Posts Tagged ‘CAD

17
Feb
12

Oh man… no more OMAX

Hey Everybody!

There was no official meeting tonight, but a few of us went to OMAX to cut out the last of the parts. This was the final trip to OMAX for this season.  I want to again thank Kevin and the entire group that stays at work late and helps us out.  Our group was smaller than usual, with Ken, Aiden, me, and my partner in blogging crime, Camila. Tonight was especially cool because the Operator Interface and shear panels were cut, each of which have cool truss patterns and “SKUNKWORKS ROBOTICS” on them, along with sponsor names and our team number. As an aside, we put FRC in front of our team number, to spread the word. Yay for Dean’s Homework! But there is something really cool about an idea going from your mind, to a visual on the computer, to a piece of metal in your hand. Three cheers for OMAX!

Tonight’s cut was a bit quicker than usual; there were fewer parts, and the parts that we needed were smaller. I learned a lesson though.  If you don’t CAD a feature into the part, it isn’t going to magically appear just because you want it to. With the shear panel that goes on the conveyor, some of the letters like O and B, had parts in the middle that would fall out if you didn’t put a tab keeping them in. That happened with the 8 too… oh well. Also, I managed to drop one of our pieces into the tank as I was cleaning it. After a very gentlemanly ”Drat”, I told the guys and we had to cut a new part.

In a moment of sheer brilliance, I totally forgot to take pictures of the parts to post for you guys, so I will do a special post around noon tomorrow with the pictures. Speaking of tomorrow, we have an open house tomorrow with our now finished field (YAY!).  So if your robot is done, or even if it still needs some work, come over and we’ll do all we can. I’ll be there at 9 am, and people will start going home around 3:00 pm most likely. In any event, have a productive and stress free last few days of the build season, and please,

Stay Smelly!!

Liam Burke

03
Feb
12

Friday-Parent Support!

Today we didn’t have a robotics meeting, but the CAD team went to OMAX again, which I’m sure Liam will give you plenty of information about tomorrow.

For today I just wanted to make a post thanking our parents and supporters for what they do to help make FIRST robotics successful at Aviation HS. I watch parents come in and supervise us during Study Hall, or bring in food for lunches and dinners on Wednesdays and our long Saturday team meetings. I just want to say that this is something many of us appreciate because your support helps us do well in school and concentrate on our goals during robotics. It is very nice to know that there is a whole crew of adults behind the scenes working hard to help us out and who really care about us as students and want us to succeed. Your commitment to the team is deeply appreciated.

On a similar note, now that we are far into build season, our rookies are getting a taste of the intensity we were talking about before build season started. It is hard at first to get accustomed to the rhythm of things but once the first year passes, I think it will be easier to manage how much time we spend in school and how it kind of becomes our second home. It may appear a little strange at first why we love it so much, but it will become much more clear after you’ve experienced finishing a robot and competition! =)

Well, I don’t have much more to mention tonight. See you all tomorrow!

Camila




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