
The time has come!
We are a couple of days from the competition now. Today, we will be meeting at 7pm to finish little details and organize tools, paperwork and logistics. Then, we need to fill up the truck with all our gears! Please come with muscles and energy! We will be moving everything 3 floors down...
The Builder Team leaves Thursday at 5 AM from the WACC. The support group is scheduled to arrive to UIC before 11 AM.
The Builder Team leaves Thursday at 5 AM from the WACC. The support group is scheduled to arrive to UIC before 11 AM.
Monday, February 20, 2017
T-1 - The final day
Hey Golden Warriors!
We are one day before the closing day. Tomorrow, Goldie will be bagged and sealed until the day of the competition. We tested most of the systems, and all seems to work perfectly now. The intake system worked perfectly once we installed the roof. The output system was tested and worked very well. We still have a couple of issues with the floor system. The push buttons that detect when the floor is up and down sometimes don't change of state. We will have to be careful when we are operating it to not go too far. We made a nod in the middle of the cord we are using to raise the floor, to avoid getting stuck in the gears of the shaft, so there was no need to add bolts for that. We did not test again the climber. The gear holder is not finished yet. We only need the add the acrylic that will keep the gear from falling (we needed to buy 4" bolts).
On the programming side, we have fixed all the problems with the controls. Now we can use both joysticks to control Goldie. We also added the Intake system to the drive joystick. When you push the trigger, Goldie gathers balls. The thumb button throws away balls. It made sense that the driver could also control the Intake system, since he is driving... We still need to configure the camera to have a good point of view for the rope. The Roborio detects the camera, but the LiveWindow is not showing the picture.
Since tomorrow is the last day, students will be meeting from 3pm to 5pm to finish the projects. Mentors will be meeting from 5pm to 7pm to help finish Goldie if needed, and then talk about what is next. We need to brainstorm about what we are going to need for the competition (Cart for Goldie, tools, etc...).
We are one day before the closing day. Tomorrow, Goldie will be bagged and sealed until the day of the competition. We tested most of the systems, and all seems to work perfectly now. The intake system worked perfectly once we installed the roof. The output system was tested and worked very well. We still have a couple of issues with the floor system. The push buttons that detect when the floor is up and down sometimes don't change of state. We will have to be careful when we are operating it to not go too far. We made a nod in the middle of the cord we are using to raise the floor, to avoid getting stuck in the gears of the shaft, so there was no need to add bolts for that. We did not test again the climber. The gear holder is not finished yet. We only need the add the acrylic that will keep the gear from falling (we needed to buy 4" bolts).
On the programming side, we have fixed all the problems with the controls. Now we can use both joysticks to control Goldie. We also added the Intake system to the drive joystick. When you push the trigger, Goldie gathers balls. The thumb button throws away balls. It made sense that the driver could also control the Intake system, since he is driving... We still need to configure the camera to have a good point of view for the rope. The Roborio detects the camera, but the LiveWindow is not showing the picture.
Since tomorrow is the last day, students will be meeting from 3pm to 5pm to finish the projects. Mentors will be meeting from 5pm to 7pm to help finish Goldie if needed, and then talk about what is next. We need to brainstorm about what we are going to need for the competition (Cart for Goldie, tools, etc...).
Saturday, February 18, 2017
Last Saturday report
Today was a big day for Goldie. After 8 hours, we have almost finished building it.
1. The intake system works wonders. We need to finish the roof to allow the balls fall in the box. We also need to lower an inch or so the front wall, so balls cannot come out between the intake system and the bottom of the wall.
2. The output system works very well also. We only need to funnel the balls a little better. Idea: Add a side triangular wall once side of the motor.
3. The floor system works correctly, but the cord can get stuck on the gears. We figure out we would add a couple of bolts to keep the cord close to the center of the shaft. We want to add also a couple of sensors at the top and the bottom to detect the position of the floor.
4. The climbing system worked better than expected. One issue is that when the the system is disable, Goldie will fall to the floor one and a half feet... We need to find a solution to keep it at the top of the rope.
5. The programming part did a huge leap today. We have done most of the commands and we tested them all. We are ready to create the interface and the control system.
After all these extra work to do, we won't go to the scrimmage tomorrow. We still have some building to do. We will meet Monday at 10AM and finish Goldie.
Enjoy your Sunday and cyall on Monday!!
1. The intake system works wonders. We need to finish the roof to allow the balls fall in the box. We also need to lower an inch or so the front wall, so balls cannot come out between the intake system and the bottom of the wall.
2. The output system works very well also. We only need to funnel the balls a little better. Idea: Add a side triangular wall once side of the motor.
3. The floor system works correctly, but the cord can get stuck on the gears. We figure out we would add a couple of bolts to keep the cord close to the center of the shaft. We want to add also a couple of sensors at the top and the bottom to detect the position of the floor.
4. The climbing system worked better than expected. One issue is that when the the system is disable, Goldie will fall to the floor one and a half feet... We need to find a solution to keep it at the top of the rope.
5. The programming part did a huge leap today. We have done most of the commands and we tested them all. We are ready to create the interface and the control system.
After all these extra work to do, we won't go to the scrimmage tomorrow. We still have some building to do. We will meet Monday at 10AM and finish Goldie.
Enjoy your Sunday and cyall on Monday!!
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