Ready As We’ll Ever Be

Hello Everyone!

This has been a very slow couple of weeks for electrical, as we have had very little to do. But, in our endless search for more work, we did find a couple of things to do.

The electrical sub-team has been mostly busy helping other sub-teams get their work done. We helped members of design make coasters for chairmen’s judges for our Philomath District Event. We also helped hang our blue banners (yes, plural) in the lobby, so our fellow classmates can look upon our success. Or they can wonder why blue pieces of cloth are hanging in the middle of the school. Either way, they can see it.

We also made some minor modifications to the robot so it would run more smoothly and efficiently. For example, we added a new magnetic sensor to detect when we have a six stack of totes, so our operator won’t commit a deadly foul. And while these were minor changes, they are still helpful. We also switched things around on the robot so our new can grabber would fit on the robot. And yes, we also helped a little with the manufacture of that beauty.

As the Pacific Northwest District Championship draws closer, electrical team has been vigorously preparing for competition. We’ve packed what we think we will need, and we have helped other sub-teams with their backups. Several of our members also helped make drive, safety, and scout lead buttons for other teams who will also be attending the championship.

So while we haven’t done much, we have found some things to do. We are all looking forward to the championship and our blood is pumping for some robot action. Hope to see you there!

We have plans for this bad boy.

Coasters we helped make for judges.

Our blue banners hanging in our lobby.

Stay Smelly!

The Electrical Team

EAT. SLEEP. SCOUT. REPEAT.

Hello Everyone!

It’s been a long week and as the team recuperates from Mt. Vernon, our fearless and supreme leader Quinn refuses to be let down by mere mortal issues. For example, when we were presented with the issue of writing the code for taking some uber­specific, semi-arbitrary, debatably useful aspect of the game, we spent hours tirelessly mashing the keyboard until our fingers bled.

Anyways. You’re probably wondering how the second competition went for us stinky data skunks. After ensuring that the all was operational and tapping the tablets in sync with the robots, we spent the entirety of competition looking for useful ways to examine, extrapolate, and present the data in order to show the rest of the world what was really going down on the field.

While extremely terrifying, talking to other teams is one of the easiest methods to get a feel for what you will you be competing with or against.  It’s also a great way to spread gracious professionalism, and share the spirit of first!

Of course, the job of scouting can sometimes become overbearing.  Seen here, subteam leader Quinn is #caught taking a quick nap with Programmer David, who was likely watching his robot code come to life on the field.

When it’s all said and done, one must make the final decision, and walk out onto that field prepared to select the crew.  Pictured here, Quinn poses with his fellow alliance members in a fashion known as “Peacocking”, striking fear and wonder into the hearts of opposing teams.

Stay Smelly!

Owen (Scouting Team)

Looking In The Mountains For Toes Ma Goat Up @ Mt. Vernon

Hello Everyone,

Skunk Works has been really busy and behind on blogs. Last weekend we attended our second competition of the season at Mt. Vernon. On Friday the advanced crew came up early to set up the pit and get the robot inspected before Saturday morning hit. On Saturday by the end of the day our team was ranked first. After finishing our qualification matches on Sunday, our final ranking at the Mt. Vernon competition was first. We allied with IRS (1318) and team the mountaineers (4654). Biting our nails we finally made it to the finals round. Our opposing alliance teams 3663 (CPR), 4911 (Cybernights), and Adna pirates  (5748), did an amazing job and we had a fun weekend compeiting against and with all the teams. Winning the compeition and receiving the industrial design award for our robot, our team couldn’t be happier with how the comepition went. Looking forward we are getting ready for our next competition in philomath Oregon next week.

In the stands being as skunks do.

Skunks running on low sleep means we get to see this at least once every compeition.

Our alliance was so awesome and we loved working with both teams!

Stay Smelly,
Maryam Shafa (Community Outreach Lead)

A Drought of Work

Hello Everyone,

Electrical has hit a dry spot this week. Unfortunately, we have had very little to do. That or we’re just lazy. Either way, we haven’t done much. But we have done some stuff.

As our next competition draws near, we have been preparing. However this hasn’t meant that electrical has had much to do other than some troubleshooting. Other than fixing a few loose wires, and chasing down a nasty pneumatic leak, things have been unusually quiet. And that’s a good thing, because it means we (mostly) did our job right the first time for once, but I’ve been secretly hoping something would break so we’d get to fix it and get a break from documentation work that just makes us look lazy. We can’t win.

We have however helped other sub-teams here and there. Some of our members helped design and build team with a revised version of our robot cart. The wheels actually spin now, so it’s actually a cart now. Hopefully our robot won’t take a nasty tumble onto one of our team members. It better not, with all the metal shavings that ended up embedded in our skin.

We also spent some time improving the Operator Interface for our drive team, since they can’t stop complaining about layout and changing what things do and stuff. And then media team took forever to make the graphics. But hey, at least it kept us occupied for a day. After stabbing ourselves with wires and smashing our fingers with buttons, we made great improvements to the original design. Maybe they’ll finally stop complaining now.

Even though we have done some stuff, its been very slow going, and we are charged and ready to go. Electrical is ready for some excitement at our next competition this weekend.

Does this picture look familiar? Believe it or not it actually is different from the one on the last post. Packing took us all of about five minutes, because we never really unpacked in the first place.

The practice robot on the new cart, which actually works this time.

Us writing this very blog post. Yes, it is one of the most eventful things we’ve done this week. And yes, it does take all five of us to write one blog post. We are good at delegating work.

Stay Smelly,
The Electrical Sub-Team

The Final Countdown

Hello Everyone,

Business Operations has been preparing for the upcoming competition in Mt. Vernon. The chairman’s presentation and pit teams have been hard at work practicing for Q & A. This will be the first year Biz Ops will not have its own crate for competitions and we are excited to pack light. The notebook was wrapped up and it will be the only thing we will bring with us to competitions. On a different note, we will also be working closely with Data team on a new exciting project.

Stay Smelly,

Ian (Business Operations Lead)

Buy It, Use It, Break It, Fix It, Trash It, Change It, CAD, Upgrade It

Hello Everyone,

Design has been working on finalizing the competition robot’s mecanum arms for picking up cans. By doing so, we improved this mechanism so that it will help strengthen the robot in matches by enabling more consistent can accusation. Also the changes to the robot would prevent critical damage to the can collector. Another project that we are working on was improving the robot cart. We improved the cart so that it would make it stronger and easier to use. This would help the team by shorting the amount of time to place the robot on the field.

Mecanum arms in repair.

The cart in repair.

Stay Smelly,

Daniel (Design & Build Team)

We Be Driving

Hello Everyone,

The video team has dedicated to focus on other aspects of the team during competition season, due the lead being the driver. putting are current projects on hold like the O/I video, and the how to make the skunktails video.

Our beautiful OI is getting redone!

Stay Smelly!

Elliott (Video Production Team)