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Heellllooooooo Blog! Welcome to the end of Week 3, aka halfway through the madness we call Build Season! Like always our birdies have been very busy building and programming to their heart’s content! It’s been a long week so to relieve you all of some heavy reading I will quickly summarize our (amazing) Week 3
Our Builder Birdies have been hard at work perfecting our intake mechanism prototype and have since moved on to creating the version that will be going on the practice bot. This included getting exact spring and surgical tubing tension and placements juuuuust right (which took a very long time) and marking every little measurement down in our engineering workbook. We even spent a day using our X-Carve machine to carve out bearing holes on the intake arms. We are now continuing to make this intake with “robotable” material. Another group of girls have been hard at working creating our climbing mechanism and are currently working on mounting it and getting the specifications down perfectly, don’t worry we’ll be climbing our way to victory in no time! We spent quite a bit of time figuring out exactly how we wanted to climb, but luckily we came to a conclusion and we have some very busy birds making sure we have a great scaling device! We also started one of our favorite times of build season: SPRAY PAINTING BABYYYYYYYYYY. We have started cutting and gathering our pieces for the competition robot so we can start spray painting them in the amazing colors purple and gold (OUR BRAND NEW COLORS WE’RE VERY EXCITED!!!!!!)! Luckily our frame pieces have dried so they’ve actually been put together and our competition frame is waiting for a few more birdie hands to get in their and start building him up! Next week we will be focusing on getting the rest of our mechanisms on (especially our elevator because the last remaining pieces finally came in) and ready to test and give to the programmers! Speaking of our programmers! They’ve been keeping themselves quite busy with a few projects! They are still working with the practice frame we got to them quite early in the season and have been working on Autonomous like it’s their job (... well I guess it does come in the job description). AND GUESS WHAT: We’ve got a few of our programmers building a piece to go on the robot! They are building an electronics panel to go on the practice bot so we can get a functioning bot to them hopefully within the next few days! Luckily all our of girls (programmers and builders alike) are certified on all our machinery and tools so they’re on their way to be experts! (Pit Crew better watch out!) So that’s about it for this week! It’s been long, buuuuuut we’re halfway there! So we can push through and come out with an awesome robot! If you want to see a little bit more of what we get into during our week (and some fun and goofy clips) check out this week’s vlog on our Youtube channel! (Link down below!!!) Well that’s all we have for now! Make sure to check back next week for another update and if you haven’t gotten your daily Firebird fill, GO WATCH THE VLOG (I MEAN IT)! VLOG!!!!!!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTnajTKTcrk&t=88s Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5IQluJKZTs1HG3n6yprTGg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/firebirds43... Twitter: https://twitter.com/firebirds433 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/firebirds433/ Snapchat: firebirds433
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Hi Blog! Weeeeelcoooooooomeeeeee to Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeek TWOOOOOOOOOOOO. Yes it is already week two, no it does not feel like week two, are we sure Kickoff wasn’t 3 days ago? We are? Oh… ok… Well for our birdies finals are (finally) over. Our shop was closed from Sunday to just this Thursday afternoon. Oh, you know when we got out of our science finals we all sprinted (safely duhhh) down to the shop… after WaWa runs of course. We got right back into our prototyping and even got the practice frame up and running for our programmers as well as the frame for our practice bot. Currently on said practice frame is the base for the elevator we started to make and as I’m typing girls are bolting it right on (it’s pretty cute). We also started the intake mechanism with some fun jelly wheels (see our twitter @firebirds433 to get this reference #FIRSTSuppliers). A few of our builders are also working on building game pieces out of wood with a few parent mentors so we can start practicing on them and getting our drive on *insert loud yoooooo dawgggg here*. Also as I’m writing this we have a small group working on a prototype for our climber! It’s going pretty well and I think it will bring us to new heights! For our programmers they’ve been busy using the new practice frame and making rough drafts for Autonomous. They’ve spent quite a bit of time dealing with encoders. By that I mean they’ve might as well be dreaming about them because they have spent so much time working with them this week. These birdies have also started planning out code for Tele, teaching the new freshmen how to code, and all of them learning a little bit more about Mecanum wheels! Clearly it’s been very productive. Oh for those that don’t know, Friday WAS QUIZZO!!!!!!!!! AND I WAS VERY EXCITED!!! We sold 50/50s, Mulligans, some fun raffle baskets, showed off Siggy, and even had some extra time to dance a little (Firebird Style)! Huge thanks to all the people that made that night possible! Chairman’s Update: WE FINISHED OUR EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES!!!!!! ONE STEP TO FIREBIRD WORLD DOMINATION… nope not really… more like some more amazing ways to spread the message of the Firebirds and FIRST! Editor note: I’m currently watching the programmers run some Auto programs AND IT’S SO COOL Well, this week has been amazing and we’re already looking forward for week three!! Thanks for stopping by and make sure to check back next weekend too for our updates! ********ALSO OUR WEEK 1 AND 2 VLOG IS GOING OUT TONIGHT SO BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR IT!!!!!!!! VLOG!!!!!!: https://youtu.be/3i07s8iDHvQ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5IQluJKZTs1HG3n6yprTGg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/firebirds43... Twitter: https://twitter.com/firebirds433 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/firebirds433/ Snapchat: firebirds433
 We are so thrilled for our graduating Firebirds! No matter where they all, they will fly high! This year we have 6 graduating seniors:
Emma Neill- Team president and Build Member, attending Penn State University Megan McBride- Build Member and Drive Team Pilot, attending Saint Joseph's University Tina Rice- Business Member and Drive Team Driver, attending LaSalle University Cianna Kisailus- Build and Chairman's Member, Drive Team Coach, and recipient of the 2017 FIRST scholarship, attending The University of Scranton Sydney Stockmal- Vice President of Outreach and Chairman's Member, attending West Chester University Gabby Egan- Spirit Member, Attending Penn State University Congratulations to all of our seniors! We wish you all much success as you fly off to your new nests!! Over the past two weeks the girls have made great progress on our robot. We finished the basic drive train for our robot, and are currently working on the processing program for Autonomous. The ball collector we created and tested was modified from our robot, Nox. It is designed to collect balls by working like a vacuum without bristles. We brought in new materials and through trial and error were able to adjust the ball collector for smaller balls. For the gear delivery part of the challenge we are working on a slide and catch mechanism that in the end will put the gear on the spoke.    Happy Thanksgiving! We hope your holiday was filled with lots of Raspberry pie and pi. The Firebirds have been super duper busy this season of Thanks! Attached is a picture of the things we are most thankful for, including YOU! We spent time lately working hard on the Eaglebot challenge. Our girls have been spending more and more time trying our best to create an awesome robot! We have focused a lot of time and effort on the kicking mechanism, which is on the robot and able to run! We have been able to kick the football really far and cannot express how excited we are to showcase with our fellow Eaglebot teams! We are going to be hard at work again this week and today will be headed over to Norwood for mentoring the FLL kids, so we will keep you updated!
 These past few days have been very busy! We have spent a LOT of time both in the shop and outside of the shop- always being productive girls! This weekend the girls focused a lot on the kicking prototype and eventually developed a mechanism which has been mounted onto the robot! We have also refined code and the robot's frame has been completely extended. We also spent our Monday at Norwood Fontbonne Academy mentoring their FLL team! We were able to teach them a lot about sensors and watched their presentation, giving them some helpful tips!
We had such a busy day today! School ended at 1:30, so our girls ran downstairs (safely, of course :) to get started on the Eaglebot as soon as possible. The girls talked about the different drive trains available and the pros and cons to each one. With the original drive train, the programmers continued to work on getting the robot up and moving. The prototyping girls worked on the kicking mechanism and really advanced the kicker from the last time. They added more surgical tubing in order for the kicker to have more power when pulled back. The girls worked vigorously in the shop until about 4:30, then headed down to Wawa for dinner. After eating, girls headed over to Wyncote elementary school in the Cheltenham school district to show our robots at the school's STEM night. Alongside Simple Machines, 423, we showed our robots from Aerial Assist and Stronghold, letting the kids drive and play with the bots. They also had a chance to build cars out of Legos and race them! It was such a neat experience and everyone had such a great time!
It's been a while since we've updated you with our team life and boy do we have a lot going on!!! We are working on a robot for the Eaglebot challenge, which will be held on December 8th, as well as all our regular to-dos. Today we mainly focused on the Eaglebot challenge. The Eaglebot challenge is a FIRST Robotics Showcase presented by NRG and The Philadelphia Eagles (fly eagles fly). We will be competing against 3 other team from our area in a couple of different challenges which you will hear about in our upcoming daily blogs. We have been working so hard and brainstorming like crazy, and now we are on to the technical part of the robot. Our girls all met in our shop today in order for us to divide and conquer as many of the tasks at hand as possible. Our build team worked on prototyping our kicking mechanism for the challenge which requires the robot to kick a football. They also widened the frame of our stronghold practice bot so that we could use it for Eaglebot, worked with motors in order to find the best way to position them on the robot with all the mechanisms we'll need for the challenge, and worked on speed controls for the motors. The speed controls are super cool because our girls can use a stand-alone mechanism to power the motors, making trial runs much easier (especially for our hard-working programmers!). The finance team met together and discussed the recent sponsor commitments and donations made to the team. The programming team was able to get the robot up and running while learning a few new skills along the way. The awards/outreach team prepared for our upcoming event, the Wyncote STEM night, brainstorming fun activities for the kids like balloon-powered lego car races! Our media team worked on the website, updating the blog and theme, as well as brainstormed ideas for our sponsorship video! Today was such a productive day and we can't wait to tell you about all our upcoming events, stay tuned!    Today, we competed in Ramp Riot at Wissahickon High School. It was such an amazing, fun-filled day. We finished the qualifying matches in 7th place, and then became the 7th alliance captain. Team 365, MOE and team 1403, Cougar Robotics were also on our alliance, along with team 3961, the Redbirds. We made it all the way up to the semi finals, and even received the Judge's Award during the awards ceremony! We also had some special Firebirds alumnae come and visit us. Thank you to team 341, Miss Daisy, for hosting this wonderful competition, and making us all have a fantastic time in our last offseason competition for Stronghold!  |
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