VERTEX #15534
Our Mission We want to rejuvenate our age-old campus with technology and vitality. We want to educate our people with both humor and knowledge. We want to let hi-tech be tangible and fun to all people in our community.
ftcvertex.com VERTEX
Seasonal Highlights and Summaries VERTEX 15534 is a rookie team from Exeter, New Hampshire comprised of 13 members. Because Phillips Exeter Academy is a boarding school and PEA is an institution that has an extremely diverse student body, it provides us with a unique opportunity to have a diverse group of people on the team from around the globe. 66% of our team is female or non-binary, 44% of our team is comprised of international students, and 55% of our team is comprised of rookie members.
Seasonal Highlights:
By far our biggest highlight of the season was the States competition. Between just having an amazing day and being able to see our robot doing well along with getting to compete against other teams and proving to ourselves we are a top player States is our biggest season highlight in terms of our robot. One of the biggest things that came out of States was belief in ourselves. We go to Exeter, a very competitive school, and we have learned to value that there will always be someone better than us but it was also a really big confidence builder to get Inspire award and be one only a handful of rookie teams in the recent history of FTC to get inspire. Vincent, our Mechanical head, even swore he saw so much surprise at our win on Reddit.
The beauty is also in the journey not just the destination. Saying that we have also had a lot of highlights during our journey to States and now to Worlds. One of our biggest highlights and proudest point was during STEM Day. It was just so amazing to be able to see the project through to completion from talking to our school activities director and getting STEM Day approved to seeing students pour into the event excited and energized to learn about it was a great journey and it served as also a launching off point for more of our bigger outreach events such as the Crafting center and the FLL/FTC
meet-up.
Another one of our highlights was at the start of our season the FLL state championship. The FLL state championship was a really moving moment for us especially since Penny, Vincent, and Kai who were there were all on FLL in middle school in the area and got to see their FLL teams at States. It was also a great point for us to meet other teams in the area, Gluten Free and HackGearz, who we went on to build lasting relationships with over the season. Also, the FLL showcase was one of the first times we had seen the first rendition of our robot work and it was really empowering to get to drive it around the venue.
The FIRST meetup is just another example of VERTEX’s dedication to our mission statement educating people with humor and knowledge along with making hi-tech, FTC, tangible and accessible to people in our community. By our community we are of course referring to the large first community that we are all a part of. At the FTC/FLL meetup we reached out of upcoming FLL junior teams through our launch of Part Shop and Kai’s presentation “FIRST: It’s more than the robot game.” By spreading information for rookie teams on first we are breaking down the barriers of those who have information vs those who do not. During the meetup we also made sure that every team left knowing another team. We
see a lot of friendships between teams at the high school level and these kids, if they continue with robots, will have other friends in robotics. We believe this will also help with the spread of information. Some pages we’d like you to look at are: PAGE TOPIC 11 Strategy 18 Finalized Robot’s Mechanisms 30 Our Rotation Subroutine 35 & 36 Our School’s First STEM Day 42 Girls Who Code – Silicon Valley Ethics 52 Ethipass 55 FIRST Team Gathering
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Contents
SEASONAL HIGHLIGHTS AND SUMMARIES 1
WHO ARE WE? 5
Subgroups 6
Individual Biographies 7
ENGINEERING AND STRATEGIES 11
Mechanical 12 Vincent Jr. 12 Riboflavin Central Jr. (RCj) 13 Riboflavin Central V0 (States) 14 Riboflavin Central (Worlds) 18
CAD (Computer Aided Design) 22 Vincent Jr. 22 Riboflavin Central 23 Custom Parts 24
Programming 28 Autonomous 28 Teleop 31
BUSINESS PLAN 33
Community Outreach 35 STEM Day 35 Girls Who Code 40 Girls Who Code – Round 2! 42 Seacoast Outright 46 YMCA 47 FLL State Championship 50 Ethipass 52 Exeter Computing Club 54 New Hampshire FIRST Team Gathering 55 Relay For Life 57 Exeter Student Crafting Center 58 ESSO Robotics 60 Part Shop 61 iRobot 62 Xenex 64 Society of Military Surgeons 65
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Fake News and Today’s Media Landscape 66 Andrew Yang 67 Boston Dynamics 68
Sustainability 69
Budgeting 72
ENTRIES 78
Scrimmages and Competitions 79 Alvrine High School 79 Dover Middle School 81 Parkside Middle School 83 States 84
Daily Entries 87 September 24, 2018 87 October 3, 2018 88 October 6, 2018 88 October 10, 2018 89 October 12, 2018 90 October 14, 2018 92 October 17, 2018 94 October 20, 2018 95 October 22, 2018 97 October 24, 2018 98 October 26, 2018 100 October 27, 2018 101 October 28, 2018 102 October 10, 2018 103 November 7, 2018 104 November 9, 2018 105 November 11, 2018 106 November 14, 2018 107 November 17, 2018 109 November 21, 2018 – December 2, 2018 110 December 5, 2018 111 December 3, 2018 – December 8, 2018 112 December 9, 2018 113 December 10, 2018 114 December 12, 2018 115 December 14, 2018 116 December 19, 2018 – January 9, 2019 117 January 9, 2019 118 January 11, 2019 119 January 13, 2019 120 January 16, 2019 120
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January 18, 2019 121 January 23, 2019 121 February 2, 2019 122 February 13, 2019 123 February 15, 2019 124 February 17, 2019 125 February 20, 2019 125 February 22, 2019 126 February 24, 2019 127 March 1, 2019 127 March 3, 2019 – March 17, 2019 128 March 20, 2019 129 March 22, 2019 130 March 24, 2019 131 March 27, 2019 132 March 29, 2019 133 March 31, 2019 134 April 3, 2019 134 April 7, 2019 135 April 10, 2019 136 April 12, 2019 137 April 13, 2019 138 April 14, 2019 139
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Who Are We?
We want to rejuvenate our age-old campus with technology and vitality. We want to educate our people with both humor and knowledge. We want to let hi-tech be tangible and fun to ALL people in our community.
After a year of planning and organization, Vertex 15534, from Exeter, New Hampshire, is excited to participate in our first ever robotics competition as a team. Our team consists of members from different national, racial, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds, but we all work towards the same passion. Our experiences enhance our creativity and curiosity to try new methods. Vertex 15534 hopes to inspire friends back home to discover the engineering world and friends here to embrace differences and keep pushing towards a larger goal of unity.
[Standing: David S., Neil, David W., Celine, Felix, Mr. Gallo, Summer, Kai, Joy, Panda] [Sitting: Vincent, Penny]
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Subgroups
CAD (Computer Aided Design) The Computer-Aided Design (CAD) team creates needed original pieces and recreates ordered parts to visualize the final assembly. They ensure that the parts fit into our main chassis and keep our design creative. Members: David Song (lead), Panda Atipunumphai, Celine Tan
Community Outreach One of our main goals, as an FTC team, is to reach out to the community and spread awareness and knowledge of STEM. Our CO team organizes events to make this possible, and connects our team to the outside world. Members: Summer Hua (lead), Kai Lockwood, Mana Vale
Mechanical/Electrical The mechanical team is in charge of constructing the robot and driving the robot once the robot is completed. The electrical team is in charge of wiring the electrical components together and ensuring the safety of the robot before every run. Members: Vincent Xiao (lead), Joy Liu, Kai Lockwood
Programming The programming team is in charge of encoding our robot with strong fundamental tasks and our unique strategical actions. They give our robot its personality! Members: Penny Brant (lead), Neil Chowdhury
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Individual Biographies
Panda Atipunumphai – CAD Panda is currently an 11th grader from Thailand at Phillips Exeter Academy. She has done some CAD for visualizing multifunctional desktop products for CIE IGCSE Design Technology, but does not have experience with CAD used for robotics, which uses much more mechanics, and is looking forward to learning from her teammates and friends. She had been spreading her love for STEM in Thailand organizing and teaching a two-week summer course, which introduced middle school and high school girls in Thailand to the basics of programming, and an advanced course preparing for the CIE IGCSE Computer Science. She looks forward to being able to continue to learn and eventually teach CAD to members of this new community.
Penny Brant – Programming Lead/Coach Penny is an 11th grader at Phillips Exeter Academy, her passion for computer science is shown through her various projects on campus to convenient student life - some working with FTC robots! She has had plenty of experience with robotics through FLL, FTC, ROV MATE, VEX and SeaPerch and is very excited to work on VERTEX as the chief programmer. Penny loves to spread her passion for robotics and STEM - she is a coach of the FLL team at the University of New Hampshire and has taught over 1000 girls around China the basics of JAVA and EV3 programming through her non- profit initiative WeHack2. Penny also serves as the team coach for the drive team. Neil Chowdhury – Programming/Coach Neil Chowdhury is a ninth grade student at Phillips Exeter Academy. Neil started robotics in fifth grade with FIRST Lego League, where he led a team of 5 students. His FLL team received a Global Innovation semifinalist award for his invention of a robotic stylus that interacts with an app, to help sufferers of agraphia learn to write again. In addition, his team received several Programming and Innovative solutions awards. Neil's team then progressed to FIRST Tech Challenge where his team received Interleague Championship Finalist Alliance award and participated in the Washington state level competition. Neil is thrilled to continue doing Robotics with Team VERTEX and is happy to bring the robot to life with his programming skills. Neil also serves as the team coach for the drive team.
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Summer Hua – CO Director Summer is currently a junior at Phillips Exeter Academy. She is from Singapore and has a great passion for entrepreneurship and business. Leading Business Club on campus, she has experience working on multiple projects and planning for community outreach events (E.g. TEDx). She was on a team who qualified for National F1 In School competition and has enjoyed working on sponsorship, bridging the gap between technology and community.
Joy Liu – Mechanical/Driver Joy is a junior from Oakland, California. Her robotics team won the VEX EDR Northern California State Championship in 2017 and qualified for the world championship, ultimately placing division finalist. She has also coached at Galaxy Robotics, a for-profit summer camp founded by her peers. After a brief hiatus from robotics, Joy joined VERTEX Robotics as a mechanical team member. Joy also serves as the intake operator on our drive team.
Kai Lockwood – Electrical/CO Kai is a sophomore from Durham, New Hampshire. They have been interested in robotics since they were little they helped their dad fix household appliances and became a jack of all trades. In sixth grade they did extensive research into AI relating to prosthetic limbs for their Girl Scout Troop. Kai was on FLL for two years in middle school first as a project leader and next as a mechanical and programming lead. They also shadowed a FRC team in middle school. Going into their tenth-grade year Kai did freelance code for everyone from small math teams to the Duke Lemur Center.
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David Song – CAD Lead David is a sophomore from Shanghai, China. Having been enthusiastic about robotics throughout his middle school years, his greatest disappointment at Exeter was that it did not have a large-scale robotics team. Therefore, David decided to start this FIRST Tech Challenge team to give all students on this campus a chance to do robotics. Additionally, he has been working on Computer Aided Design since his first year here at Exeter, and has taught many students the basics of CAD.
Celine Tan – CAD/Engineering Notebook Hailing from Silicon Valley, California, Celine, aged 14, is a 9th grader at Phillips Exeter Academy. Although she doesn’t have much robotics experience, she is eager to learn from the experience of participating in FTC. Celine grew up surrounded by the tech giants of Silicon Valley -- Apple, Google, Intel -- with both parents as engineers. She has been coding since 5th grade and is eager to learn more about CAD from David S, our CAD lead, as well as have fun!
Mana Vale – CO Mana is currently a ninth grader at Phillips Exeter Academy from Exeter, NH. She is an avid coder and has been running programming workshops at local schools for the past 3 years. She grew up around robotics, her mom a former world-finals FLL coach and her brother a Mindstorms nerd. She has participated in FLL in the past as a project lead and is a Technovation Challenge Semi Finalist and Junior Academy (New York Academy of Sciences) student.
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Vincent Xiao – Mechanical Lead/Driver With over 5 years of mechanical experience, Vincent, 14, is our Lead Mechanical Designer. In addition to having participated in all levels of FIRST and VEX robotics, Vincent has also built robots for the SeaPerch and ROV MATE underwater competitions. His robot designs have won multiple regional and state championships and have qualified his team for the world championship 6 times. Not only does he enjoy doing robotics, but he also spends time helping others; having coached multiple VEX IQ and FLL teams. Vincent is very excited to continue doing robotics here on VERTEX as the Mechanical Lead. Vincent also serves as a driver and operator on our drive team.
Mr. Gallo – Mentor Mr. Gallo earned a degree in mechanical engineering at the University of New Hampshire, where he worked on interdisciplinary projects that crossed boundaries among math, sculpture, programming, music and visual arts. He maintains a studio in the Port City Makerspace, where he and a partner create products for industrial, commercial and artistic communities under the name Portsmouth Industrial Design. He plays the vibraphone and other mallet percussion instruments, and in the Design Lab, he often works on his own projects, which include making and modifying musical instruments.
Mr. Campbell – Mentor Mr. Campbell was originally from Katy Texas, and ever since the beginning of his education career, he has been dedicated to using technical knowledge to inspire students for creating meaningful projects. He teaches a range of topics in Computer science from introductory java to advanced app creation and data visualization. Additionally, he is the club advisor for ECC (Exeter Computing Club) and organizes the annual middle school hackathon HackExeter for people in the Exeter community. In his community, Mr. Campbell is very amiable and approachable to all students and always open to helping them to pursue new and innovative ideas.
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Engineering and Strategies
Autonomous Period What will the robot do? How? Points Earned Detach from the lander Our robot can start from both the crater and the depot side, and it 30 lowers itself using its linear actuator. Sample the gold mineral Using OpenCV, the robot will be able to identify the gold mineral 25 with the phone’s camera by using TensorFlow and “looking” at each mineral. Then, it collects the gold mineral using its intake. Drop our team marker After the robot has sampled the gold mineral, it will release the 15 team marker into the depot by extending its dumper with its linear slide. The marker (which is made of lego) is placed in such a way that extending the dumper causes it to detach from the robot. Score the gold mineral Now, with the dumper extended and a mineral in its intake, the 5 robot can score a mineral into the lander. Park in the crater After this, the robot extends its intake into the crater, essentially 10 parking in the crater. Total Points 85 Robot paths:
Driver Controlled Period What will the robot do? How? Points Earned Score minerals into the It finishes autonomous with its intake in the crater, so it can easily (NM* 5) lander collect more minerals and score them into the lander. It has a dumper that takes advantage of the different sizes of the minerals and sorts them into their correct places. We’re employing a sit-and- score strategy, to take away stress from the drivers. Hang on the lander It uses the linear actuator to hang on the lander again. 50 Total Points (NM*5) + 50
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Mechanical VERTEX has had 3.5 robots over the course of this FIRST Tech Challenge Season. Here, we will conclude the design philosophy and goals that went into each robot as well as what we learned through the various designs we encountered. Vincent Jr. October – November 2018 Our first robot was named Vincent Jr. by Celine, due to her unstoppable need to name everything that was related to the team. In a valiant movement to poke fun at Vincent, she named the first robot Vincent Jr, the Son Who Will Grow to be More Attractive Than His Father. Of course, this was soon shortened to Vincent Jr, thus preventing the intended zestful mockery.
Design Philosophy
VEX Mecanum Wheels for smooth strafing and further precision in robot movement in both autonomous and
driver period.
6 inch mecanum wheels for easy transition for parking on crater.
Aluminum robot for rigid body and stability in robot design.
Rigid transfer and dumping system for further precision and easy driver access.
Auto sorting system between gold and silver minerals.
Linear Slide
Phone mounted in the front for autonomous mineral recognition.
Rack and pinion linear slide
What we learned
As we are a rookie team, we decided to order TETRIX parts due to the price. Which seemed like a good idea. However, there were many limitations - such as set screws transferring torque, and a lack of mounting options.
Vincent Jr. put a lot of stress on the drivers, as everything had to be precisely lined up.
Our intake could not effective extend far into the crater, making it cumbersome to have to drive into the crater
every cycle.
Since Vincent Jr’s dumping system doesn’t extend far into the crater, which meant the robot had to drive in
between the crater and lander each time we had to dump something.
There was a need for a more effective transfer system between the intake and the dumpers - the current
system was allowing minerals to fall through and onto the platform of the robot.
Set screws keep stripping due to the sheer weight of our robot and 6 inch mecanum wheels.
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Riboflavin Central Jr. (RCj) December 2018 We named this robot Riboflavin Central, due to Vincent’s status as the old man of the team, and his need for additional vitamins and supplements for his aging bones. He has grown to be a very supportive grandfather, clearly shown through his proud gaze when he looks upon the robots, and wheels them around on carts out of simple zest for life. His expressions when he watched his children walk and run for the first times were truly heart warming.
Our second robot was primarily designed and built by day students (Kai, Vincent, and Penny) during vacation
as it was hard for boarding students to meet together during our 2 week Thanksgiving vacation (especially for international students, which take up about half of our team!). Luckily, students away from “home” were able to contribute by sharing code on GitHub, and other team members FaceTimed in to communicate about progress and future designs.
This robot is very similar to the current robot as it is a “sit-n-score” bot. The robot parks somewhere between
the crater and the lander and extensions do the rest of the work.
6 linear slides allow intake extension able to extend effectively into the crater.
Spool to control movement of intake lift, use of pulley system around intake and linear slide also decreased the amount of necessary tension needed to move the components, which reduced stress on our motors.
No Hanging mechanism to reduce weight of robot for light and easy access over the crater and balanced center of mass which will stop the robot from losing balance or tipping during the match.
VEX and Lego parts dumping mechanism with auto sorting mechanism.
Phone mounted in front of the robot for easy access for image recognition for programmers.
What we learned
VEX and Lego dumper was easily alterable, which made them reliable.
VEX and Lego dumper was heavy, which put a lot of stress on the linear slide.
Linear slides were moving too slowly, which stressed out our drivers.
Although lightweight and affordable, a paper board spool can easily be altered when tension becomes too large. There was a need for a more rigid and reliable spool system.
Intake lift was not consistent as sometimes the string wasn’t taught. This also caused significant trouble for one of our drivers, who found lowering the lift out of control and very difficult to lift the intake. Furthermore, string had to be re wrapped around the robot every time manually, which made it difficult for the programmers to complete large amounts of testing.
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Riboflavin Central V0 (States) January 2019 Riboflavin Central, VERTEX’s third robot for FIRST Tech Challenge Rover Ruckus built and improved upon the basis of our second robot. It was decided that this robot should be built after many flaws were discovered with the first and second robot. Riboflavin Central relies on parking itself at a certain location and staying there for the continuation of the match, scoring points solely using extensions.
Drivetrain A drivetrain was not as important in Riboflavin Central as it would be in usual FTC robots, for the robot no longer relied on the drivetrain to score minerals. However, a standard mecanum drivetrain was still used to improve our autonomous. 60:1 TorqueNado motors geared 2:3 power each wheel, which measure 100 mm in diameter. This allows Riboflavin Central to move at a decently fast speed while keeping necessary torque and
precision. Though the robot is programmed to drive at 60% speed, which is more than enough, the Drive Team has controls to zoom up power to 100% if needed, which allows the robot to move from one corner of the field to the other in under 3 seconds. The wheels used are Nexus Mecanum Wheels, which provide excellent traction. The wheels have been mounted as close to a square as possible, giving maximum efficiency, while the center of gravity is on the intersection of the wheel’s diagonals for reliable strafing. Additionally, the wheels are supported by dead axles, completely getting rid of the possibility of a stripped wheel.
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Intake The intake on Riboflavin Central is driven by two continuous rotation servos. A unique approach clamps TETRIX Prime beams to axles, allowing rubber tubing to be easily attached via standoffs. The rubber tubing is attached to all four sides of the Prime beam, however, there are gaps on two opposite sides, which allow balls to pass through the intake easily. Because of this very efficient system, two servos turned out to provide more than enough torque for the intake.
The intake is designed to hold only two minerals, and due to the low torque of the servos, a third mineral was impossible to suck in. The backing is made of foam core and cardboard, keeping the intake very light. The angle of the intake backing was specially designed to easily transfer minerals from the intake to our dumping
mechanism. Because of the strange angle of the backing, sometimes cubes would get stuck. Thus, zip ties were added to the intake so that they would assist in transferring cubes, while not affecting actual intaking. The intake is able to extend almost all the way into the crater, due to the extremely lightweight REV Slides used. A spool made from a 4” TETRIX tire was mounted towards the back of the robot, minimizing the angle at which the UHMWPE string needed to come off the final pulley. The intake extension is super fast, and when working in conjunction with the intake, can pick up balls and cubes incredibly easily. The intake can be lifted up and down via a chain system, which is mounted to a 60:1 TorqueNADO motor.
Dumper
The dumper extension is angled towards the lander, allowing the robot to move only the extension to score minerals. Like the intake extension, we used REV slides. The actual dumping mechanism was constructed cardboard. This created a very lightweight dumper. The dumper has the ability to automatically sort between particles, with no error. Thus, we can save even more time by knowing that we will always score minerals correctly. Additionally, we used High Density Molecular Tape to reduce the fiction of the surface of the dumper and prevent the particles from jamming. The dumper is powered by a single CR Servo.
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Linear Extension Spools The spools used are 3D printed with two different sizes. A four inch spool, which was powered by a 60:1 TorqueNado motor, runs the intake, while a 1.3 inch spool, powered by a 5.2:1 GoBilda motor ran the dumper. Fishing line, which is very strong and abrasion resistant was used to string the extensions. Additionally, careful guides for the string allowed one pulley to both extend and retract, rather than having a double spool. This
allowed us to save a lot of space while reducing the workload on the motor shaft. Though most pulleys did not have any cantilever support, nuts and a pulley cover provided ample support.
Actuator The linear actuator is a GoBilda linear actuator, powered by a 5.2:1 Planetary motor geared 1:3. This allows the actuator to fully raise in approximately 3 seconds, while making it capable of lifting 150 pounds. Two acrylic parts were laser cut in a curve, to allow the robot to climb up the lander with ease. The actuator is attached to the chassis.
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Auto Sorting Mechanism The dumper of the robot are made of lightweight cardboard which decreased the weight stress on the linear slides tremendously and made controlling the dumper more comfortable for the drivers. The auto sorting mechanism relies on the fact that silver minerals have a larger diameter compared to the side of the cube. Therefore, cubes would slide down into the platform at the bottom at the lander and would be harder to
dump than the silver minerals - which slide with the curve and smoothly drop into the lander.
Wiring For our intake extension, there are two Servos and a motor, thus 8 wires. Because of this large amount, a retractable spool proved inefficient, but we found that the careful placement of the motor ensured that no tensioner was needed. For the dumper, we made “eyelets” out of zip ties and had rubber bands tensioning the wires. This allowed the dumper to have minimal force applied downwards which still managing the string properly.
Conclusion - Personal Development and Growth From the designs of our robot, we learned that there is always room for improvement - the final design of our robot, Riboflavin Central, was nothing alike to the Vincent Jr robot we had envisioned in the beginning of the season. Instead of feeling frustrated about our robot designs, our team decided to again and again put in the effort to instead improve our robot, which demonstrates our teams philosophy of always seeking perfection and ways of improvement. Through this, we quickly learned which pitfalls and obstacles a rookie team often has to overcome. In the future, to aid other rookie teams in our same situation, we have decided to create a part shop on our website to guide future rookie teams about which parts have been approved by FIRST. Often, we found ourselves confused by which parts we could use, and often felt that the quality of the parts we decided to buy were not as we originally anticipated. This became a recurring problem, and began to raise many budgeting problems. Thus, we have decided to use our experiences and failures to help future rookie teams, who may not have copious amounts of funding.
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Riboflavin Central (Worlds) February 2019 - Worlds In this iteration of our robot, we mainly adjusted various components of the previous robot that didn’t work entirely well at States, and increased the overall quality of the robot’s functions. With our additional time and funding, we were also able to make custom parts with CAD.
Drivetrain The same drivetrain on the previous iteration of this robot, Riboflavin Central V0 (“V0”), is used on Riboflavin Central. As this robot is heavily based off V0, some parts, including the entire chassis, did not need to be modified.
Intake Extension
The intake extension, like V0, is still comprised of REV Slides. To make the extension more rigid, additional slider plates were used. To minimize friction, silicone lubricant is used all over the extension. The intake is now powered with a NeveRest 40 Motor, making the extension faster than the previous iteration. A newly designed 3D printed spool has a divider for both extending and retracting line. Once again, 90 LB green fishing line was used to extend and retract. The green dye allows us to notice when the line is wearing out, allowing us to replace before it breaks. The new pulley system guides string entirely with bearings, creating less friction. A three-pulley carriage for the retracting line guides the string. A unique tensioning mechanism using the REV Extrusion is incorporated so that any slack in the line can be reduced. The intake features a passive barrier mechanism for driver ease. The first iteration was made of LEGO components. The final iteration consists of right angle hinges and a lock attached to the crossbar of the extension, which collides with standoffs attached to the chassis. This perfects the positioning of the intake for
transferring.
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Intake This intake is entirely 3D printed using Versatile Plastic from Shapeways. It is custom designed for a VEX 393 Servo and has features for smooth transfer between intake and dumper. The design of the intake allows minerals to be collected from above, reducing the time needed to intake minerals. The teeth are made of the same rubber tubing as before, and are also attached to a TETRIX Prime Beam via standoffs. As the VEX 393
uses a square shaft, custom laser-cut pieces are used to clamp the prime beam to the axle. Two REV Smart Servos use chain to lift and lower the intake. Using the REV SRS, we were able to set custom limits for up and down positions, lowering driver pressure and reducing motor strain.
Intake Wiring As the intake uses only three servos, we were able to bind the wires together and wrap them in electrical tape. This keeps all the wires together and protected. A tensioner, attached to the top of the actuator, keeps the wire bundle from getting stuck inside the robot. A triangular beam (that also serves to brace the actuator) acts as a guide for the wire to come back into the robot.
Dumper Extension The dumper extension uses heavily lubricated REV Slides. A GoBilda 5.2:1 motor running a 1.35 inch spool powers this extension. The same 90 LB fishing line is used on this dumper. Similar string routing techniques used on the intake extension are used on the dumper. Additionally, a custom fabricated nylon plate serves to stabilize the dumper extension and allows us to maneuver at high speeds with the dumper extended.
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Dumper As with the intake, the dumper was designed and then ordered using Shapeways’ SLS printing service. The dumper has a similar concept to V0, but incorporates a “ball plate”. This ball plate, located at the very left of the dumper, guides the balls smoothly into the cargo hold. It prevents balls from bouncing out of the lander and also serves as a visual cue for easy aiming of the dumper. Additionally, a small contour of the ball is placed near the ball plate. In the case of a ball accidentally pushing a cube out the wrong way, the contour will prevent the cube from falling out, thus reorienting it to go into the correct cargo hold. High density molecular tape was used to minimize friction on the dumper surface. The dumper is powered by a REV Servo with custom limits.
Dumper Wiring Similar wiring to V0 is used but without rubber tensioners. As the servo wire is wrapped with electrical tape, it is able to retain its position. Therefore, we were able to reduce back pulling force on the dumper extension. To completely get rid of the possibility of a servo wiring getting caught on the rest of the robot, a small plate constructed with LEGO was placed near the top of the extension, preventing wires from falling anywhere.
Actuator The actuator maintains the same gearing as the one on V0, but features newly designed mechanisms to help climb and delatch from the lander. Two new actuator plates were cut, but with holes to mount small wheels. 16 ball bearing supported wheels from the Actobotics X-Rail kit were used, 8 on each side, to create a steady and smooth climb and descent. By using standoffs to spread the wheels further from the actuator, it allowed us to descent quicker and more accurately in the autonomous period. Another rubber band powered mechanism was invented to keep the robot perpendicular to the ground in auto. As our hook was able to wiggle inside the hook on the lander, it resulted in our robot sagging downwards during the hang before autonomous began. This was a problem as it put stress on two support wheels, rather than all 16. Thus, a block of metal was inserted between our hook and the outermost portion of the lander hook to keep the robot perpendicular to the ground, in turn distributing force among all 16 wheels. However, this is a disadvantage in the teleop period, as since this new hook fit perfectly in the lander hook, it made it incredibly difficult to rehang. Thus, we used a rubber band to pull the metal spacing block away from our hook right as we delatched, so that we would be able to hang quickly in teleop.
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Phone Mount The phone mount was completely redesigned, stronger and lighter. This time, we had a servo powering a two bar linkage made of LEGO, allowing us to control the exact position of the phone. This allowed us to tilt the phone if necessary in autonomous to sample.
Conclusion - Personal Development and Growth Once again, we always found room for improvement for our robot, and never gave up when things didn’t turn out as expected. This speaks to the process of persevering and improving that is always prominent in engineering. In the end, we are proud of how far our robot has come, especially as a rookie team, at an intense school that doesn’t allow for much free time. We built this robot with the collaboration of each subgroup working together – Mechanical group listened to the needs of Programming group, CAD group made parts for Mechanical group. This has been an unforgettable first year of FTC, filled with learning experiences and team bonding.
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CAD (Computer Aided Design)
The CAD models act as a record for mechanical progress and a tool for designing custom parts like the team marker and phone mount. Three of the CAD Group members, Panda, Celine, and David W., are new to CAD. But despite this, we are proud to say that they fully understand CAD after practice and hard work. Below is a documentation of the works of CAD group.
Vincent Jr. The right side of the drive train October 15th This was my first time converting something that mechanical had built to CAD. At first, it was quite challenging – I couldn’t find parts, and I couldn’t quite figure out how things fit together. However, after a while, it became much easier, and our CAD model is starting to look really cool! -- Celine
The completed drive train October 17th
Linear lift 80% finished October 20th At first we applied a 3:1 gear ratio to the lift. It’s pretty cool to see how we can show the motion of the lift virtually, through CAD. I think this is a great tool to see how our robot is working out, especially since mechanical needs to work on the actual robot, and testing it out might damage it. -- Panda
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Harvester lift Before the start of Winter Term
Riboflavin Central
Dumper Version 1 This was my first time doing CAD with Lego Mindstorms and VEX IQ parts! It was a bit challenging at first, since I was used to using CAD with TETRIX parts, but after a while, I got used to it. It’s really great that we can use so many different kinds of parts in our robot, and the inclusion of Lego Mindstorms parts in our robot shows that the parts from FLL can be used in FTC, as well! -- Celine T.
Dumper Version 2 This was actually made with cardboard, to be lighter.
Robot Body Our robot uses parts from many more manufacturers than TETRIX now, (one of these being Vincent), presenting a new and interesting challenge for CAD group! -- Celine T.
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Custom Parts The following parts were fully customized and made using 3D printers and laser cutters to fit our robot. We combined both Mechanical Group’s Design and visions with CAD Group’s ability to actually make that design happen - to create custom parts for our World Class Robot.
Phone Mount (States) The phone mount is one of the custom parts we made for the robot. This was Celine and Panda’s first time using CAD as tool for designing. We used a combination of an existing phone mount’s CAD and mechanical
group’s instructions to construct the final phone mount design. In order to ensure the phone mount fit perfectly into the design the robot, we used the in-context design feature of our CAD website, Onshape.
Panda’s Design Celine’s Design
Rough Draft of Final Design
This was our first attempt at using the Onshape’s in-context design feature. The phone mount needed to fit onto the robot in such a way that it would give the phone’s camera a good vantage point and provide support for the phone while not impeding upon the robot’s functions. Furthermore, the phone needed to be easily placed into and removed from the phone mount. Two of our designers, Celine and Panda, successfully generated simple but excellent designs as their first attempts at designing custom parts for the robot. However, there are two major problems with these two designs: the back flap obstructs the robot’s dumping mechanism when the intake is folded, and the bottoms of the two phone mounts are both under the arm of the intake, which might cause them to rub against the crater and get damaged. Both problems get fixed in the final design of the phone mount. For the final phone mount design we added a space for the phone charger. It is also slightly tilted to let the camera capture more of the field. The circles on this design are both for beauty and for preventing the phone mount from lifting off the plate while it is being 3D-printed. One problem that occurred was that the phone mount, when printed, was slightly warped. However, this was easily remedied with a bit of manual labor, and it ended up creating more of a snug fit for the phone, helping us make sure that the phone won’t fall out.
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Team Marker (States) The team marker is special to this year’s game. Our team marker has a candy-shaped design that is larger on the two sides and smaller in the middle in order that it can roll nicely into the alliance depot after it is released
from the robot. Furthermore, according to Game Manual 1 rule
Pulley Spool We worked with Mechanical Group to create a versatile spool for our robot. The pulley wheel (1st picture) was made for the pulley system of our 2nd robot, which is used for both the intake extension slide and the dumper slide. We based our CAD model of the spool off the Tetrix 4” wheel. Therefore, it has the same thickness and mounting pattern as the Tetrix wheel. While being used on the robot, it has proven to have much better performance than our previous spool, which was made out a Tetrix wheel with its rubber strip removed. We added a separator in the middle of the spool so that the string on the upper layer does not tangle with the lower layer. Two holes are punched on each layer of the spool so that the string can go in through one hole, go out through the other and then the we can tie a knot to make sure that the string is sturdily attached to the spool.
Variant: Small Pulley Spool The small pulley spool is based off the large pulley spool and is used for the dumper slide of the robot. The major difference between them is that the small spool has its mounting pattern at the bottom, while the large spool has its mounting pattern at the top. Their basic structures are the same.
Actuator Corner Piece The actuator corner piece is a piece of plastic laser-cut to be mounted on the corner of our linear actuator to round the corner of our robot and help our robot hang. Like our phone mount, this actuator corner piece was designed with the in- context design feature of Onshape, making it easily compatible with the actuator.
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Intake Side Piece We worked with Vincent to design this piece and determine how it would fit onto the robot. The intake is driven by a VEX 393 motor and mounting holes directly mount the 393 to the piece without any brackets. It attaches to our previous intake mount, making it readily swappable with our previous intakes. Below, is the timeline of the different versions we made, showing the process of trial and error that often comes with engineering.
Intake Shaft Set Collar This Intake Shaft Set Collar allows us to clamp a TETRIX Prime beam onto a VEX axle. This was necessary because the VEX 393 motor we were using uses a small square beam, while TETRIX prime is a large square beam. As our teeth are attached to said beam, the easiest way was to create this set collar to allow us to preserve our teeth.
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Dumper The dumper of our second robot was made mainly from cardboard, but that version easily warped and malfunctioned. Later on, we decided to have Shapeways, a professional 3D printing company produce it for us. One of the biggest difficulties for us was the balance of the dumper. We tried almost every means possible, chamfering, filleting and in the end we found drawing stripes on the plate in the picture is the most effective method. Overall, this dumper is shown to be a significant improvement over the previous one.
Phone Mount V3 As shown in the pictures below, the new phone mount is made to tilt twice as much as our old one. There are holes punched on both sides to accomodate the need of programming group to be able to switch the orientation of the phone. The reason why the plate on the bottom is replaced by some bars to minimize the surface area during the 3D-printing process so that it will be even less likely for the phone mount to lift off the bed of 3D-printer.
Back Plate The backplate of the robot is a piece cut out from ⅛ in PA 66 plastic material through laser-cutting. It is installed on the robot to prevent minerals from falling into it. Like many other parts, it is designed with the in-context design feature of Onshape. And as usual, it fits perfectly on the robot thanks to the amazing power of the software.
Adapted Servo Mount The CAD model of this servo mount is entirely based off of the rev metal servo mount. We extended the gap between the mounting holes and the hole for the servo to accomodate the need of mechanical group. Amazingly it is cut out of the same material the REV parts are made of: PA 66 Nylon at ⅛ in.
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Programming
Code Components: Source Code: https://github.com/15534/ftc_app_2019 Android Studio GitHub OpenCV/CodeCV Tensorflowlite
Autonomous
We are able to use any of the above four paths. This strategy was the result of a consensus from several FTC teams, so that all four teams can run their autonomous programs without colliding.
Mineral Detection
When landing from lander, robot auto adjusts the camera angle to aligned to maximize amount of visible area of mineral. We use TensorFlow to determine whether the gold mineral is in the left, center, or right position.
A test of object detection in TensorFlow
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Our code for detecting the which spot the gold mineral is on. Using TensorFlow and the phone’s camera, we determine the gold mineral’s position, and act accordingly.
Delatching We rely on an optical distance sensor mounted at the bottom of the robot to make sure the robot delatches perfectly each time. We extend the actuator motor to de-latch and stop it once the distance reading matches that of a robot on the ground.
To the right is the code that is run while the robot is delatching from the lander. It also updates itself on the position of the gold mineral.
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Our code for extending the dumper is shown to the left.
Releasing the Team Marker The Team Marker is mounted on the robot in a way such that extending the dumper releases it. We drive to the depot and use the distance sensor mounted on the
back of the robot to make sure we are at the right position for dumping.
Scoring the Gold Mineral
The robot also scores the gold mineral. As it drives from
the depot to the crater, it turns 90 degress, extends the dumper, and scores the mineral. Then, it extends the intake into the crater to park.
Our autonomous scores 85 points if everything works.
Turning Our robot is able to turn accurately and quickly. To do this, we use a combination of the gyro sensor (i.e., the built-in IMU in the REV expansion hub) and encoders on the drive motors. First, we calculate the distance each wheel needs to move and we move the the wheels as necessary using the encoders. Then, we use a PID
controller with the gyro sensor to make a small correction if necessary so the robot is in the right position. Using this method, we are able to turn the robot quickly (using encoders) and accurately (using the gyro).
Our code for our super fast rotation subroutine is shown above and to the right.
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Improvements Our robot is capable of driving/strafing across the field in 2-3 seconds. However, with the increase of speed comes instability in the image recognition program which is inherent to the phone camera we are currently using. So, we decided to allow the robot to move within a speed parameter so that it is also able to attain its
precision at the same time, which is crucial for autonomous programs. The robot ends its autonomous program when its intakes are fully extended so that the drivers can jump immediately into driving without the delay caused by expanding parts.
The most important part of our program is that it takes into account the inconsistency caused by human error.
With its powerful TensorFlow (TF) and OpenCV library, the robot is able to locate itself on the field based on the appearance of its surroundings and some simple mathematical projection algorithm, which we call (P*). We experimented with both TF and OpenCV programs in the beginning to determine which one was better for our robot. Over countless trials and errors, we decided to use OpenCV as it was easier to customize and TF
tends to lag quite a bit when the image is changing rapidly. That said, OpenCV still has many problems, for example, it takes several seconds for it to process what’s in its surrounding and an accurate number can only be attained through taking the average of measured locations in several trials. Furthermore, OpenCV tends to bug out in determining the position when an object moves rapidly, for example, if it was viewing at a gold mineral but it suddenly disappeared, it would return the position as an integer in an almost random manner. In the end, we decided that TF was the best option.
Teleop
The main objection of our teleop program was to create a program that would
1) Improve user/driver efficiency 2) Improve user/driver experience 3) Respect user/driver autonomy
In our teleop program, our foremost The second objective of improving user/driver experience was priority is to increase the efficiency of the this idea of creating additional functions that would allow the driver and therefore robot performance. drive team to only focus on what’s truly important. In this case, We collaborated closely with our drive our image recognition mechanism and distance sensor used in team to come up with a comprehensive autonomous can auto adjust the robot’s position with respect robot control document that collected to the crater slightly so that the user wouldn’t have to worry where they wanted certain functions and about getting stuck or running the intake extension into the where. In order to truly maximize the surrounding walls. efficiency of drivers, our team also enhanced deceleration functions and The third objective of always respecting the driver autonomy is limits on certain motors to prevent the fact that although the two algorithms mentioned collisions or breaking parts. For example, previously are helpful, we still allow the opportunity for users when our intake is controlled by our to gain complete control over the action of the robot, since we chain, there will be an acceleration in the feel like when dealing with other dynamic robots on the same opposite direction to minimize the playing field, the previously mentioned mechanisms can be collision between our intake and the easily confused and therefore causing unnecessary error. This ground’s effect on our cardboard intake. is the default mode our robot starts out in.
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Personal Growth and Development From this experience, the most valuable lesson we took away was the techniques to ensure precision and accuracy. For example, before making alterations to our program, our members always lined the field with tape that would indicate the travel direction of the robot. (Figure) The arrows on the tape indicate where the front of the robot will face. We then proceed to write out what we wish to accomplish in pseudocode.
Teleop Our teleop section is generally straightforward. Though at first most of the movement speeds for the intake etc. are too slow. After modification, however, they work pretty well. The robot also broke a number of times during programming due to flawed communication between the two groups about the limitations of the robot. Mechanical group had to fix it in those cases. As time went on, the programmers began to understand the robot better, and the communication between the two groups also got much better.
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Business Plan
Recognition Received:
Inspire Award and Promote Award, first place Control Award, Motivate Award, and Connect Award, first runner up Think Award, second runner up
Our CAD leader, David Song, was a Dean’s List Finalist!
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Community Outreach STEM Day Overview
VERTEX first had the idea to organize our school’s first STEM day when we saw a lack of school emphasis on STEM subjects. There are very few opportunities on campus for STEM students to present their own projects, and there are no major events dedicated to STEM areas and technology. With the ideology that sharing is caring, we decided to challenge ourselves and be the ones to take initiative and create opportunities to showcase and share STEM projects. Getting the STEM Day message out was the first thing that we did. Luckily, there were a few students who volunteered to help, and we formed a team with people organizing and working on perfecting every part of the conference. We also sent out an email detailing our plans for STEM Day to clubs on campus. Our plan is shown below.
After 237 years of history, amidst the eager anticipation of all students, there is finally a day at PEA where students interested in the domains of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math can show off their talents and intelligence -- the first PEA STEM Day. The first STEM Day is going to be held on Sunday, Jan. 27th. It is where people can learn more about STEM clubs at Exeter and enjoy the fun brought by technology. Clubs will be involved to showcase their projects and presenters will be invited to present horizon-widening views. We will also host fun, STEM-related competitions to show off the spirit of STEM-letes on campus. Goals
Show students and other people in the community the resources and projects different tech clubs have accomplished. Invite speakers from inside / outside the community to raise awareness for developing STEM areas, such as CS ethics, bio-engineering, etc. Incentivize student interest for STEM. Specifications This event will take place on Sunday, January 27th in the Forum. The featured projects can be in any of the following categories: Individual Clubs showcasing project, poster, technology, please keep it fun! (Robotics, ECC, ARVRA, MIT Launch, etc.) Individual student research. Student created Computer Science project. (This could be from a Computer Science Class or for any club, students may choose to present at an individual booth or along with the club.) STEM ESSO Clubs. (ESSO Robotics, JCP) Individual Clubs can also help us plan fun competitive events at the end and hand out awards that can further incentivize student’s interest in STEM. Awards
Inspire Research Award Scholar Award Aspirations in Computing Award Inspire Organization Award Aspirations in Mathematics Award
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Speakers/STEM Forum Do you want to see what STEM will be like in 10 years or possibly 5? Then come to Tech Forum the intersection of ideas and those who bring those ideas into the world. In the brief period of 20 minutes you will be dazzled, amazed, and surprised as you learn about the pioneers of STEM and their ideas. If you want to have a chance to present your ideas or projects, come to the STEM Forum. The presentations at STEM Forum are given in the form of Ted Talks. Each presentation is 20 minutes per person. It needs to be shortened, memorable and of outstanding quality. Tech Faire During the Tech Faire, people can walk around to survey the variety of projects being presented by clubs or individual students. From cutting-edge designs to arts and crafts tables, what is presented during Tech Faire can stretch to the limits of your imagination. Prepare to have your horizon widened as you see not only what STEM can do for people but what people can do for STEM. For clubs, this is not only a great chance to show off your achievements but also a precious opportunity to attract new club members. Fun Challenges/Competitions If you are looking for some friendly competition or fun challenges, then the Exeter Tech Challenges are meant for you. Between Integration Bee, USACO Challenge, Science Bowl and much more! feel free to try your hand at numerous competitions to what it takes to be an Exeter Tech Champion. (There will be awards). If your club is interested in hosting a fun competition, sign up with the STEM Day committee. Schedule Time Event 12:00 - 1:20 Speakers present talks + Q&A sessions at the end (after every professor speaks). (Exeter STEM Forum) [@ Forum, Academy Center 3rd floor] 1:20-2:10 Lunch Served(Pizza, Salad), Students talk to speakers 1 on 1 and Students Clubs set up for club/individual project presentation [@Agora & Oak Room & Meeting Room A, Academy Center] 2:10 - 4:00 Exeter Tech Faire [@Agora, Academy Center 1st floor] 4:00 - 4:10 This is an opportunity for student presenters themselves to meet each other and clean up their presentation materials. [@Agora, Academy Center 1st floor] 4:10 - 6:20 Competition + Fun challenges, USACO challenge, fun Integration Bee, Science Bowl) (Exeter Tech Challenge) [@ Forum, Academy Center 3rd floor] 6:25 -6:40 Closing Remarks + Present Awards [@ Agora, Academy Center 1st floor]
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Reflection STEM Day is one of the first large-scaled STEM-related events on our campus organized by students and I am very proud to be an organizer of the event. In the morning, we arrive early at the science building and waited outdoors for thirty minutes until the campus safety officer came. When he eventually arrived, we were almost frozen to death, but that did not quench our enthusiasm. This was the first event I participated in as an organizer. I am really grateful for my FTC experience bringing me with so many amazing opportunities. During STEM Forum, the students at our school obtained a chance to listen to presentations of professors from the most universities in the region. Professor B from UNH mainly introduced the black holes; Professor K from MIT exposed students to the most cutting-edge space technologies; while Professor S introduced us to his amazing ways of treating cancer. At the end of the presentations, many students were so reluctant to leave that they decided to stay and have lunch with professors. -- David S.
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Girls Who Code Women in STEM has been a topic that is gaining a lot of attention in STEM careers. On our team, almost half of the members are female or nonbinary. Recognizing the importance of inspiring more girls to participate in STEM, we collaborated with Girls Who Code and worked with young girls to teach them coding. The presentation and interactive activities took place at Dover Middle School New Hampshire. This was a very meaningful experience for one of our members, Kai, as they went to this middle school and also attended a similar program, Girls Who Code. To them, it was a great opportunity to give back to the community that theirs grew up with and show support for the students there. As an alum, Kai wanted to bridge the gap between these girls and STEM knowledge. Kai felt that they were seeing girls who were struggling with not enough opportunities and it reminded them that these girls deserve to explore and have more exposure with coding and programming.
On the day itself, the room gathered with many enthusiastic 6th grade girls with limited knowledge of coding. Our team gave a presentation on how our robot uses image recognition to identify what it picks up and what participating in FTC feels like. At the end of the presentation, many girls came up to ask more questions and some of them even asked how they could pursue STEM related academic or research opportunities in the future. We shared with them how we got started in FTC and how girls could get more involved around the seacoast area. After this Girl Who Code session, our team left the venue feeling inspired by these girls too. Although they might not have the opportunity to pursue similar opportunities like us, we were inspired by their passion, motivation and curiosity. Ultimately, we hope to bring a sense of inspiration to them and encourage them to become more confident in terms of pursuing STEM related programs in the future. We want to see them leading their own projects and initiatives. Kai, our electrician, gave a brief explanation of how our robot works while Felix, a programmer, talked about the state of the art image recognition technologies. These include multiple types of Convolutional Neural Networks and other similar algorithms used by the open source library OpenCV. The presentation was very well received by both the adult advisors of the club and its members. This activity is also a great learning experience for both Felix and Kai in terms of presentation content.
With her non-profit initiative WeHack2(wehack2.org), our programming lead Penny has taught over 1000 girls around the World from Shanghai, Chengdu, Beijing, Exeter, and New York.
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Our Community Outreach Director, Summer Hua, is the president and founder of WEVision (www.wevision.org). WEVision is an international organization that focuses on inspiring girls around the world to discover their full potential by learning about the experiences of women in various career paths. We hope to explore how culture and customs affect women’s experiences, including the number of resources and educational opportunities girls and women have access to. Through WEVision, we hope to shine light on the amazing things that women are capable of accomplishing. Just recently, Summer has lead a conversation on the atmosphere for women in STEM in United States. The interview with Dr. Cornelia Trimble (https://www.wevision.org/our-latest-stories- 1/2019/1/12/cornelia-trimble) inspired Summer to reach out to Girls Who Code and allowed the team to appreciate the chance to have more dialogues on this current issues.
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Girls Who Code – Round 2! Kai and Summer visited Girls Who Code a second time, this time to present about Silicon Valley ethics! They explored the sexism and racism in the tech industry and machine learning, and the ethical choices we need to make when training algorithms.
On 26th March 2019, Kai and I went to Dover Middle School in Manchester, New Hampshire. It is the second time that VERTEX has presented there. For the first time, we did a presentation on Neutral Network and this time, we did a presentation on Silicon Valley Ethics. Some topics that we covered are sexism in the tech
industry, fake news, censorship, privacy issues, and the self-driving car. During the presentation, we asked many interactive activities and the girls at Girls Who Code answered questions eagerly. We also introduced the James Damore Case Study which really helped us to navigate the complexity of the whole issue that revolves around sexism and racism in the industry. Personally, I left the venue feeling really grateful for such an opportunity where I could share my perspectives on this important issue. In the end, the advisors at Girls Who Code even offered us more opportunities to talk at Liberty Mutual. Although there was some discomfort when we were challenged by the only male mentor there, we managed to do well and learn a lot from this experience. -- Summer H.
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We were very pleased to hear how happy the entire club was! Below is our presentation.
We began introducing our topics with a video on Ethipass that was made by Penny exploring AI Bias and Discrimination. The topics that we explored were discrimination, manipulation of media, censorship, privacy, and self-driving cars.
By exploring these topics, we hoped to raise a meaningful discussion within not only the future software engineers within the room, but also the adults. On the topic of the presentation, Summer believes that “The main goal of the presentation on Silicon Valley Ethics is not just targeting younger students, but also the adults in our community. I did not want to lecture people about Ethics because I think ethics mean differently to every individual. Furthermore, there is no complete right or wrong answer. It is the process of discussing and wrestling with the given information that is the most valuable part of the experience. It really connects to FTC’s values in my opinion, as when we are working in a team, there’s always going to be a better way to solve a problem. To avoid debate, the most important thing is to use discussions to deal with the multifaceted problem.”
We then asked the group to determine AI generated faces from real faces. As expected, not many students were able to guess correctly. This provided a quick segway into a discussion about AI and manipulation of media, and the ethics of it. There are many ways the news resources can twist information and we should recognize that we cannot believe everything we read. Especially with the advent of AI technology that can fabricate faces and expressions, questions about the ethics of using this arise.
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Another aspect of AI that has been gaining traction is the idea of a self-driving car. Summer says that “most people might be intrigued by how cool it is or how the advantageous and bring so much advantageous to human beings in the future. However, they do not recognize the other side of the story. In my case study, I gave a scenario that is very likely to happen in the future and from the interaction between the students, I used this way to show them how there are always multiple sides of looking at a problem. They were challenged by this case study and in the very end, no perfect answer was crafted, thus, showing the complexity of ethics problem brought by the technology age.”
Then, we moved on to the topic of females in the workforce. We asked the group what they thought about female representation in STEM fields, and they brought up many meaningful points about the stereotyping of women as emotional and less capable when compared to men. Penny’s video on AI Bias and Discrimination also speaks to this issue, as she discusses the training of AI algorithms, and how they may favor majorities who were favored in the past – namely, white men.
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About this, Summer said: “I crafted my speech at Girls Who Code to be a very interactive experience. Since I have taken Silicon Valley Religion in school, I really wanted to apply our school’s famous discussion-based learning to my presentation. Personally, I think Ethics is something at most people can relate to, and the way of critical thinking can be thought to any age group. During my experience with the course, I did a research study with an Alum who worked at Spotify. Her valuable advice pushed me toward more research and is one of my inspiration to probably educate students on the knowledge of Sexism in the Tech industry. With the experience in our school when there is only a few girls in Math Club, Physics Club, etc., girls are always the minorities in the room. Therefore, I seek to engage our community and also listen to some of their opinions for further research into this issue. At first, I thought the girls would be pretty quiet as they are still very young, however, with videos and case studies, they quickly became more active. Therefore, I am super grateful for the opportunity to present at Girls Who Code as they have provided me a really comfortable place to talk about this issue and they all relate to it in one way or another. I remember hearing personal experiences of Girls Who Code Mentors, the connections we have built really touched my heart.”
Another topic we explored together was James Damore’s lawsuit, and what it meant in terms of free speech in the workplace. We considered the plausibility of many different solutions to the lack of diversity in workspaces, including Affirmative Action and diversity quotas. As this was a controversial topic, we were extremely proud when a thoughtful and respectful discussion ensued.
Finally, we closed with a conclusion of the topics we discussed, and why they matter. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence, and with the rise of STEM jobs, we must keep a careful eye on how inclusive we are. We encouraged the girls in the club to visit our website dedicated to Silicon Valley Ethics, ethipass.org, an encouraged them to participate in FIRST, to spread diversity and inclusion in robotics.
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Seacoast Outright
Another group that is also often left out or excluded in STEM is the LGBTQIA+ community. This issue of marginalization hits home with our team because one of our team members Kai came out as non-binary during the course of this season. As a team having a member who is non-binary has educated on the importance of LGBTQIA+ representation in STEM, so we worked in conjunction with Seacoast Outright, an LGBTQIA+ centre in Portsmouth which hosts weekly meetings and support groups for high school students. Support groups such as GSA and other national organizations are especially critical for LGBTQIA+ youth due to the politicization of the lives of LGBTQIA+ individuals and the fact the still many families and communities are not accepting of LGBTQIA+ kids. Also, even though many STEM companies “LGBTQIA+ YOUTH ARE have been more progressive in terms of LGBTQIA+ inclusive policies and HERE, ARE QUEER, have been working towards providing more inclusive environments there is a lack of LGBTQIA+ individuals in STEM.
AND WANT A CAREER In early January, Kai and David Song went to one of Seacoast Outright youth meetings. In the meeting Kai and David Song talked about the IN STEM.” Rover Ruckus competition along with our robot design. Kai also presented a section about the history of LGBTQIA+ individuals in STEM -- KAI L. including people such as Alan Hart, Alan Turing, and Sara Josephine Baker. Alan Hart was one of the first men of transgender experience in the United States to go through medical transition. He also helped in tuberculosis screening and prevention in Iowa in the early 1900s. Alan Turing was a gay man who is also the famous cryptanalysis mathematician who created Enigma during WW2 in order to break the German’s communication code. And Sara Josephine Baker was a lesbian woman who made contributions to public health in the immigrant communities of New York City during the early 1900s and late 1800s by decreasing the infant mortality rate through the usage of sanitation implementation and medical stations. All of these people have been influential in Kai’s journey as a LGBTQIA+ person in STEM.
It is always important to know whose shoulders you are standing on and who came before you especially in communities such as the LGBTQIA+ community where often there aren’t direct familial ties to your identity. Knowing on whose shoulders you are standing allows you to look back and see how far LGTBQIA+ rights have come while also seeing how far protections and LGTBQIA+ rights can come. David and Kai also presented on opportunities for LGBTQIA+ youth to get involved in robotics around the Seacoast area. Since Kai is a day student, they knew a lot about opportunities in the Seacoast from internships at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to the Portsmouth High School FRC team The Wire Clippers. After the presentation David and Kai got to talk to the people at the youth group meeting. Kai reflected on the overall experience: “It was really great to get a chance to talk with other LGBTQIA+ high schoolers, I found many of them really excited about the STEM fields, but found many of them had be discouraged due a lack of resources after the courses in CAD offered in middle school, it was nice to get to talk to other LGTBQIA+ youth who often have a similar passion for STEM as myself.”
I am so proud of being able to do a presentation in front of so many LGBTQ kids at Seacoast Outright. As an international student coming from an area where LGBTQ people are often discriminated and marginalized in society, I am really glad to visit the Seacoast Outright activity center. My partner Kai and I had a great time presenting the achievement of our team to them and I actually had a really interesting conversation with one of the instructors there. We both really enjoyed our time. -- David S.
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YMCA Who: Alex Knight (from ESSO Robotics), David Song, Mana Vale, Neil Chowdhury Where: YMCA of the Seacoast When: 1/16 - Present What: A series of 5 lessons teaching the basics of EV3 Programming to middle schoolers in the Seacoast area
Our school’s community service director told David that the NH region is short of robotics education and resources. We realized that we needed to do more to solve this problem, so we started the Team VERTEX YMCA Club. With her help, we fixed a time and space at the local YMCA, and collaborated with Alex Knight from ESSO Robotics to create a lesson plan. We are currently teaching ten eager middle schoolers the basics of robotics through a LEGO robotics EV3 set. 1. First Class: 1/14 - Building a Simple EV3 Robot and Basic Programming Techniques Section 0: Self-Introduction (5 - 10 min) Teachers: o Who are we? o Our lesson plan and goal Students o Who are you? o What brings you to this robotics class? Section 1: Get to know the EV3/Lego Technic Building System (20 - 25 min) Introduce all the parts and their functions Section 2: Build the Simplest EV3 Robot (25 min) https://essorobotics.weebly.com/basicbot-building-guide.html
Homework Assignment: Reading material: Basics of EV3 Programming Download and Install EV3 development Environment
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2. Second Class: 1/21 - Programming Basics Kahoot: Part terminology Section 1: Basic Vocabulary, Software Navigation Introduction to the interface How to connect the robot, and run a program Section 2: Green Blocks Demonstration of the effect of green blocks Exploration of the effect of parameters and different modes Section 3: Make the robot move! Simple tasks, move forward, turn Challenge: Make a square with your robot’s movements! Homework Assignment: Figure out how to use the Display & Sound blocks.
3. Third Class: 1/28 - Motors & Flow Control Section 1: What are flow control blocks? (5 – 10 min) What do they do? Why are they important? Section 2: What are motor blocks? (25 - 30 min)
Ways of measuring distance? Time vs. rotations Power Two motors, one motor, servo (illustrate the different ways we can use motor blocks) Coast vs. brake Homework: Learn about sensors 4. Fourth Class: 2/4 – Sensors Section 1: What are sensors? (5 – 10 min) What do they do? Why are they important? What kinds of sensors are there? Section 2: Touch Sensor (25 - 30 min) Understand how a touch sensor works and how to program it Build a program that lets robot navigate through the environment by bumping into objects & moving away Add sound/display to whenever the robot bumps into something Section 3 (20 – 25 min) Build a program that lets the robot sense when it is at the edge of a table/about to fall off
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Optional (if time): Add sound/display Homework Assignment: Learn about motor blocks. Write a program that makes the robot drive until it reaches a black line, then stop. 5. Fifth Class: 2/11 - final competition! (based on gauged student interest)
I like teaching kids robotics so they can be the next generation to join competitions such as Jr. FLL, FLL, FTC, and FRC in New Hampshire, as our area is lacking in robotics compared to where I am from (Washington). Since students who do robotics as an early age often become more interested in STEM education and careers, I feel like our effort is a major step forward. Through this experience, we improved our presentation/teaching skills a lot. At first it was a little awkward, with us not completely connecting with the kids. As time went on, however, we got better and the classes
became a lot more fun for both us and our students. Overall, this experience had been incredibly beneficial for us as a team and for the kids enthusiastic about robotics in the NH region. -- Neil C.
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FLL State Championship
Some of our team members attended the FIRST Lego League state championship in NH, and presented our robot to the FLL students and got them excited about FTC! A lot of the FLL members are very interested in FTC and our school. We also got to meet the adult organizers/volunteers in the event, and even received some Robotics merch! Overall, it was nice to reconnect with the FLL community. Kai, Penny and Vincent had all participated in FLL, and it was nice to see their old teams and talk to future FTC participants! Showing the middle schoolers the potential for their future participation in FTC and the robots they’ll be able to build was incredibly fun. We hope that they were inspired by us, and will continue to participate in robotics teams. We also talked to other New Hampshire FTC teams. Since this is our rookie year, it was amazing to have an opportunity to see other FTC teams in the area. We exchanged ideas and experience, and made friends. FIRST is truly a community and an experience that has given many the opportunity to learn and grow.
As a former FLL team member, it was great to be able to go back to an event and participate in a demo activity that I previously attended myself. All of the little kids were so interested in our robot - and got even more excited when they realized their current skills they were developing would lead them to this competition, FTC. We also got to meet two other really nice teams, Hack Gearz and Gluten Free - in FTC, we ended up choosing Hack Gearz as our alliance partner, and went against Gluten Free! Kai was there with Penny and I, and Kai’s old team was still participating! In addition to having met a bunch of teams we knew, or were participants of ourselves, we also got to meet many new FLL teams. We also did some advertisement for our own STEM Day, which some teams actually attended. -- Vincent X.
Penny and Vincent talking to members of FLL Team Kai and Vincent making a temporary phone mount Liberty.
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FLL was a really fun event. Penny, Vincent, and I all participated in FLL in middle school and it was fun to see my old team from New Heights again. In addition to seeing my old team it was fun to be able to present what FTC is about to middle schoolers and show them our robot and just see their faces light up at the prospect of building
bigger robots when they are older. I still remember seeing teams such as the FRC team Chop Shop at the FLL State championship when I was in 8th grade and having that really show to me that robotics didn’t stop after FLL and there were ways for me to continue. It was also really nice to get to meet Gluten Free and Hack-Gearz.
Since before the FLL event we didn’t know any of the team in New Hampshire.
-- Kai L.
We made some friends on other FTC friends! We also met adult volunteers/organizers for NH [Penny, Vincent, Kai and members in Team Gluten FTC! Free]
At the states FLL championship, I had the honour of meeting many motivated and knowledgeable students. This was an extremely valuable experience as we gained many FLL contacts for the future. I was very glad to be a part of this community outreach event as someone who did FLL in the past -- Penny B.
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Ethipass
Visit our website on Silicon Valley ethics at www.ethipass.org! Silicon Valley ethics is an issue that has been especially brought to light in recent years with the advance of AI and the rise of tech companies in Silicon Valley, California. Our school has a religion course on Silicon Valley ethics, where each student is paired electronically with an Exeter alumnus/a working in a technology company who will help them identify and research an issue germane to the course, with students as a final project writing their own case study about ethics in technology.
Silicon Valley ethics raises questions about how the accelerating growth of technology affects our ethical values, such as those of free speech, privacy, democratic values. Furthermore, our team, as a diverse group of individuals, has also decided to examine the role of sexism and racism within STEM fields, and how to combat these forces. As a whole, we have presented our ideas to many groups, such as Girls Who Code, Exeter Computing Club, and other FIRST Teams. We hope to raise discussion about the issues and implications that have come with the growing tech industry.
Visit our website on Silicon Valley ethics at www.ethipass.org! Silicon Valley ethics is an issue that has been especially brought to light in recent years with the advance of AI and the rise of tech companies in Silicon Valley, California. Our school has a religion course on Silicon Valley ethics, where each student is paired electronically with an Exeter alumnus/a working in a technology company who will help them identify and research an issue germane to the course, with students as a final project writing their own case study about ethics in technology.
Introduction Silicon Valley ethics is taking the news headline every day, ranging from issues regarding social media privacy, personal assistants, and video game addiction. However, when professionals are discussing and seeking solutions to these issues, there lacks the presence of high school voices. This project aims to project the high school student voices when concerning these issues in great proximity to us and make our voices heard.
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What do we plan to do?
Our Missions:
Educate, inform the general public about technical knowledge with humor Make high school voices heard in important discussions
Online Courses High-quality educational videos and content uploaded to Skillshare, Coursera, and edX to share the concern and importance regarding silicon valley ethics that are more appropriate for high school students our age. Our top most priority is spreading the influence regarding these issues to the general public, and making them realize how these issues apply to their everyday lives.
Website Our website contains our mission statement, introduction, and general information. It serves as a place where people are directed to the various projects that we have, such as online courses, social media, and ambassadorship application.
Interviews Interviews and questions with actual professionals in the field. These videos of questions and answers can be edited and uploaded onto various sites for public view and educational use.
Annual Report Our annual report can be sent out to our patrons and partners. This report includes what we’ve been working on throughout the year as well as thoughts for next year.
Annual Conference Annual conference in the great Boston area about our issue of the year - an issue that we as high school students find as the utmost concern. The typical conference will allow students to meet like-minded individuals, discuss with professionals in the field during our forum - which is structured like a series of TEDx talks, and hear live debates on the issue between adults and students.
Ambassadorship High school/college students around the World may apply to be an ambassador for our program! Being an program ambassadors includes: Free access to technology magazines which will enable you to learn about the issues you care about more in depth Communication with adults in the technology field who are equally passionate about these issues, which will be edited and uploaded to our platforms to show the thoughts on the issue from both groups. Recognition and membership in a community of passionate individuals!
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Exeter Computing Club Penny, our programming lead, presented to Exeter Computing Club about the roles of historic racism and sexism in machine learning. Because of the history of racism and sexism in determining candidates for jobs and universities, and decisions made by companies and banks about areas with a larger demographic of minorities, algorithms that then learn from these historical examples develop racist and sexist tendencies as well. This has happened much too often – Amazon’s algorithm for hiring job applicants chose male over female candidates, self- driving cars have a harder time identifying pedestrians with darker skin, and Google’s algorithm for identifying human faces had a much higher success rate with white men.
This also speaks to the underlying problems that can happen with training an algorithm. There can either be too little or too many data points. Again, this speaks to the racism and sexism in the tech industry – the Google algorithm was mainly trained with the faces of the people working on it, namely, white men. This raises many implications for the future, when AI will be used more widely for tasks such as hiring job applicants, making decisions about different demographics, and identifying pedestrians. As a team, we hope to raise awareness about this problem, and encourage a solution.
Two issues that arise in machine learning are overfitting and biased data. Overfitting makes the computer ignore a clearly possible linear algorithm, while biased data is only good in one certain case.
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New Hampshire FIRST Team Gathering
We invited other FIRST teams in New Hampshire to our school to present our ideas on Silicon Valley ethics and socialize! As a rookie team, we began the season with only a few connections to the FTC community, and this event was intended to fix that. We started by presenting about Silicon Valley Ethics, then, afterwards, we had a few hours for teams to socialize and get advice about their robots!
The FTC/FLL meetup is just another example of VERTEX’s dedication to our mission statement educating people with humor and knowledge along with making hi-tech, FTC, tangible and accessible to people in our community. By our community we are of course referring to the large first community that we are all a part of. AT the FTC/FLL meetup we reached out of upcoming FLL junior teams through our launch of Part Shop and Kai’s presentation “FIRST: It’s more than the robot game.” By spreading information for rookie teams on first we are breaking down the barriers of those who have information vs those who do not. During the meetup we also played get to know you games and made sure that every team left knowing another team we see a lot of friendships between teams at the high school level and these kids if they continue with robots will have other friends in robotics. We believe this will also help with the spread of information.
Around 40 people, including robotics students from FLL teams, FIRST Lego League, parents, and coaches turned up for this meet up. To begin by warming up the attention of the students, we started our presentation with ice-breaker games, blow wind blow. As some of the children are quite young, we also provided many snacks and drinks for them. Our representative, Kai, kickstarted the event with sharing our experiences and tips as a rookie team that managed to advance to worlds. They gave specific scouting advice on using the software orange alliance and introduced a parts buying website, Part Shop. Rookie teams often struggle to know what parts would best suit their budget and their budget so we created this to ease their process of ordering.
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During the meetup Summer also gave a presentation about Silicon Valley ethics. This was especially impactful due to the number of younger girls in the audience when summer talked about the separation of genders in Silicon Valley. Even though some people think that elementary schoolers are too young to know about the possible problems with the industry at VERTEX we think it is important for kids to know that things aren’t perfect as long as it is presented at an age appropriate level. After the presentations we took the kids and their coaches up to the lounge and showed them our robot along with the design lab.
They seemed incredibly awed by our robot and workspace, especially our 3D printer and laser cutter! Some of them just couldn’t stop asking questions. The parents and coaches seemed especially impressed by our rookie status. I see future FTC participants in each of them.
As a rookie team, we know what it’s like to just begin robotics. There’s so much curiosity, but so much fear of failure at the same time. Luckily, the process of engineering depends on failing and learning. We hope that the FLL teams that came by today learned from us, and continue on to FTC! Summer gave her presentation on Silicon Valley Ethics again during this meetup, and we hope that the many young girls we saw in the audience were inspired and keep doing robotics.
On a (slightly) unrelated note, later on, a few students from PEA came to check us (and the Design Lab) out! They seemed to be awed by our robot and what it could do – truly showing the inspiration and creativity that comes from FIRST.
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Relay For Life Our school holds an annual fundraiser to help fight cancer and raise awareness about cancer. Various dorms and student groups have booths where they can help raise money. Our team had a booth at the event where we sold boxes and other cool things that Panda, a CAD Group member, designed and laser-cut! People seemed to be really awed by our boxes – They fit together without glue, and Panda was able to cut the wood in a way that let it bend. It also had a sliding and locking mechanism that kept the cover/lid closed. We allowed people to order customized boxes as well.
Our boxes were extremely popular! We ran out after a while, and people had to order more to be delivered to their PO boxes. It felt great to contribute to a fundraiser for cancer.
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Exeter Student Crafting Center Mission & Vision Previously, a few members of us noticed how, on campus, there are lots of talented designers waiting for projects while at the same time there are also lots of requests on campus for crafting related projects. For example, some clubs want cool club merch but are just scared by the dazzling quotes of professional manufacturing companies. Some science teachers want to make simple toys to display scientific theories and principles but can’t find a place to order. Under this circumstance, we partnered with the MoE (Makers of Exeter) and founded the crafting center together. The mission of crafting center is to provide a platform on campus where the talented designers/crafters can be directly connected to the requests for crafting projects on campus. Once a project request is submitted, we
immediately connect the requestor of the project to a designer and the rest of the process is going to be completed through their interaction.
Operation
Designers’ Signup In order to start the crafting center, we need to acquire enough designers first. Therefore, we have a designers signup form to obtain info about the talents and skills of different designers and their contacts. Here is the signup form: Request for Projects
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The requestors of projects need to fill out a project application form, so that we have an idea of what they want to make and their contacts. After we received the requests, we will contact the designers immediately and get the project started!
Our products:
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ESSO Robotics ESSO (the Exeter Student Service Organization) is an organization through which Exeter students can volunteer and participate in the surrounding community. Our programming head, Penny Brant, is the head of an ESSO club – ESSO Robotics, where Exeter students can teach children about robots. The members of VERTEX have attended meetings and shown younger children the potential of participating in robotics.
It was fun teaching the kids in ESSO robotics about FLL. For me, robotics has always been something that's competitive, in FLL, FTC, VEX, Seaperch, and ROV MATE. There's nothing wrong with competitive robotics, and I enjoy the competition as it motivates me to do more, perform better, and strive for perfection. However, sometimes in doing so, we forget how fun it can be just building a robot for the sake of creating it, and the joy which comes with writing your first few lines of code. The chance of engaging with attendees at ESSO robotics made me remember the reasons I joined robotics in the first place, and it was a tremendously rewarding experience. -- Penny B.
In ESSO Robotics, we taught the kids about the basics of EV3 building and programming. They built battle bots.
We have often been informed by teachers at school that the surrounding area lacks robotics educational resources, and that’s why we came to ESSO Robots to teach the students about the basics of EV3 building and programming. The theme of that class was battlebots and the kids seemed to be really into it. They controlled their robots remotely with their phones and were trying their best to figure out a way to shove their opponent off the table. At last, even our robot lost against the kids’, making them so proud of themselves. I am proud of them, too! -- David S.
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Part Shop
VERTEX first had the idea for part shop was we have looked back on the challenges we have had our rookie year. With none of us, including our mentors, having competed in FTC before we had a lot of learning to-do. From budgeting, to CO, to ordering parts, to understanding how to write the EN there was a lot. A lot of our knowledge came from reddit or other teams initially. But, we still had stumbling blocks along the way, not ordering the most optimal parts, not knowing there is no wifi at states, the basics. Over the season our team has had to learn thing and we pulled ourselves together nicely. But, of course we recognize we had some external privilege and help, Kai having done scouting for FRC and Summer doing budgeting and knowing how to communicate with student activities on campus for example. So the mission of part shop is to give easily accessible resources to rookie teams for next year.
It started with two of our teams missions educating people with humor and knowledge along with making hi- tech, FTC, tangible and accessible to people in our community. By our community we are of course referring to the large first community that we are all a part of.
It started with parts, over the season we have ran into the limitations of many of the parts we bought in our first month as a team so part of part shop is on our website where we present teams with all the parts they are allowed to use for FTC nicely sorted into categories. This will allow teams to compare different parts and find the parts that are what their teams wants and within their budget. Throughout the season we heard of many of the public school teams not being able to find sponsors or losing commitment for things such as practice space from their schools. So, we decided the least we could do is to give them all their options to hopefully allow for finding budget friendly options. The second part of part shops is the videos. From an intro to scouting to how we write our EN daily entries we are using these videos to remedy many challenges we have run into our rookie year. Also having these in a centralized public space means that we are trying to eliminate the advantage for teams that possibly have contacts in robotics. This means first will be accessible to more rookie teams which will hopefully mean more diversity in first. FTC Part shop was launched at the FTC meetup.
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iRobot On March 20th, Andrew Deschenes, a volunteer from iRobot, visited us and gave us a presentation about iRobot! He actually participated in FRC in high school, which was incredibly cool – it showed us how being robotics teams right now can lead to future career. He showed us some of the robots that iRobot manufactures, and a future release – the famed Roomba, the Braava jet, and the future lawnmower, Terra! He brought a Roomba, a Braava, and a charger for the Roomba that also cleans it out. We examined each of them, and he told us about some of the various components of a Roomba, including its numerous sensors that tell it where it is in the room, if it’s been picked up, and if it’s about to fall off of something. He also told us about what it’s like to work at iRobot – it seems super fun! iRobot also has an interesting history – their initial plan was not to make housekeeping robots for smart homes, but actually to make military robots, and it’s pretty cool how they eventually came to the types of robots they focus on today. He then looked at our robot while Vincent and Joy were practicing driving and gave us advice for our future endeavors.
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Xenex On January 20th this year, members from our team had a Skype call with the COO of the nearby robotics company Xenex, Mr. Froutan. We asked him about procedures in designing and building robots and team management. Through this experience, we learned many things: 1. It is important to design the robot in part or in whole with CAD first before building it. Even though Mr. Froutan had not used OnShape, the cloud CADing system we are using, he did point out to us that with CAD, our team can visualize the pressure applied to different components etc. This later saved us a lot of trouble.
2. A large team requires specific delegations and division of labor. We always knew this but none of us truly understood its importance. This would later help us dramatically in increasing efficiency.
Xenex is a company started by Dr. Julie Stachowiak and Dr. Mark Stibich, who earned their graduate degrees at John Hopkins University, and works to help hospitals disinfect their surfaces to prevent the spread of illness. After learning about the use of pulsed xenon bulbs overseas to eliminate airborne tuberculosis, they knew the technology had potential application in “[Xenex’s] mission is to save environmental disinfection of healthcare spaces. When they co-founded lives and reduce suffering by XENEX in 2008, evidence that pointed to the role of the environment on destroying deadly healthcare associated infections (HAIs) was slowly building. As public microorganisms that can health researchers, they felt strongly that enhanced disinfection in hospitals could drastically reduce the pain and suffering caused by HAIs. cause healthcare associated Existing, older technologies for making UV had yet to achieve clinical infections (HAIs).” outcomes. As Xenex’s website puts it: “[Xenex’s] mission is to save lives and reduce suffering by destroying deadly microorganisms that can cause healthcare associated infections (HAIs).” They are a company of incredibly dedicated and passionate people, much like our team.
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Society of Military Surgeons On Tuesday, April 9th, Colonel Robert Lim spoke at our school about the role of robotics and his experiences as a surgeon in combat military. He uses robotics arms to perform surgery.
According to the website for the Society of Military Surgeons, which he founded, “He was named co-Chair of the SAGES World Congress in Endoscopic Surgery for 2018. He has deployed to the combat zone 6 times and has been highly decorated for his work on the battlefield. His academic career has aimed to improve the education for surgeons and to recognize more accurate metrics for patient outcomes. He has published extensively on bariatric surgery, obesity care, combat surgery, and surgical simulation and he has recently published 2 textbooks. “ Dr. Lim specializes in Advanced Laparoscopic Surgery, which includes robotics, single-incision laparoscopic, and bariatric surgery. This assembly showed us the value of robotics in medicine and the military, and showed the potential that advancements in technology can bring to us.
He also spoke about the higher rates of diabetes and obesity in amputees. Robotics, with its role in medicine, can be used to help prevent this.
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Fake News and Today’s Media Landscape On Friday, April 19th, Emily Barr spoke at our school about today’s media landscape. She is resident and Chief Executive Officer of Graham Media Group, the television broadcasting division of Graham Holdings Company. This assembly aligned with the topics we hope to explore with our Silicon Valley education and outreach. With the advancement of widespread information, we also need to be careful about misinformation. She raised points about the way an AI can mimic a human face – aligning with a point we have been making, and advised us about how to avoid falling victim to fake news.
According to Graham Media Group’s website, “Emily oversees seven local television stations - each in a top-70 market, representing nearly 7% coverage in the U.S. All stations are recognized as news leaders on air, on mobile and on line: KPRC-Houston (NBC); WDIV-Detroit (NBC); KSAT-San Antonio (ABC); WKMG-Orlando (CBS); a duopoly in Jacksonville: WJXT (Fully Local) and WCWJ (CW); and WSLS-Roanoke (NBC). GMG also owns Social News Desk, a leading provider of social media management tools designed to connect newsrooms with their users. Under Emily’s leadership, Graham Media Group was awarded “2016 Station Group of the Year” by Broadcasting and Cable Magazine. Prior to joining Graham Media Group, Barr served as the President and General Manager of ABC 7 Chicago (WLS–TV), the ABC-owned station in Chicago, IL. She held this position from April 1997 until July 2012. Under her leadership and throughout her tenure, ABC 7 strengthened its dominance in the market and remained the top- rated/most watched station in Chicago. In 2009, Barr helped create The LIVE WELL NETWORK, an innovative, nationally-distributed digital broadcast, online and wireless network focusing on home, health and lifestyle programming. Previously, Barr served as the President and General Manager of WTVD–TV, the ABC–owned station in Raleigh–Durham, NC, which she joined in October 1994. In July 1988, Barr joined WMAR–TV in Baltimore, MD, as the Director of Broadcast Operations & Programming. She was promoted to Assistant General Manager in May 1993.” Barr served at several news stations prior to Graham Media Group. She is a prime example of a strong woman who has overcome the barriers that were set up for her when she was young. She spoke about how she was one of the first girls to attend PEA, and spent her days proving to peers and teachers that she was just as capable as the male students.
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Andrew Yang
“THERE ARE TWO POLES IN TERMS OF THINKING ABOUT PROBLEMS: POLE NUMBER ONE IS SOMEONE ELSE WILL TAKE CARE OF IT, AND POLE NUMBER TWO IS I’M GOING TO TAKE CARE OF IT.”
Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang spoke at our school about the role of technology in the job market. He raised meaningful questions about what the rise of AI will mean for the jobs of unskilled workers who might not have access to high-level education. How can we advance our knowledge and technology if it means that millions of people might lose their jobs? While working to advance our society as whole, we need to keep an eye on our ethical standpoint and pay attention to the social affects of our advancements.
Our school’s website states: “his time practicing law was short lived; he left a corporate law firm after five months to pursue other opportunities. He recounted his reason for leaving, calling the firm ‘a temple to the squandering of human potential.’ Yang went on to start an online company that failed, but in the process taught him valuable lessons in entrepreneurship. Asking students with entrepreneurial aspirations to raise their hands, Yang then shared what he called the ‘secret to entrepreneurship.’
“Tell everyone you know you’re going to do something, and then you don’t have a choice.”
After working for numerous start-ups and early-stage companies, Yang founded Venture for America, a nonprofit designed to encourage and equip young entrepreneurs with the skills needed to create businesses in American cities outside of the major markets of New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco and Washington D.C.”
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Boston Dynamics Penny and Neil visited Boston Dynamics and met Boston Dynamics’ Chief Scientist! Boston Dynamics is a company well known for its viral videos of self-correcting, animal-like robots. However, it is much more than an internet sensation – the robots designed by Boston Dynamics have remarkable mobility, agility, dexterity, and speed.
We met the chief scientist in Boston dynamics, Alfred Rizzi, at USYPT, an international physics competition. We
enjoyed talking to him and asked about his experience of working with FTC and other robotics competitions. This was a valuable experience.
-- Penny B.
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Sustainability
Moving on to next season, VERTEX plans to achieve even better results by learning from our challenges and limitations this season. Our team will stay on track in terms of improvisation and remain passionate about what we are doing, dedicating more time and efforts into making this FTC experience a better one for all.
Currently, our team contains thirteen members, which includes four members who will go into senior year next year. None of our members are seniors, which seemed daunting at first, as we were starting our rookie year, but we then realized the benefits of this due to the high commitment level. Initially, when we just started to form the robotics team, we already had the intention to prepare our team to do well in the long run, hence each of the senior played an important role in each section of the team. We have representatives in Mechanical, Programming, Community Outreach and CAD. During meetings, apart from focusing on the final product that we are working on, we ensure that everyone is kept in loop about what we are doing, and we update each other regularly on our progress. For slightly inexperienced team members, we do not exclude them in any way. Instead, we actively create opportunities for learning to take place and guide them through mentorship. Conversations and being open to each other are important team dynamic that we take very seriously. With this strong foundation of mentorship set in place, we believe that even younger members on the team will step up in times of need and become leaders in their individual sections. Seniority is definitely not a barrier on our team, everyone has a voice and constructive criticisms are respected. Although we understand that underclassmen are not as knowledgeable in certain areas, the upperclassmen have been really patient and, overtime, connections are built between members while achieving better results.
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For new members recruit, we are thinking of reaching out to active members of Robotics Club on campus. These are experienced members who have participated in other robotics competition and even FIRST Competitions in their previous schools, therefore we would like to take advantage of this and spread the message of recruiting during club night this coming fall term. With a robotics class dedicated to learning about robotics, we would approach the teacher for specific recommendations of potential interested students. From this year’s experience, we definitely see the need for more mechanical team and outreach team members. Therefore, we hope to increase the number of spots dedicated to these two divisions of the whole team.
When it comes to securing our source of financial support, we have been forging strong connection with our supporters, the PEA Science Department and PEA Student Activities’ Office by giving them frequent updates on our progress and convince them of our uniqueness as the first large-scale robotics team on this campus. Considering the robust financial situation of our school, we don’t foresee any financial problems in the coming years.
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This year, our team has had the opportunity to meet wonderful people along our journey. Their relentless guidance and technological knowledge inspired us deeply, pushing us to set higher expectations for ourselves. We bonded with our advisor who has been working closely with us in the design lab. Apart from that, we had the chances to talk to some notable alumni and also engineering professionals in various fields. Although these are short conversations and mostly on a one-time basis, we hope to expand some of these connections in the coming year. We hope to collaborate with universities around us such as University of New Hampshire for long term technical support. Furthermore, as part of the outreach plan, we hope to get to meet professionals from various fields. One thing our team tries to stress is the importance of community outreach. In our current society, we can see the transition in society rapidly and how things are conveyed in pathos, ethos and logos. Business and marketing are so inter-related with robotics and technology. Hence, in the future, we would also be looking into getting mentorship in this specific area.
Our team will be leaving a legacy behind as we are the main organizers of the first ever STEM Day at Phillips Exeter Academy. Just like the first TEDx conference or first Model United Nation conference, every impossible or never though of outcome takes only one person to become one step closer to reality. STEM Day is the gift that our team wants to present to our school and future new students. Not only is this a great opportunity to learn about various fields of STEM, it also engages students to participate actively and be inspired by others. This community effort to learn and spread awareness of STEM creates a safe space for STEM lovers to communicate. Furthermore, it allows students to meet people with similar interests, increasing mentorship opportunities and may even find collaborating partners. We have created a platform for both people are into and not into STEM. The general audience of this event is not limited, and it is set up in the heart of students’ activities. These strategic plans encourage further involvement of students who may not be that into STEM topics. They could be drawn into conversations with our fellow schoolmates and even just the mini- competitions that we organize.
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Budgeting
Abstract
Due the fact that it is illegitimate for private school students to seek sponsorship from local businesses, our team has to count on the funds of our school as financial support. We applied funding from two sources, the academy fund provided by Student Activities’ Office and the Bittman fund of science department. Below is some info on our budget planning for the two funding applications and a contrast between our budget and real purchases.
Student Activities’ Funding Application According to the website, https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc/cost-and-registration $2250 are needed for a rookie since there are will be more than or equal to 12 students on a team, so the total amount team to participate in it and this amount only includes one kit of parts. But we would need 2 kits will approximately be $3140. Therefore, I put $3500 to be safe. Here is a list of items to be funded:
1. Rookie approximate cost: 2250$ (based on website),Including: a. Control & Communication Set 2: 219$ b. Electronics Modules and Sensors Set: 124.95$ c. Tetrix FTC competition Set: 519$ d. Registration: 275$ e. Extra parts & Travelling expense: 1000$
2. An extra kit: $890+$455 https://www.pitsco.com/TETRIX-FTC-Competition-Set/&TXredir=1 https://modernroboticsinc.com/robot-electronics-bundle-2
Our Real Purchase: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HLhWVuN5mzLQHlr3nhohFzwx8zlTLFvEnlEDLCBg4oU/edit?usp=sha ring
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Reflection At that time, there were only two team members, David S. and his partner Gavin. Unfortunately, since this was the first time applying for funding, they did not have much experience and did not leave enough buffer for potential extra part purchases. However, this budget was later proven to be a surprising accurate estimation of the cost of our first primary purchase. The sum of the costs of parts listed above almost equals exactly the cost of the really purchased parts illustrated below. And the item named “Extra parts & Travelling Expenses” corresponds with the cost of the field in the real purchase. Unfortunately, due to lack of experience, we have used up this budget after the first purchase. We learned from this and added a lot of buffer in our second budget application to science department.
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PEA Science Dept. Bittman Fund Thanks to our precise prediction of cost in the first funding application, we successfully covered the cost of the very first purchase of our newly established team, which includes the field and a full Tetrix kit plus lots of Tetrix extension kits and extra parts. Unfortunately, however, we soon learned that engineering is a process of trial and error and even the abundance of parts we got after the first purchase did not sustain us for long. Therefore, we turned to our second potential source of funding, the science department of our school for financial support.
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Review and reflection on second budget application:
The application of this budget estimation spreadsheet in the process of funding application is a great step forward for our team and provides extremely reliable information for an approximation of our future cost. Especially, we included a section called buffer based on the potential need of every subgroup to account for possible future engineering uncertainties. This second budget application should serve well as a model for our future budgeting work.
Third Funding Application: Endowment From a Secret Donor After we entered the World championship in Detroit, we decided that we need more funding to improve our robot and conduct more CO activities before the world championship. Under this circumstance, we decided to apply for funding for a third time from the school. Since the adults on campus requested that we need to also include our budget for next year in this application, we not only included our budget (“short term budget”) for World Championship, but also incorporated the budget for our next season (“long term budget”) in the documents of this budget application. Detroit, we are coming!
This funding application, due to its stunningly large total of $20,035, underwent a lengthy revision process among the adults. As a matter of fact, we at first did not even think that it would be able to pass due to the amount we ask for. Surprisingly, thanks to the understanding and collective efforts of the adults, the student activities’ office ended up successfully finding us a secret donor who was willing to support the entirety of this budget. The approval of this budget application brought to the team a great sense of confidence and satisfaction and we are looking forward to more amazing FIRST experience in the future.
VERTEX 15534 2019 World Championship Budget Sheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pntXjhT_qmQ7igOWzvumxVO9XL1aDR96gFXFs0xZGXg/edit?usp=sharin g Part 1: 02/13/19 Purchases -- What We Needed Immediately
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Part II: Short Term Budget -- What We Needed Before World Championship
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Part III: Long Term Budget -- Approximation of Cost for Next Year
Review and reflection on third budget application The third budget application is another milestone like the previous two. In this budget application, we based the amount we ask for on our experience and came up with the optimal amount of funding we should ask for. The short term budget part is already proven to be accurate, while it takes the entirety of next year to figure
out the accuracy of our long term budget. Right now, let’s march towards the World Championship with our high morale brought by this funding application!
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Entries
Beginning Since this is the first year Phillips Exeter has ever had an FTC team, our robot was a process of trial and error. At first, we had planned to allocate about a month for building the robot – mechanical would spend two weeks, and programming would spend the rest of the time creating the autonomous and controls for the robot. Furthermore, CAD group would work with mechanical to create custom parts, such as the team marker and phone mount. We also planned to enact a wide variety of community outreach activities, from teaching at local middle schools to organizing PEA’s very first STEM Day.
Failing However, we soon realized that our robot building process would not run as smoothly as we had envisioned. It took longer than we originally had in mind, and we often made mistakes. Furthermore, we often stumbled upon budgeting issues, especially since we couldn’t receive the support of sponsors and because we couldn’t use parts from previous years, as this was PEA’s first year of FTC. Furthermore, we found that our team dynamic was slightly difficult to manage; minor conflicts among team members often arose.
Resolving As our team grew over the months, we began to devise solutions for our problems. After our first scrimmage, we decided to revise our robot design and create a newer, more efficient robot with the capabilities of our drivers in mind. We learned about the importance of efficiency and creating the designs to use each part of our robot to its full potential. Furthermore, we worked together as a team to create a code of conduct. We also found that as the school year progressed, we became more comfortable with working with each other; many of us are introverts who prefer to work alone rather than in a team. However, we soon overcame this obstacle. As we began working on our new robot, our newfound team spirit and experience allowed us to work more efficiently and have much more fun.
Conclusion Overall, FTC has been a learning experience. Not only have we learned how to properly work as a team, but we have also gained valuable knowledge of engineering and the trial and error that comes with it. Furthermore, through our community outreach activities, we’ve discovered the joy of spreading knowledge to others. Our school uses roundtable discussions to teach material, for the reason that students learn more when they teach others, and we have found this to be true during our own community outreach activities. By helping others discover the joy of STEM, we have reinvigorated our own fascination and passion.
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Scrimmages and Competitions Alvrine High School This was our first scrimmage as a team, ever, and many of us had no idea what to expect. We came with little driving and scouting practice and experience, but, overall, we left with a better grasp of what to expect at competitions and how to prepare.
Overall, scrimmage one was good. Many teams didn’t have an autonomous or hadn’t fully built their robot. But, scrimmage one wasn’t really meant for the seeing the other teams competitively. I found since we are a rookie team the first scrimmage was a really good time to see what the robot and field inspection processes are like. We also realized we had to be conscious of the size of our robot and sharp edges in the building process, so we didn’t have any surprises at robot inspection. The first scrimmage was also a good time to meet other teams. Since we got to the scrimmage early, I took the time before the matches to go and talk to other teams such as TieFighters, Hinsdale Robotics, and the Binary Bots. Hinsdale and TieFighters we went on to build lasting ties with during this season and it was good to have some familiar faces at every scrimmage. It was also good to realize that I get overwhelmed by driving due to having a depth perception disorder and Joy really stepped up during the middle of the scrimmage and took the helm on driving. -- Kai L, Driver and Scout
I didn't have experience coaching going into our first scrimmage. During the match, it was hard to make decisions on the spot to help the drivers make the best decisions possible. However, I was able to get the hang of it by the end of our five matches. It's fun being able to communicate with the other drive team coaches ahead of times and making friends along the way when trying to figure out the best strategy. Although in terms of placements we didn't do the best this scrimmage, I still felt like it was a valuable experience for all the things we learned. -- Penny B, Coach
At this scrimmage, we passed inspection with minor complications regarding sizing. Kai operated the chassis, and Vincent operated the intake and the rack-and-pinion dumper the first match. After the second match, I operated the chassis instead. The intake did not extend far enough into the crater to acquire minerals, and thus the robot operated similarly to a pushbot. During Teleop, no minerals were scored in the lander, but some were deposited. This was my first time driving, and I thoroughly enjoyed chancing upon a new way to contribute to Vertex. We proposed the radical second iteration of the robot and implemented it over break. -- Joy L, Scout and Driver
The first scrimmage was our first opportunity to see other’s teams’ robots in action. As a scout we were able to see how other teams performed on the field relative to ours. As it was our first scrimmage we used a spreadsheet, which we realised wasn’t the most effective way to scout. In addition, we only had one scout on the field at a time so we weren’t able to make a sufficiently detailed database. We used these problems we faced in our first scrimmage for scouting as a foundation to create a better scouting system for our following scrimmages. --Panda A, Scout
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Dover Middle School This time, we were more prepared and decided to try out new drivers and scouting techniques. Kai brought paper scouting sheets for us to draw the paths of the robots’ autonomous. We finished third overall! This was a successful scrimmage, but we can be even better.
At the second scrimmage I was put as lead scout. I tried to use a paper method that was used by the FRC team I helped with scouting in middle school. Overall the paper system worked smoothly, we pre-trained scouts on the system about a week before the actual scrimmage. The sheet consisted of a side with the team number, scout name, total score, individual team score, and a table with each was to score points as laid out in the Rover Ruckus video and separation of sections by the part of the game. On the back was a layout of the game field where scouts would map the lines the robot followed. At this point we had just developed and built the sit-n-score version, second version, of our robot and were conscious of the fact that we didn’t want other teams’ drive patterns to interfere with our robot. However, the back side of the paper relied on the paper being printed in colour which isn’t always reliable at Exeter due to having one available colour printer on campus, and having a paper for every team in every match made it hard to combine all this data to get an overall view of each team, so, we decided to move to a google form system. -- Kai L, Head Scout
Our second scrimmage ran smoothly, except for a few connection issues and last-minute autonomous fixes. We weren’t as prepared going in to this scrimmage, like in the first scrimmage, but we were able to get everything working minutes (!) before the matches. We also did not have much time for driver practice prior to the competition because we were fixing our robot, so we used our little time in the pits trying to do that (with minerals on the pit floor) We had a match with #11115 - Gluten Free in which we learned a lot about how we should prepare for a worlds-level competition. They were really efficient at getting blocks from the crater and scoring them. We tried to orient ourselves alongside them, but sort of limited their capability this way. We talked to them after the match and discussed how we could improve our strategy for the next scrimmage and beyond. One thing we did well -- Autonomous worked 100% of the time at removing the gold mineral. Also -- our drivers stayed focused and worked together well in scoring minerals, even despite the fact that they had such little practice prior to the event. -- Neil C, Coach
The second scrimmage at Dover middle school is definitely a refreshing experience for the team after months of hard work. This is the first time we are able to witness our robot, riboflavin central running on the field, competing with other robots! Although the intake mechanism seemed to be jammed at that time, I really think that our drivers did a perfect job and I really enjoyed the time spent watching the excellent performance of our robot. In the morning, I bought food for those teammates who had not had breakfast already, and I actually spent most of the time working on some emailing and planning inside the pit for our STEM Day CO activity. At the end, despite the fact that the performance of our robot was slightly disappointing to some teammates, we played Kai’s adapted version of Christmas song and everyone was laughing on our trip back to campus. It was a really happy day for me. -- David S.
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Though we failed robot inspection because our robot was still progressing into our final design, as soon as field inspection started, it was clear building a new robot was a good idea. The extendable intake allowed us to pick up anything, anywhere, and although the intake was slow to lift, we were able to collect many more minerals than before. The dumper was painfully slow, but sorted very well as commanded. During the scrimmage, we were paired with 11115 Gluten Free, who had a similar design to ours. After accidentally clashing dumpers, our dumper, which was LEGO and VEX, was slightly damaged. Repairs with Pizza Plates and Duct Tape did the trick. At match four, we realized our dumper would not dump - the silver mineral we had used to “fix” our dumper was in fact the wrong size - we were unable to do anything besides park in the crater for that match. Overall, a huge improvement over our first scrimmage; we even placed third. From a driver's point of view, it was clear what improvements we still needed to make, and since drivers are the mechanical subteam, we were quick to fix the problems. -- Vincent X, Driver
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Parkside Middle School This was our last scrimmage before Worlds. Unfortunately, both coaches were gone for a physics competition. Nevertheless, we seized this opportunity for practice.
Both Penny and Neil were absent for a Physics competition - also doing some outreach with companies along the way. Although I was not officially the coach, I witnessed all of the failures firsthand, as most failures did not require my controller action. From the last scrimmage, we learned the intake was too slow to lift - so we fixed that with a motor. We arrived at the scrimmage with no practice or testing - to realize that now it was too fast. A quick fix using a few LEGO pieces did the trick. For the remainder of the scrimmage, I found out the dumper extension and dumper were both solid and needed no work. The intake however, still needed to be fixed. We lost the first two matches due to our intake, thus did not place well. However, we got more experience and once again learned what needed to be fixed. -- Vincent X, Interim Coach
This scrimmage was largely a prototyping progress. Due to inadequate driver practice and communication, operating the intake and transferring to the dumper proved immensely difficult. Without the refined pulley- covering, tensioning, and alignment mechanisms we have today, the intake extension string kept slipping or unravelling from the spool. We had to restring the intake after nearly every match. Before lunch, the intake would endanger the cardboard dumper during transfers. To fix this, we implemented a Lego stop mechanism, though this meant we were out of size. Intake operation was imprecise, but I practiced a lot and improved. We also delivered our first mock presentation to a judge! -- Joy L, Driver
I was part of the scouting team at Parkside, and it wasn’t an easy position to take. Scouting really requires patience, observance, and attentiveness. It was very difficult to keep track of everything happening on the field, and by cooperating with the other scouters, we were able to map out the entire game and recode scores and actions of individual teams. I felt especially proud when I was scouting our robot and seeing our robot doing well in all the rounds brought a sense of achievement for the entire team. By going through the rounds and also the judging session, our team became better prepared for the states championships. -- David W, Scout
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States Southern New Hampshire University, Athletic Complex
Recognition Received:
Inspire Award and Promote Award, first place Control Award, Motivate Award, and Connect Award, first runner up Think Award, second runner up
Our CAD leader, David Song, was a Dean’s List Finalist!
Overall, States was a blast! Although there were a few hiccups here and there with confusion about where we were supposed to be, and we were nearly late for registration, it was overall successful. Before the competitions began, many guest speakers spoke. It was inspiring – to see how far FIRST has come, and to see how so many people who care about FIRST robotics. We got to listen to many inspiring speakers, such as Maggie Hassan, Dean Kamen, and even a New Hampshire senator! FIRST has truly influenced many lives and awoken inspiration and passion in the hearts of many. States also spoke to how much of a community FIRST is. Throughout the day, we made countless friends. Our robot performed well in matches – Off the field, however, we were constantly repairing it and retesting our autonomous. It was incredibly exciting to be among the finalists. As a rookie team at a stressful school we never could’ve gotten there had it not been for our hard work and dedication. Although our robot disconnected in the end, it was overall a successful day – We brought diversity to the NH FIRST Teams, and we even won the Inspire Award! Afterwards, we celebrated with a team dinner at Capital Thai and climbed up hills of snow. Detroit, here we come!
Overall scouting at States was a scramble. From having our scouts constantly having to move from field to field, not having WIFI access, not every scout having a phone that could use data, and phones running out of batteries it was indeed a scramble. But, I think this was necessary. We only implemented a non-paper based scouting system before our 3rd scrimmage and since we are a rookie team we were not aware of the lack of WIFI at the states venue. Now we are able to change our scouting system so instead of using a google form we are using an android emulator (for team members with macs) and the Orange Alliance Software in conjunction with the scouting app from the Iowa ICE FTC team. In the future we are looking to develop our own scouting system but, currently our programmers are pretty swamped. We are also planning on bringing portable chargers to Worlds. Another thing that made scouting through goggle forms hard at States was it was hard to compile the data on the top teams going into Alliance Picks, since we were the number 3 seed this caused me to go into Alliance Picks without knowing the stats of the top robots which made both hard and extremely stressful. We hope our new scouting system will counteract this problem. -- Kai L, Head Scout
Going in, I felt nervous but excited for every one of our five matches. All of the drive team felt pressure trying to perform the best we could so that we don't let down our teammates. All the teams at the state's championship were incredibly supportive, and we communicated ahead of times with them about what we wanted to achieve in matches. I was extremely impressed by the maturity level of other team coaches who I had the honor to work with. All the teams expressed gracious professionalism and communicated clearly about what they wanted to accomplish during the matches. There were times we had to make decisions on the spot when it came to conflicting free programs, but in the end, everything worked out well. -- Penny B, Coach
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With Penny and Neil alternating as our team coach, Joy and I piloted our final robot at the State Championship. With everything fixed, and having a few hours of practice, we went into our first match. Scoring more minerals than we ever had, along with a perfect autonomous, it was a surprise. However, we could not stop there. We realized that the dumper was missing a lot of the time, and throughout the day, we came up with a few solutions to fix the problem. By the team we reached the playoffs, everything was working pretty well. Semi- Finals - against Gluten Free. First round we were disconnected and unable to play. Second round we did our best, but obviously Gluten Free won the match and continued to win first place. As a driver and mechanical member, it was amazing to actually be able to control what I had worked on - and see my creations work. Especially for a rookie team starting from scratch, I felt proud of how far the robot had gotten. We did take notes of even more things to fix, and since we won Inspire, we will be working on those up until Worlds! -- Vincent X, driver
Getting everything done for the engineering notebook was a rush – on the bus to the competition, we realized that we had forgotten to print a few pages which ended up with Penny and Summer running around the campus, trying to find a printer. However, in the end, we got everything together in the end (even though Summer’s photo ended up next to Mr. Gallo’s introduction). After that, I scouted, which was much more complicated due to the fact that we couldn’t connect to wifi. States was a blast, even though the judging room was extremely cold. -- Celine T
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Daily Entries September 24, 2018 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Design Lab Attendance: Neil, Panda, Celine, David Wang, Electrical and Neil, Programming Joy, David Song, Penny, Felix, Steven, David Wang, Kai
Goals Results Introduce the use of Onshape CAD, and learn how to Everyone learned how to insert and attach different attach and insert Tetrix parts. parts and assembled a basic mechanical structure. Understand game rules and have a sense of strategies Every member grasped a general idea about the game. in the game. Start using GitHub in preparation for programming the We created a GitHub organization for our code. robot when we get our Android phones. https://github.com/15534
By next meeting… Reflection
Read game manual 1 I think we are all a little bit more familiar with Onshape now.
Watch the introductory video for After this meeting, only the CAD group will use Onshape to the game this year design our robot, but we now understand the basics of how Watch a lot of Onshape tutorials CAD works. If we need a CAD design for a part or assembly from (sketching basics, dimensions, the CAD team, we will know how to describe what we need. constraints, transforms: extrude, -- Neil C. loft, rotate, sweep, etc.).
Reflection Decisions:
Today was our first meeting! We met up with all of our members in the Include more mechanical
Design Lab. Our adviser Mr. Gallo introduced us to Computer-Aided Designs members due to the
on Onshape and showed us how to use all of the equipment and safety in shortage of people and
the Design Lab. ideas and the difficulty of mechanical itself. We also went over the game rules. We have a great setup of motivated team members. The team is very hard-working and we all devoted much of our Use GitHub to make time into the project, with zest and the eager of success. We assigned collaboration within members into sub-groups that they are passionate about. programming group easier -- David W.
Exeter students in their natural habitat – A Harkness discussion. [Neil, Kai, Vincent, Mr. Gallo, possibly Penny]
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October 3, 2018 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Design Lab Attendance: Steven, Panda, Panda, CAD David Song, Felix, Neil
Goals Results Figure out the part studio features on Onshape. Everyone joined the robotics club to learn about basic sketch features on Onshape. This was followed a lesson about assembly features on Onshape with David Song. Then everyone tried building the robot in the FTC Basic Bot Guide for TETRIX. Complete general logistics. We signed up for FIRST accounts. Get a better idea of the competition. We watched the game introduction video again, and started discussing some strategy briefly. We also watched a few other videos of the mechanics of past FTC robots.
By next meeting… Reflection
Decide each person’s role on the I haven’t used Onshape before, so this is a new and exciting
team using a Google Form experience. The program is so neat and super user-friendly, Watch more videos on past FTC which I love. I hope I can learn more about the tools through robots and rules– The more insight watching more tutorials. the better! The videos of past FTC competitions looked really cool, which Sign consent and release form made me excited to start working on the robot soon. Signing up Get mouses to work on CAD more for FTC accounts made it feel official— I’m eager to make this efficiently the best robot ever! Watch online CAD tutorials: Revolve, Loft, Sweep -- Panda A.
October 6, 2018 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Attendance: Steven, Felix, Neil, Library Joy, Penny, Celine, David Wang, Celine, CAD Vincent, Panda, David Song
Goals Results Watch a video about the game rule and discuss Everyone understood score taking and came up with a strategies. plan to get the highest score possible. Split up into different sections and discuss within the Mechanical/Electrical group came up with a design of sections about robot design. the robot and specific parts it would need for unique functions. CAD group listened in on the demands of the Mechanical/Electrical group, discussed game strategy, and learned more about CAD. Programming group brainstormed which programs would be ideal for each possible mechanism
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By next meeting… Reflection
Finish the tasks I’m glad to be part of the CAD group! Today was a very efficient day. Seeing that the sub-group the video made our project seem ten times as cooler. As I looked around the leaders assigned. room I saw that each member was contributing in discussion passionately. I
(if there are any) have a feeling our robot will be a great multitasker! Read the contents -- Celine T. of game manual 2,
which explains the game rules in more It’s us! (David Song’s detail than the taking the picture.) video. For [Steven, David Wang, example, in the Neil, Felix, Joy, Penny, video, it says that Celine, Panda, robot cannot Vincent] control more than two minerals. What is the
definition of "control"?
______
October 10, 2018 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Attendance: Penny, Neil, Panda, Design Lab Celine, David Song, Vincent, Mia Panda, CAD
Goals Results Get to know the Design Lab, where we’re going to We got a tour of the design lab and learned briefly spend the majority of our time for building the robot. what tools we have, and what tools we are missing. We also learned how to use some of the tools we have. Discuss more strategy. We discussed strategy, using our design lab table as a mock playing field. Learn even more about CAD. The CAD group stayed behind to work and learn more CAD features on Onshape till 5:30.
By next meeting… Reflection Read articles and books It’s currently 5:30pm; David, Celine, and I stayed behind to learn some on FTC strategies and CAD features. All of this is not as complicated as it seems, thanks to tips David. He is intense but a great teacher. We learned a lot on CAD today. Add $25 contribution We toured the Design Lab to see what tools were available for us and to the team budget what we were missing. There are these large power machines that look intimidating... We then used a table in the lab as a mock playing field, which helped me visualize what the game is like. Overall, a productive day! 89 | Page -- Panda A. VERTEX
October 12, 2018 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm Attendance: Vincent, Neil, Penny, Design Lab Kai, David Song, Panda, Celine, David Song, CAD Manny, Joy Goals Results Team Members Unpack the Tetrix parts Successfully unpacked all the parts, Celine, Panda, David Song, Kai except the Communication Set. Categorize the Tetrix parts. Sorted the Tetrix parts according to Celine, Panda, David Song, Kai the categories on the Tetrix Standard Competition Set Bill of Parts. Adapt VEX Mecanum wheels to We successfully adapted all four Celine, Panda, David Song, Kai Tetrix structure. wheels for TETRIX. Recycle the boxes. We strongly believe that everyone Everyone present has the responsibility to protect the environment. We consulted New Hampshire state recycling laws. Start building the chassis. We found the pieces we needed to Vincent, Joy, Manny build the chassis, and started on the gearing. Because of wheel complications, we did not get very far into building the chassis.
Next meeting… Reflection Engineering notebook staff Our parts arrived much sooner than expected! First mech team meeting meeting! The CAD team helped successfully unpack all of the Tetrix
Finish building the chassis parts except for the Communication Set in our Hardware spreadsheet. We categorized them according to the categories on the Tetrix Standard Competition Set Bill of Parts. This thankfully helped give our Decisions: designers a head start so they could work more efficiently. We We decided that in the future, ordered VEX wheels for a TETRIX bot, so Manny, Joy and I had to Panda and Celine are going to be brainstorm ideas on how to mount the TETRIX axle onto the VEX the “CAD Journalists” of our wheel. It was difficult, but we came up with a solution. The Mechanical Mechanical Team, who will take Group finished all four wheels, and started building the chassis. records of what the Mechanical Team does each day. -- Vincent X.
< A whole bunch of boxes. Our parts are here! [Neil] Recycling is important! [David, Panda, Celine] >
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So many parts… We referred to our hardware spreadsheet and the Tetrix Bill of Parts to sort Joy and Vincent adapting the Mecanum wheel. them all.
A mecanum wheel with a sharpie for scale. [Vincent]
Juggling! (We can have fun, too!) [Penny, Mr. Gallo in the background]
^ Finally done! We even got our own shelves in the Design Lab!
Collaboration! We all worked together to categorize the parts. [Kai, Manny, Neil, Vincent] >
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October 14, 2018 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm Attendance: Vincent, David Song, Design Lab Joy, Panda, Manny, Celine, Celine, CAD and Joy, Mechanical Penny, Neil Goals Results Team Members Finish building the chassis. We mounted two TETRIX Mecanum Joy, Vincent, Manny wheels with motors onto a channel Start making a CAD model of our We created an Onshape file, David Song, Celine, Panda progress on our robot. downloaded CAD models of all the parts, and documented Mechanical group’s progress. Make a test robot as a reference We built a basic robot consisting of Penny, Neil, Celine, Panda model for programming group three channels, two motor- powered wheels, and two omni wheels. Once we receive the phones (hopefully tomorrow), we will be able to test our robot.
By next meeting… Reflection Set up the Android Today, the we worked on completing the chassis and the programming phones and possibly team constructed a dummy robot. Complications arose because Vincent, try writing some OP Manny, and I failed to account for the difference between motor shaft modes. hubs and axles hubs when constructing the Mecanum wheels. Generate thoughts on Additionally, the Torquenado motors are larger than we previously finding sponsors and anticipated, and furthering the design is necessary before proceeding. community outreach Meeting the three-weak deadline is proving difficult, but I am optimistic activities because the dedication of our leaders is immensely inspiring. Figure out a solution -- Joy L. to the problem of the chassis Failures Decisions: Mechanical group ran into some complications due to the parts we ordered. However, we overcame this by customizing the wheels we We decided to form a ordered ourselves and adjusting our initial design. Community Outreach committee to manage our budget and organize What happens when outreach activities and programming group events. We invited tries to build their Summer Hua into our team own robot… to lead our Community Outreach committee. [Penny, Neil] We decided to use decided to use nylocs instead of Tetrix kept nuts, since nylocs are stronger.
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Competent robot builders. Where’s Vincent? Has he gone to witness the programmers’ distress? [Joy, Manny] There he is! So that’s what he was doing… [Vincent]
< Spectators of the programming group fiasco
(and Vincent). [David S, Vincent, Manny]
The programming group, managing to figure things out. [Panda, Penny, Neil] >
CAD models! On the left is our progress on the robot, and on the right is a CAD of the wheel adaptors mechanical built. CAD is just the coolest subgroup, isn’t it?
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October 17, 2018 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Attendance: Celine, Panda, Neil, Design Lab Felix, Steven, Manny, Penny, David Song, CAD Vincent, David Wang, David Song Song, Kai, Mia, Summer Goals Results Team Members Discuss the team’s identity. Generated some ideas and have some All consensus over our team’s color scheme, values, mission Learn the OpenCV library Our chief programmer, Penny, did a Programming group stellar job of instructing her group members to learn the basics of the library. Wire the sample robot for Since we did not have too much prior Electrical Group programming group. experience with REV expansion hub, we wrongly soldered the wires and might need to desolder in the future. Finish the chassis of the robot. We successfully completed the chassis of Mechanical Group the robot. It was a really intense building session. We were highly productive, and our progress was beyond expectation.
By next meeting… Reflection Assemble our lander We had an extremely fruitful session today. We first started off with a Start and finish the linear discussion on our team identities, vision, mission and logo design. After lift on the robot that, programming group focused on an introduction of a library name Reach out to the FIRST “OpenCV”. Our chief programmer, Penny, did a perfect job of instructing community her group members to learn the basics of the library. Electrical group focused on wiring a sample robot for the programming group. Unfortunately, being unfamiliar with REV expansion hub, our electrical Decisions: group failed to wire the robot correctly and even used a bit of Before Friday, we need to soldering... Although Vincent was the only person who stayed for a long collect everyone’s ideas on time in mechanical group, we were being highly productive and efficient. vision, mission and goals. It is Vincent and I cooperated closely on mechanical and CAD work and only with creativity that we finally finished the chassis of the robot. Engineering is always a process can establish a unique team of trial and error. We understand this from the very beginning when we identity. founded our team. No matter what difficulties we are going to face in We need to do a new round of the future, we will always be a close team and love each other till the purchases, because we need very end. acrylic sheets for our robot. -- David S.
Failures We wrongly connected the wires and chose to solder the encoder of the connectors on the REV expansion hub directly, instead of using the logic level shifters and another JST PH cable. We always need to watch tutorials before we build the robot. We wrongly assembled certain parts, and we had to throw away many parts that were damaged. We need to be more conscious of what we’re doing with our parts.
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Vincent putting his life back together (with help). He’s also finishing the chassis. [Vincent, David Song] We (Celine) are naming him Vincent Jr. [Vincent Jr.]
Our CAD model looks fantastic! < [Vincent Jr.]
It took some effort, but programming finished their robot! [Steve] >
______
October 20, 2018 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Attendance: Celine, Panda, Design Lab Manny, Mia, Vincent, David, Kai Penny, Programming
Goals Results Team Members Assemble the lander. We named him Gerald and are excited Panda, Celine, Mia, Penny to begin testing out Vincent Jr. Finish the linear lift. We started working on the linear lift. Mechanical group Reach out to the FIRST We reached out to Karen Jin, the Community outreach committee community director of FLL at the University of New Hampshire.
By next meeting… Decisions: Complete the METIT Everyone needs to complete the METIT Survey before next Wednesday. Figure out sponsorship We want to make sure everyone on the team is comfortable with each and team merchandise other. Start programming the The community outreach budget needs to be mapped out before next controllers Wednesday. We want to effectively contribute to the community around Finish the linear lift us.
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Reflection Failures
We had an extremely fruitful session today. Celine, Mia, Panda and I We skipped a step in the completed building the landers for the field setup. The electrical group fixed ladder assembly the wiring on the prototype bot(which will be used by programming group to instructions, so we need
test the controllers and OpenCV program while the mechanical group’s to take special care to focusing on the main robot design). Mechanical group replaced the keps nuts follow instructions when with nylocks due to better vibration resistance. Programming didn’t have a assembling the rest of
meeting today because the phones haven’t arrived. I also reached out to the field.
Karen Jin, the director of FLL at the University of New Hampshire for One of our members community outreach opportunities. Additionally, David, Vincent and I came late, and one of our created the METIT(Midterms Effort to Improve Team), an anonymous survey members got locked out
where team members can reflect, and provide ways in which we can better of the Science building. improve team dynamic amongst other things. FTC is a learning experience, in We need to be better which we will encounter many difficulties and sometimes make mistakes, but with communication so it’s more important to learn from these mistakes rather than blaming others. that this does not -- Penny B. happen again.
Some very cool logo designs! (Thanks, Panda!)
An upgraded cat bed. [Gerald] Vincent, probably reminiscing about his childhood.
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There’s someone under Gerald. Who could it be? It’s Penny! (Hey, who keeps making programmers [Unknown, Gerald] do mechanical-related jobs?) [Penny, Gerald]
We forgot the stickers.
Gerald looks great, though. He’s growing into a fine young cat bed. We’ll be able to introduce
him to Vincent Jr. soon enough. [Panda, Manny in the background, Penny,
Celine, Mr. Gallo also in the background]
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October 22, 2018 9:00 am – 10:00 am Attendance: Summer, Mia, David Remotely over Zoom Song, Penny, Kai Panda, CAD
Goals Results Team Members Figure out sponsorship We shouldn’t have sponsorship All present due to the financial means of PEA Discuss T-shirt design We told Summer what we thought All present about the t-shirt design Discuss community outreach We decided who would work on All present each aspect of our community outreach plan
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By next meeting… Reflection
Start programming Today we used the video chat app Zoom to remotely talk about aspects of the controllers team outreach. We discussed how we shouldn’t get sponsorship since we are Finish the linear lift from a privileged private school, we discussed t-shirt design hand how we’re
Outline some more going to design team t-shirts and sticker. We also brainstormed what we community outreach were going to do for community outreach. The brainstorming brought up many ideas from having local kids come to the PEA design lab to driving the plans and reach out to local people robot around a local bookstore, but in the end we consolidated are ideas and wrote them down on a google document. We also decided who would be in Failures charge of setting up each community outreach project. We also started how community outreach would affect the team’s budget with things like buying We still haven’t been craft supplies to transportation. Today’s meeting was very productive we got able to get through to a lot done but we also learned that it is hard to make decisions at 9am and Pitsco about parts, so we sometimes we need to let things sit, like the community outreach budget, till will try to call Pitsco we figure it out midday. -- Kai L. Not everyone logged into
Zoom at the same time, so we should try to Decisions: schedule meetings for We will be focusing on not only reaching out to kids about our team, later in the day. because we believe sometimes robotics teams don’t think about how the
We couldn’t really hear community also includes people who our older than them. As part of David over Zoom. He community outreach we will be driving our robot around the local mall. should probably get a We want a detail logo with a light background, since A logo with a lighter microphone, or we background is easier and more cost effective to put on shirts, but we also
should meet in person. really liked the graph detail of the second logo. ______
October 24, 2018 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Attendance: David Song, Panda, Celine, Design Lab Joy, Manny, Vincent, Penny, Neil, Felix, Panda, CAD and Felix, Programming Steven, Mia, Summer Goals Results Team Members Finalize logo and T-shirt designs We changed the T-shirt color to red Summer, Panda and adjusted the logo accordingly. Set up the phones and controller to We set up the phones, configured Programming group the programming robot the controllers and set up the expansions hub. We also downloaded and experimented with Android Studio. Work on the linear lift The base of the lift was completed, Mechanical group with the assistance of some CAD members helping screw things in. Community outreach We contacted Ms. Reyes for the Mia Harris Hamily Student Center afternoon workshop.
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Next meeting… Reflection
Set up OpenCV Today all the groups (Mechanical, CAD, programming, outreach) had a Work on the linear lift meeting. The mechanical worked on the linear lift with the assistance of Set up the field the CAD group. The phones finally arrived, so we set them up. We also configured the controllers and set up the expansion hub, as well as downloaded and experimented with Android Studio. This meeting was Failures very productive, especially for the programming group. It almost seems The work was not evenly as though the time when we needed to leave came too soon. We learned distributed (only one or two that it is important to distribute the workload evenly so that it can be people in the programming done in the shortest time. group were working at any -- Felix Z. given time), so we’re going to think of a way to divide the work evenly. Penny is working on a google document detailing programming group’s jobs. Some people came late, and some people came early, Our revised team logo (for our which hindered our shirt). [Vernon] productivity. We need to communicate meeting times more effectively and make sure that each person is committed to coming to most, if not all, meetings. Our team shirt! It looks super cool, even though we forgot to give one to Mr. Gallo! [Vernon]
They’re finally doing This was supposed to be a CAD group can help, too! programming related jobs. candid photo, but ok. [Panda, [Celine, Panda] [Steven, Neil, David W, Felix] David S, Vincent, Joy]
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October 26, 2018 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Attendance: David S, Panda, Design Lab (Mechanical and CAD) and Science Lounge (Programming) Celine, Vincent, Joy, Manny, Celine, CAD Penny, Neil, Steven, David W, Felix Goals Results Team Members Set up OpenCV We managed to get the robot to Penny, Neil move and recognize the gold particle. Set up the field We placed the tiles and set up the Celine, Panda, David S, David W, wall surrounding the field. Steven Work on the linear lift It’s nearly done! Mechanical Group
By next meeting… Reflection Continue working with This meeting was super productive! In only 2 hours, the mechanical group OpenCV almost finished the linear lift, the field was mostly set up (and the boxes Finish setting up the field containing all the parts for the field were recycled), and the programming Finalize the chassis group managed to do a lot of stuff! It was truly life-changing to see Steve move towards the gold particle on his own. I feel like we’re starting to come together as a team, and I have high hopes for the future! Failures -- Celine T. We started cleaning up too late, so Mr. Gallo had to stay Decisions: 10-15 minutes after the Design Lab was supposed to We’re only going to put our groups on our t-shirts, instead of specific close. We need to start roles. We want a sense of equality among our teammates, since we ARE a cleaning up sooner and more team and each person contributes something, so we aren’t going to put efficiently! “Team Mom” on Neil’s t-shirt. We accidentally placed all the The programming group decided to split their roles into more subgroups, tiles upside down. We have a for a more even distribution of roles and responsibility. Penny created a problem with not reading document detailing each task the different subgroups would undertake, instructions… and people were assigned to each.
Shh… The programmers are working very hard… [Neil, Penny] IT’S ALIVE!! [Steve]
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Cutting off all the tabs is rather tedious… If only
there were a better way… [Panda, David S]
A precious child as he takes his first few steps. Pay no attention to the screws that are falling off. [Penny, Vincent Jr. is growing into Why didn’t we think of this Steve] a fine young robot. earlier? [Steven]
[Vincent Jr.]
Friendship. [Vincent Jr, Gerald]
< Mallets: good solutions for Go Mech! [Vincent Jr, Vincent, Manny] everything. [David W] ______
October 27, 2018 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm Attendance: David Song, Remotely over Zoom Summer, Mia, Penny, Kai Summer, Community Outreach
Today, we finalized the T-shirt designs and confirmed the roles of everyone in the team. We also decided to create a website so to spread awareness about FTC more effectively and help others understand the competition. It would also be a great platform for us to showcase our progress and growth over the period of time that we are preparing for the competition. We decided the timings for our school visits to teach younger students about Robotics and we are all very excited about that.
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October 28, 2018 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Attendance: David S, Panda, Design Lab Celine, Vincent, Joy, Manny, Joy, Mechanical Penny, Neil, Steven Goals Results Team Members Set up OpenCV Progress has been made. Penny, Neil Set up the field We replaced the tiles, which were Celine, Panda, David S, David W, originally placed incorrectly. Steven Finalize the chassis Finalized the chassis, functioning Mechanical group wiring, worked on lock mechanism for lift, and brainstormed for intake mechanism.
By next meeting… Reflection Finalize and test the Manny exited the team today due to college applications, and we are sad to linear lift see him go, but seniors at our school are very busy. Nevertheless, we had an Use OpenCV to extremely productive meeting! CAD group finished setting up field. The identify the gold mechanical group and the programming group confirmed the robot’s ability to mineral both enter and exit the crater. Mechanical and programming team worked together to create a functioning program and control system for the Reflection mecanum wheels. While team chemistry is sometimes tense, the celebration marked a turning point in our dynamic. Programming group kept experimenting on -- Joy L. OpenCV and setting up the development environment to allow smooth development in the future. Group members have been working together to delve into the programming manual. -- Steven G.
Gerald has a place to live now! We got visitors! [Joy, Penny, Neil, Failures [Gerald] Vincent] We got the robot into the crater, but we < We got couldn’t get it out the robot in. without taking out the Will we be linear slide; we need to able to get balance its center of him out? gravity, but this will be [Vincent Jr.] easily remedied when we add the intake Yay CAD!!! > mechanism! [Vincent Jr.] 102 | Page
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October 10, 2018 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Attendance: David Song, Neil, Design Lab Celine, Vincent, Kai David Song, CAD
Goals Results Team Members Use OpenCV to remove the block. The programmers succeeded in Neil using OpenCV to remove gold minerals. The robot first aligns the center of its camera with the block, and then push the gold mineral away easily. Test the linear lift, examine The robot succeeded in lifting itself Vincent, Joy, Neil whether the robot can lift itself up from the ground. However, we did not let the robot hold on for a long time because we don’t wanted to stall the torquenado motors. Finalize the linear lift The mechanical group worked on Mechanical changing the design of the linear lift so that it is stronger and more durable. We think that it is essential to the performance of the robot.
By next meeting… Reflection Check on We have made exciting progress today. This is the first time we see our robot solving each real FTC tasks, including removing the gold mineral, and lift itself up onto the linear subgroup’s lift. The mechanical group did not make too much progress. But they have been progress working on strengthening the linear lift, which is essential to our successful. The sad Order T-shirts thing about this meeting is that not many people come today. Some have SAT, some Arrange have other school work… Sadly, since many team members cannot come to this community meeting, the atmosphere in the design lab is not as warm as it was before. But no outreach matter what, we are proceeding at the fastest rate we can get and we are making activities huge progress. I hope we can fix our current problem with team management in the Fix and adjust future. the linear lift -- David S.
Decisions: Failures We need to make the Not many students were able to come to the design lab for this meeting. Some linear lift stronger, since students find it hard to come to the design lab because there is SAT tomorrow. it’s already struggling to Some others have too much homework to do, while programmers do not have support the robot’s too much to do. We should make better use of the power of everyone on the weight and we haven’t team. Our current team structure is slightly problematic. We also need to figure yet added the intake and out a way our members can easily balance the time commitment behind this dumper. team with the workload at PEA.
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Linear lift Success! first test (With help) [Gerald, [Gerald, Vincent Jr.] Vincent Jr., Vincent’s elbows]
Go Steve! (Steve can also push an orange.) [Steve]
______
November 7, 2018 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Attendance: David Song, Penny, Design Lab Kai, Summer, Felix, Panda, Kai, Electrical Celine, Vincent Goals Results Team Members Check in with every group about At the start of our meeting we met David Song, Penny, Kai, Summer, progress made outside the design lab and heard Felix, Panda, Celine an update about what each group had accomplished so far Order T-shirts It ended in a debate on whether to David Song, Summer order each t-shirt individually or all the t-shirts as a group, we also figured out when we need to go to Ms. Hobbie to get school funding for the t-shirts. Go over team mission and discuss At the start of the meeting we David Song, Penny, Kai, Summer, importance of engineering went over and revised our team Felix, Panda, Celine notebook mission and we went over the importance of the engineering notebook Work on fixing the linear lift and Vincent spent the meeting in the Vincent work on the robot design lab, so the linear lift is now fixed. Get plans in place for Community Kai emailed Seacoast Outright and David Song, Penny, Kai, Summer, Outreach opportunities Girls Who Code to set up dates for Felix, Panda, Celine when we are going also we decided who is going to each community outreach event
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By next meeting… Reflection
Come up with ideas for a disposal Overall this was a very productive meeting we started with an mechanism agenda which worked great because it kept us focused and Change the lift system. timely. We had a really high turnout of people today and I
Measure the robot think this was partly due to not a lot of sports having games the week before EA. Also we looked at the team more holistically instead of broken down into sub groups which was Decisions: nice. We decided to order the T-shirts as a -- Kai L. group after we get funding to be more
organized. Failures We decided who’s going on each community outreach activity. Many people weren’t given clear plans of what they needed to Community outreach is an important do during this meeting after our initial discussion. We need to part of FTC, and everyone should make sure every subgroup knows what they need to do on a participate! given day.
The sun has set on another productive meeting! [Panda, Felix, David S]
______
November 9, 2018 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Attendance: Panda, Vincent Design Lab Panda, CAD
Goals Results Team Members Come up with ideas for a Successfully brainstormed some ideas Vincent disposal mechanism for the disposal mechanism. Continue working on the intake Made some progress on the intake Vincent system system of the robot. Measure the robot Confirms the robot’s measurements Vincent and check that the robots are able to do required tasks. Change the lift system. Our first draft of the robot included the Vincent concept of a cascade lift, however, we built a rack and pinion slide instead. CAD the progress of the robot Caught up on the CAD of the robot on Panda OnShape.
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By next meeting… Reflection
Draft the STEM Day proposal We didn’t have as many team members as usual as many Create a harvester for the robot of the team members has other commitments, but those Work on the team’s website of us who were there were motivated covered for the
work of those who aren’t there as we are nearing the end of the term Failures -- Panda A. The meeting was during the pep rally for
Exeter/Andover games and many people were Decisions: out of town for HMMT, so not many students are able to come to the design lab for this After a few test runs, although the lift worked, it was
meeting. We should try to communicate and extremely inefficient, since the motors had to be on all arrange time with team members to ensure the time. So, Vincent decided to switch from a 1:3 gear people are able to attend. ratio to a 1:4 worm gear box, which minimizes backlash. ______
November 11, 2018 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Attendance: Summer, Penny, Design Lab Neil, David S., Vincent, Joy David Song, CAD
Goals Results Team Members Draft the STEM Day proposal We came up with two plans for STEM Day. Summer, Penny, David, Neil, Felix Create the harvester for robot The harvester is made up of several lengths Mechanical of rotatable surgical tubing. While designing the harvester, Joy and Vincent also tried to ensure that it can only take in two blocks at a time. Draft a plan for our team’s Our plan is also attached to the end of this Summer, David website entry. Hope that you like it! https://www.ftcvertex.com/
By next meeting… Reflection
Work on the website and the EN Even though we lacked many parts, we still got a good Reschedule meeting with Ms. Reyes amount done today. We lacked the adequate axle from REV, so I had to make my own square axle using Decisions: TETRIX Prime Beams and makeshift set screws. We ended up finishing, and testing, our working harvester. We came up with a Plan A and a Plan B for STEM – Vincent X. Day. Plan A, our ideal plan, includes a showcase of student projects and presentations from local Failures professors. Plan B would be more of a Tech Since many students on our team are MUN members, Forum. they had no choice but to go to MUN. The conflict We registered a SquareSpace account before, but between clubs is inevitable. However, there is still a then Neil mentioned that Wordpress is free and way to get around the conflicts. We are planning to better, so we cancelled our squareSpace account. make our robotics team a sports team on campus rather than a club.
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The harvester mechanism [Vincent Jr.]
Our plan for the website > https://www.ftcvertex.com/
______
November 14, 2018 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Attendance: Vincent, Joy, Celine, Design Lab Panda, Neil, David S, Steven David Song, CAD
Goals Results Team Members Work on creating the We just switched to wordpress and Steven & Neil Neil, Steven website successfully laid the groundwork for the website: www.ftcvertex.com Beautify the engineering Celine worked on formatting the engineering Celine notebook notebook. (Unfortunately, Mia left because of the volume of work she has at Exeter.) Work on the harvester Mechanical group continued to work on the Mechanical harvester. Follow the progress of CAD group strived to follow the footsteps of Celine, Panda the robot in CAD mechanical group on the CAD model of the robot. Reschedule meeting with We rescheduled meeting with Ms. Reyes and David Song Ms. Reyes and YMCA created a YMCA signup form to let team members sign-up sign up for YMCA community outreach program: https://goo.gl/forms/p4ctDr4g1Fmg1iu02
Failures
We could not progress as planned due to the fact that our time slot conflicts with sports tryouts. Time slot conflicts are unavoidable. In our school, if we don’t make robotics a sport, it is very hard for it to survive. We could not meet Ms. Reyes because most students cannot come. We went to reschedule our meeting with her to the first Friday of winter term.
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By next meeting… Reflection
Send emails to Girls Who I’m really excited for the YMCA community outreach program! It seems Code and Seacoast really fun. Beautifying the engineering is proving to be a lot harder than I Outright expected – Getting the formatting just right is sort of hard, since I don’t
Plan for community have a lot of experience with Word, but the engineering notebook’s outreach starting to look great! Work on driving the robot -- Celine T.
< Our google form for YMCA sign up
CAD of the harvester >
He’s growing up so quickly… already running around the field… [Vincent Jr.]
A screenshot of our website’s homepage. It already looks great!
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November 17, 2018 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Attendance: Summer, Penny, Design Lab Neil, David S, Vincent, David W, David Wang, Electrical Felix, Steven, Kai, Celine Goals Results Team Members Send emails to girls who We have confirmed the dates for the presentation. The Kai, Summer, Penny, code and seacoast website also incorporated many aspects of the team, David S, Neil, Felix, outright, build on the such as gender ratios and international student ratios, Steven, David W website, and write etc. We put all the self-introductions of the team personal introductions. members onto the website as well. Complete the YMCA We did the YMCA survey to determine who will be going Kai, Summer, Penny, survey to teach EV3. David S, Neil, Felix, Steven, David W Create a robot to carry After half an hour of discussion, we came up with a bold David W, Steven, David objects for injured plan, to design and program a robot to help athletes and S, Felix students on campus. students who were injured and on crutches to carry their heavy backpack every day. Be able to drive the robot Our plan has failed due to the battery connector Vincent, Neil with one joystick breaking.
By next meeting… Reflection
Finish building the robot Even though we have made careless mistakes, we still have made a
Decide on drivers huge progress today. We lacked the adequate management of the Program both controllers robot wirings, so we had to compensate for our own actions. Mount and configure the Community outreach programs were successful, and we were looking expansion hubs. forward to building the robot to help the vast student body in need on the entire campus with our knowledge.
Failures -- David W. The wire connecting the battery to the expansion hub was Decisions: broken, which means we won’t We finally came to the design of a robot carrying the load that can be able to run it for a week even follow the student who has a beacon in their pocket, so the robot can though we tried to solder it track their location. We decided to use Raspberry Pi as the main together because we broke it controller, and brushless motors for the driving source. Also, it needs to again. The program of the avoid crashing into walls or other people, so there are other technical mecanum wheel was wrong so issues that we have to discuss when we are making the robot. we drove the robot in the wrong direction. We need to be more careful with the robot and especially the delicate wiring of it. We have to make a clear plan to fix the robot without breaking it again.
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November 21, 2018 – December 2, 2018 Thanksgiving Break Attendance: Vincent, Kai, Penny Vincent’s House Vincent, Mechanical
Since Vincent, Kai and Penny are all Day Students, they were able to work on the robot, and some programming over break. Vincent brought part of the field and the robot to his house.
Goals Results Team Members Finish The disposal “dumpers”, intake, linear lift, and latching mechanisms were Vincent (building, building the complete by Vincent. Vincent also added two swivel feet to help with the designing), Kai robot. weight balance while hanging. Kai finished the robot wiring. (electrical, wiring)
Mount and Our first expansion hub(HUB1) contained only the 4 motors needed to Vincent configure the drive the robot. The other expansion hub(HUB2) contained both motors expansion to power the linear lift, the motor to power the intake, and the motor to hubs. lift the intake. HUB2 also had the 2 dumper servos. This configuration was set up under the FinalConfig configuration on the app. Decide on We decided that Vincent and Kai would be the drivers, for they are both Penny, Kai, Vincent drivers. day students. Kai will operate the drivetrain(HUB1) while Vincent would operate the mechanisms(HUB2). Program both Penny successfully programmed each controller with each drivers’ Penny controllers. preferences.
Prepare for Vincent wrote a Team Song, to the tune of Jingle Bells, and packed up Penny, Kai, Vincent the everything we needed. Penny made a poster and did a cool code demo, December while Kai prepared a slideshow of our team working, just to name a few 2nd Demo of the things we did.
By next meeting… Reflection
Edit the STEM Day Even though we only had three people, we made great progress this break. I all-school email finished as much of the robot as I could, while Kai wired the entire robot. Penny CAD the phone programmed the controller and taught me how to customize the code to suit mount me better. We also attended the December 2nd FLL State Championship, demo- ing our robot for the FLL students and getting them excited about FTC! We got Decisions: many FLL enthusiasts excited for the next level of FIRST, by demo-ing our robot We decided that and having interactive activities. We also talked about our STEM Day, and many Vincent and Kai would teams were interested in coming. We got their contact information so that we be the drivers, for they could contact them in the future as well! are both day students. -- Vincent X. Kai will operate the drivetrain (HUB1) while Failures: Vincent would operate the mechanisms Since TETRIX uses D shaped axles, each wheel is held on to the axle with one set (HUB2). We didn’t make screw. We found out the hard way that one set screw was not strong enough, many other decisions so we had to completely redo the drivetrain, using more set screws. We need to over break due to not carefully plan out every step of the robot, accounting for parts’ bad designs. We having other team could not finish the linear lift because the Worm Gear Box was out of stock on members present. PITSCO. We should order parts as soon as we know we need them.
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December 5, 2018 Lounge, Design Lab Attendance: David S., Vincent, Kai, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm Summer, Neil, Steven, Felix, Celine, David Song, CAD Panda
Goals Results Team Members Get the t-shirts. Our coolest T-shirts arrived! Almost all team members took David S., Vincent, Kai, their own T-shirt from the box. We were originally planning on Summer, Neil, Steven, taking photos. But since we don’t have a good background, we Felix, Celine, Panda decided to postpone that.
Community Summer and Kai reviewed our draft of the all-school email for Summer, Kai Outreach: STEM our STEM Day outreach project and sent it out. Day all-school email Here is a link to our final draft: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cgdTe- I50l61tf2vbmkojsXfJ6NHsZ6vs_PD_v-1Duo/edit?usp=sharing CAD: Phone mount We have attempted one phone mount design already. David S., Celine & However, since there are many limitations for the design of Panda phone mount. That version (v1) did not fit the robot. So, David S. decided to teach Celine and Panda to do in context designing and let them treat this as their first practice.
By next meeting… Reflection Build a battery Ehmmm…. Sounds like Vincent, Penny and Kai had made amazing process mount during the Thanksgiving break. Now it is time for everyone to get back to work! Make a CAD of the STEM Day is being actively organized and the team has gone back well on track! phone mount I am glad to teach Panda and Celine how to CAD, and when I check their CAD
models in the evening, I was surprised by the excellence of their work! So glad
Decisions: to be their teacher.
We decided since we -- David S. didn’t have a good background for team Failures:
photos to postpone it The first version of phone mount did not fit the requirement because it was until a later date. Since blindly finished in a hurry and wasn’t design based on the need of the robot. the phone mount didn’t We should use in context design for all the CAD parts of the robot. Also, we work David S. decided to failed to include the organizer sign up link in the all-school email. We learned teach Celine and Panda that in case of an important email, all members of the planning group should to do in context proofread it before sending it out. designing.
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First version of phone mount, looks good, but failed
since it does not fit on the robot >
< David S. & Steven
in the ESSO Robotics meeting
December 3, 2018 – December 8, 2018 Various locations By Vincent Xiao, Mech
Everyone was very busy the week after break, so Vincent worked on the robot a lot over that week, finishing almost everything needed to be done. Meanwhile, CAD Group made a CAD of the phone mount and also printed it.
Goals Results Team Members Add a servo to assist Vincent added a vertical servo to assist with the intake Vincent with the intake latching lift. Now, the lift can latch itself in, and get itself out and redesign the easily. Vincent also redesigned and built new dumpers. dumpers, which auto-sort balls and cubes.
Add a battery mount Vincent added a battery mount, and added a cover for Vincent and power switch. the battery which also doubles as a passive protector for the intake latch. Add bumpers. Vincent measured, cut, and assembled parts of poster Vincent board, to create symmetrical bumpers for our wheels. He also laminated and added our team number. Calibrate and adjust Vincent took Penny’s code for the controllers and Vincent the controller controls. added a few things, and adjusted some speed values.
Design and Print a Vincent talked with CAD group to come up with a David Song phone mount. working design. CAD Group then made a CAD of it, and Panda printed it out Celine Fix the wheels. Since the wheels stripped during break, the parts Vincent arrived a bit later. Vincent found out a way to strengthen the connections.
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By next meeting… Reflection
Start brainstorming Even though everyone else was busy on this first week of school, I felt that it is for a new Robot still necessary for me to finish building the robot. I redesigned and rebuilt Work on many parts of the robot, making it much more efficient. Additionally, Kai and I
autonomous have been practicing extensively on driving the robot. We are now very fluent in robot driving, as I have mastered all the movements of all the mechanisms, Failures: while Kai controls the robot’s movements very well.
We could not finish the -- Vincent X. linear lift because the Worm Gear Box was still Decisions: out of stock on PITSCO. We should order parts as Vincent took Penny’s code for the controllers, added a few things, and soon as we know we adjusted some speed values, and talked with CAD group to come up with a need them. working design for the phone mount.
December 9, 2018 Design Lab Attendance: Vincent, David Song, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Kai, Neil, Panda, Celine, Penny, Steven, Programming Joy, Steven
Goals Results Team Members Build a battery mount Our building process met with Joy unprecedented success. Learning the concept of in-context Our knowledge in the field has David Song, Kai, Neil, Panda, design been greatly enhanced. Celine, Vincent, Penny, Joy, Steven Making a CAD of the phone mount We have come up with a two Panda, Celine blueprints and revised based on them so that the mount conforms to our configuration of the robot STEM Day Committee We kept working on the comedy to Summer, Penny, David Song present on STEM day.
By next meeting… Reflection
Print a functioning It is always really nice to have a meeting where the whole team is in the design
phone mount lab together like we did today we often find especially in the middle of the Discuss team values season individual subgroups tend to stick to themselves, so it is always nice to and communication have an all team meeting. – Kai L.
Decisions: Failures: We have come up with a two blueprints and We failed to find Velcro squares. We need to revised based on them so that the mount organize equipment better. We shouldn’t be conforms to our configuration of the robot forgetful. We can label stuff so that we can always
find things in their corresponding places
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The In-Context Design Feature of The new “phone mount 2” designed with the in- Onshape (Allow us to build on the context design feature of Onshape CAD design of our robot) The new “phone mount 1” designed with the
in-context design feature of Onshape
December 10, 2018 Cooperative Middle School Attendance: Kai, Felix Kai and Felix Goals Results Team Members Present to middle school children It was received with enthusiasm, and overall was Kai and Felix about our robot and OpenCV a success
Explain the basics of the It was received well, and really impressed the Felix Convolutional Neural Network teachers present. However, the material may be architecture (not including training) a little too advanced for middle schoolers
By next meeting… Reflection Print a functioning It was really nice to go to girls who code. Mana and myself were both involved in phone mount Girls Who Code in middle school so it was nice to be able to give back to an Discuss team organization that gave so much to us. values and communication -- Kai L.
Failures: Unfortunately, we forgot to realize that neural networks were probably a little advanced for 6th and 7th graders. We originally anticipated an older middle school audience. We need to do more research on our
audience before going into a presentation.
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December 12, 2018 Design Lab Attendance: David Song, Kai, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Neil, Panda, Celine, Vincent, Celine, CAD and Engineering Notebook Penny, Joy Goals Results Team Members Print a functioning phone mount Although, at first, there were still a David S, Celine, Panda few minor design errors, these were remedied quickly. Discuss team values and We decided to create a code of All team members present communication conduct and began to resolve team conflicts more efficiently Test and work on autonomous The first part of the robot’s Neil mode autonomous mode was completed. We were able to successfully detect and sample a mineral, and then drive toward the alliance depot.
By next meeting… Reflection
Updating engineering I’m very excited for our scrimmage on Saturday! With the additions that
notebook programming group is making and our newly reinforced team bond, I really
Prepare for think that our team can have a fighting chance. Although it was quite scrimmage frustrating to have so many errors with the phone mount, we managed to fix them all and it really works quite well! It was very cool to learn how to use a Decisions: laser cutter and 3D printer as well.
We decided to create a -- Celine T. code of conduct and
began to resolve team Failures: conflicts more efficiently. The phone mount did not fit onto the robot at first. We should make better
use of the in context design feature of Onshape to ensure that everything is
able to fit together.
Our robot, having successfully identified the gold mineral
The golden mineral is pushed out of We discussed our team values and the way, yeah!!! First part of all formed ideas about how to autonomous is complete. proceed in the future. 115 | Page
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December 14, 2018 Attendance: David Song, Kai, Design Lab 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Neil, Penny, Panda, Celine, Joy, Panda, CAD Steven, Vincent Goals Results Team Members Prepare team for Went through schedule, meeting times, and food. David Song, Kai, Neil, tomorrow’s Penny, Panda, Celine, Joy scrimmage Establish Team We’ve had a whole team meeting, and drafted our code of David Song, Penny values conduct
Start brainstorming Even though at our last event, we were ensured that we Vincent for a new Robot had one of the best robots in NH, we wanted to take it a step further. Vincent brainstormed a new design, which incorporated a low profile robot with a much faster intake and dumping mechanism. We spent 300$ on a new purchase, in hopes of building a world class level robot. Updating engineering We took team member photos and added it to the Penny notebook website. We added our code of conduct to the website.
By next meeting… Decisions:
Come up with a new robot We’ve had a whole team meeting, and drafted our code of conduct. design. Vincent brainstormed a new design, which incorporated a low profile Build the mechanisms. robot with a much faster intake and dumping mechanism.
Reflection Failures:
We are making last minute fixes on the robot, and are stressed, but also The robot’s autonomous very excited for the scrimmage tomorrow. mode would occasionally cause it to run over the --Panda, CAD Journalist mineral, push the wrong mineral, or be unable to see Penny and Neil, hard the mineral due to the angle at work testing the of the phone camera. It also robot’s autonomous! mistook an orange as the gold mineral. Keep trying! We got it right in the end.
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December 19, 2018 – January 9, 2019 Christmas Break Attendance: Vincent Vincent’s House Vincent, Mech As we decided in a few previous meetings, we would be building a new robot. Vincent proposed a new design which would be much faster, and more efficient than our current robot. The goal was to minimize the amount of driver precision, and to score many more points! Vincent was in charge of designing and building the new robot over break.
Goals Results Team Members Come up with a Vincent came up with a new robot design, which relied on the basis of the Vincent new robot robot not having to move during the match, thus minimizing driver design. reliance. This design would have two extendable arms - one would extend the intake into the crater, another arm would take minerals and dump them into the lander. Since the robot cannot score while it is “in” the lander, our robot would position itself just outside the lander to capture and score minerals. All members on the team agreed to Vincent’s plan. Build the Since parts were ordered late, and Christmas was coming, many parts, Vincent mechanisms. including motors and wheels, came a few weeks later than planned. Thus, Vincent worked on building individual mechanisms first, and assembling them later. Vincent assembled both extensions, along with the intake and dumping mechanism, but was unable to do anything further until the rest of the parts came. His mechanisms, unlike last time, used much of VEX IQ and Lego EV3 pieces, in order to keep the robot as lightweight as possible. Finish the Vincent completed the robot by himself succesfully. The only thing left to Vincent robot. do was wiring and programming!
Failures: By next meeting…
We were not able to purchase the needed parts quickly, for there were many Starting the
objections to this plan, so we had to spend many meetings convincing those who wiring of the
objected. Thus, our parts were ordered near Christmas, putting us nearly two weeks robot
CAD the behind schedule. We need to learn to trust other team members and subgroups, so dumper we can be more efficient. The only person that contributed to the build of the second
robot was Vincent, because everybody else was away. This resulted in Vincent having to create parts out of different materials, because Laser Cutting or 3D Printing were Decisions: not available. Try to use resources when you have them. We could have pre-printed Vincent came up the parts we needed. with a new robot design, which Reflection relied on the basis of the robot not Although I was the only one working on the robot, I felt like I still did very well for the having to move amount of time I had. I got to prototype, and then build the final design, in just over during the match, two weeks. I think that this design will be much more effective than the previous. thus minimizing – Vincent X. driver reliance.
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January 9, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Neil, Joy, Kai, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Vincent, David Kai, Electrical
Goals Results Team Members Starting the wiring of the robot We prototyped different wiring mechanisms and Kai and Vincent ended up coming up with a simple, but relatively effective solution. CAD the dumper CAD group put the dumper into the robot CAD David Work on the linear actuator The linear actuator was “finished” Joy and Kai
Programming was working on Programming started working on teleop Neil teleop
By next meeting… Failures:
Finish the robot’s small We had a hard time wiring the robot since the front of the robot and mechanisms dumpers extends out and we wasted some time debating ideas. Sketch Continue to CAD the robot out the idea before we put it onto the robot and make sure we have a sold plan and that everyone agrees with the plan. Since Joy had to leave early, our actuator was assembled by members who weren’t familiar Reflection with it, so some parts were installed incorrectly. Joy ended up having to Overall I think a lot of people make a new actuator. It is better to wait to get something done right,
were stressed today and were than rush it. begrudgingly at this meeting I think this caused more conflicts Decisions: and general stress. We prototyped different wiring mechanisms and ended up coming up – Kai L. with a simple, but relatively effective solution.
Everyone’s hard at work! [Vincent, Riboflavin Central, Penny, Kai, Felix]
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January 11, 2019 Physics Classroom, Design Lab Attendance: Vincent, David S., 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Mana, Summer, Penny, Celine, Kai, Mana, Outreach David W., Panda, Joy, Neil
Goals Results Team Members Finish the robot’s small Vincent designed and built minor mechanisms, such as Vincent(mechanical mechanisms the dumper retraction mechanism. captain)
Wire the robot We were actively working on the wiring of the robot, Kai, David W, Vincent though it was still a work in progress at the end of the day. Continue to CAD the We continued to CAD the new robot. The REV pieces David S., Panda, Celine robot were different than what we were used to so we did a lot of learning. Update the website We successfully updated a “Why We Do FTC” section on Penny our website.
Working out a plan for The plan for the engineering section is pretty much Celine, Summer the engineering determined. notebook
By next meeting Reflection
Scout I recently joined the FTC team and am really inspired by the hours that every member Training has poured in. Our captains are extremely dedicated -- they spend the majority of their Finish Wiring scarce free time in the Design Lab. Additionally, there is a sense of community among the robot our team members that I really enjoyed experiencing today. We all worked together in the same area, engaging each other, cracking jokes, and having a great time. Decisions: -- Mana V. Vincent designed and built minor Failures: mechanisms, such as the dumper The robot was slightly damaged because somebody has moved its mechanisms retraction passively. Don’t use the robot if you don’t know how yet! We weren’t efficient on mechanism. finding a method to wire the robot. It takes time and patience to wire the robot.
People from the MakerFaire we were running came into our team HQ to see our robot. They found our mechanisms really cool!
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January 13, 2019 Physics Classroom, Design Lab Attendance: Vincent, David S., 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Mana, Summer, Penny, Celine, Kai, David S., CAD group David W., Panda, Joy, Neil, Felix
Goals Results Team Members Scout Training The scout were being trained. We had a point sheet Kai(head scout), David worked out so that it will be easier for them to W, David. S., Felix document the performance of different teams Finish Wiring the robot Both Expansion Hubs were mounted and everything was Vincent, and Kai wired. Continue to CAD the CADing for the new robot is a lengthy process. But CAD David S., Panda, Celine robot Group was still working on it. Coding TeleOp The robot started to move! Penny, Neil
Working out a course We generated a list of ideas for a course plan at YMCA. Mana, David S. plan for the YMCA We decided to introduce the kids there to basic robot building.
By next meeting… Reflection
Finish distance sensor It was quite a productive meeting. Many teachers came in to look at
Train drivers our robot and it started to move after numerous efforts of Penny and Neil! CAD Group is working tirelessly on the CAD model. It is so amazing Decisions: that we can get to this point. Our next scrimmage is on Jan. 19th.
We generated a list of ideas for a --David S.
course plan at YMCA.
January 16, 2019 Physics Classroom, Design Lab Attendance: Vincent, David S., 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Penny, Celine, Kai, Panda, Felix, Programming Neil, Felix
Goals Results Team Members Finish distance sensor The distance sensor code is finished and tested. It Penny, Neil, Felix works super well! Locate and fix Due to the robot not running, we were not able to Neil, Felix disconnection error locate this error Train drivers Joy and Vincent practiced and successfully scored Vincent, Joy minerals.
By next meeting Decisions:
We decided to start driver training today to limit Continue working on CAD models stress on drivers at the scrimmage. Scout training
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Reflection
This is a short meeting as many group members needed to leave after 1.5 hours. Nevertheless we were very productive. Even though the robot encountered problems, programming group is still able to get the distance sensor code done and tested on our phone. Vincent also worked really hard to fix the robot and got it working again.
-- Felix Z. ______January 18, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Vincent, David S., 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Penny, Celine, Kai, David W., David Wang, Electrical Neil
Goals Results Team Members Code testing The code worked well on the robot and it was able to finish Penny, Neil the autonomous part. Continue working on David W. temporarily moved to CAD group to lessen the David W., Celine CAD models burden and learned and modeled with Celine.
Train drivers Joy and Vincent practiced and fixed the robot accordingly Vincent, Joy
Scout training Kai made a scouting sheet for the scrimmage, and Kai, Celine, David W. everyone is ready and prepared.
By next meeting… Decisions:
Start our new poster Kai made a scouting sheet for the scrimmage. David W. temporarily moved to
Scouting sheet CAD group to lessen the burden and learned and modeled with Celine. Failures: Reflection
The meeting lasted for two hours and we were fairly productive, mainly showed The string came off the intake spool. We in the separate groups. We were able to almost complete fixing the robot before need to be aware of the scrimmage and figured out ways of further improvement when we get back mechanisms, and tomorrow.
when they jam. --David W.
January 23, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Vincent, David S, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Kai, Neil, Penny, Summer, Celine, By Vincent, Mech Mana, Felix
By next meeting… Reflection
Redesign the Intake and The newer design helps us go much faster. However, since we were unable Dumper to purchase adequate parts, some parts had to be redesigned, which turned
Redo the Dumper out to actually work! This meeting had a very low turnout, but I believe that
Extension we will perform much better at the next scrimmage!
--Vincent X.
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Goals Results Team Members Rebuild the Dumper Extension The Dumper Extension and the dumper were Vincent and Dumper redesigned and built. A dumping cycle now takes only 1.8 seconds. Laser Cut parts to reinforce We made some parts to help strengthen the David S robot. robot with our laser cutter. Start our new poster We started our new poster by engraving our Kai, David S team name and number onto it. Scout Document Kai made a DIGITAL scouting sheet! Kai
Everyone’s on the Decisions: table… [Vincent, Neil, We decided on a design Kai, David W] for our new poster. Kai also decided to switch scouting to a digital form.
February 2, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Vincent, David S, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Kai, Neil, Penny, Summer, Celine, Vincent, Mech Mana, Felix
Goals Results Team Members Talk about what went well at We discovered some working strategies that All members states, and what we need to we wanted to keep and some that we improve. wanted to improve. Redesign the Intake and Vincent came up with a new design for a Vincent Dumper more efficient intake and a faster dumper. Redo the Dumper Extension. Vincent redid the dumper extension to add Vincent cantilever support to all bearings. Come up with a plan for a Vincent decided to make everything Vincent better robot overall and what stronger by using REV servos instead of to buy. HiTech. VEX 393 motors are going to be used on the intake for faster motion. He also thought about redesigning other robot components and added needed parts to the new budget list. Plan for a new version of the Kai and Celine devised a more efficient way Kai, Celine Engineering Notebook of logging the team’s ideas and thoughts, and made a schedule along with a plan for a new structure for the Engineering Notebook
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By next meeting… Failures:
Design a new intake Parts could not be found and some were lost because of bad organization and and dumper. random placement of objects. Mechanical team needs to organize everything Set custom angular when they are done. Additionally, other team members should not be messing limits. around with mechanical tools.
Decisions: Reflection Vincent decided to make everything stronger by The meeting lasted for two hours and we were fairly productive, mainly showed using REV servos instead in the separate groups. The newer design helps us go much faster. However, of HiTech. Vincent came since we were unable to purchase adequate parts, some parts had to be up with a new design for redesigned, which turned out to actually work! This meeting had a very low turnout, but I believe that we will perform much better at the next scrimmage! a more efficient intake and a faster dumper. --Vincent X.
February 13, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Vincent, Kai, Joy, Penny, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm David S., Celine, Panda, Neil, Summer, Kai, Mech Mana Goals Results Team Members Organization I organized the electrical station and the mechanical parts at the start of Kai the meeting so it is easier for us to work CAD the actuator CAD made a model of the actuator to be laser cut and put on the robot David S., Panda bracket Alterations in Vincent gave CAD group another alternation to be made to one of our Vincent, David custom made custom pieces, so CAD group is working on it S., Panda parts EN group work EN group worked on developing an easy system to gather information Celine, Kai on planning on a daily basis from subgroups so people writing entries have the most amount of available information CO meeting with We met with a teacher from the school news/magazine and talked to All members school news her about our team, we hope this will allow for more people in our school who are not normally in the tech community to know about and get involved with robotics
By next meeting Decisions: Reflection Work on EN decided on a system for getting Our productivity today on mechanical was
custom parts information and Mech group thrown off a little bit due to how out parts
Work on decided on alterations to the didn’t come in but it was nice to have a time intake lift custom parts. this meeting when the whole team was together for the school interview because it
Failures: also allowed us afterward to do things for the EN like take group photos. After going to states we needed to really quickly put in budgets to the school for more parts. Since it takes time for – Kai L. the school to approve funding we still don’t have many of our parts which is slowing down mechanical progress.
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February 15, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Vincent, Kai, Joy, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm David S, CAD David S., Panda, Celine
Goals Results Team Members Custom parts Vincent helped CAD group design some custom parts. Vincent and I Vincent, Panda, tweaked the model of the intake to increase volume and reduce the Celine, David S. amount of plastic needed. I also did some research on how long it will take us to produce the intake model so mech team will know when it will arrive. Mounting Vincent even though we didn’t have many mech parts found that mech Vincent, Joy servos on could mount the servos on the intake without the parts we don’t yet have intake Updating EN EN worked on putting our old daily entries into the new formatting of the Kai, Celine EN
By next meeting… Reflection
Work on intake I really find joy in our current CAD model of the robot. It shows us how hard CAD Upload CAD model group has been working and that work paying off. It also shows the symbiosis of to Shapeways many groups such as the partnership between CAD and mechanical.
-- David S. Decisions:
Vincent and I tweaked Failures: the model of the intake to increase volume and Mechanical team is still really tense about parts not coming in and the lack of reduce the amount of parts is causing mechanical team not to be productive as they can be which is plastic needed. worrying since our spring break is coming up.
< Vincent, reminiscing about his childhood once again.
Our design so far for
the robot’s intake >
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February 17, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Vincent, Joy, Kai, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm David S., Panda, Celine Celine, CAD and Engineering Notebook
Goals Results Team Members Work on intake Mech team was able to finish the intake Vincent, Joy, Kai today and they were also to drill holes in the intake so they could install it on the robot Upload CAD model Shapeways CAD group uploaded the model of our David S., Panda, custom parts to Shapeways so we can get Celine them 3D printed over break
By next meeting… Reflection Mount distance Overall today was a really good. CAD group worked in conjunction with
sensor mechanical group to make the CAD model of the intake and upload it to
Work on actuator Shapeways. It’s going to take a bit longer than we’d like, since the Design Lab’s
3D printers are broken, but hopefully the higher quality material will be worth it. We weren’t able to get much done, since no parts were coming in. – Celine T.
February 20, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Vincent, David S., 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Kai, Celine, Albert, Prashant Kai, Electrical
Goals Results Team Members Create second David created the second iteration of the side piece then Vincent, David iteration of the Vincent helped critique and modify it since at first the S. actuator side piece measurements were off. Create a wheel Vincent decided on the design off and created a wheel Vincent system up the side of system which places wheels on the side of the actuator so the actuator we can more seamlessly hang ourselves back up on the lander. Mount distance Vincent mounted the distant sensor according to the advice Vincent sensor he was given by programming group
Wiring I talked to Albert, Prashant, and Vincent about our robot Kai, Albert, wiring in order to decrease the amount of time mechanical Prashant, and accidentally messes up the wiring and then I wired the Vincent distance sensor.
By next meeting… Decisions: Work on attaching motor Vincent decided on the design for the wheels up the actuator. We also
for intake decided to re-do the intake another time because it isn’t large enough to
Raise the chassis fit 2 minerals.
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Reflection Failures: Today was really productive. I think it is good we are getting communication Our measurements across the mechanical group so then it makes it easier to modify the robot without were off the first time breaking things. we tried to print the --Kai L. actuator piece.
February 22, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Vincent, Kai, Joy, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Albert, Prashant, Penny, David S., Joy, Mechanical Summer, Mana, Neil, Celine, Panda
Goals Results Team Members Finish the actuator We finished the actuator and it should run 3 times faster and Vincent, Joy, Albert, smoother Prashant Work on Mechanical worked with David to create a better intact Vincent, Joy, Albert, customized parts clamping hub. Also, David CADed a piece that attached the Prashant, David S. back straps to the intake so they don’t strip around the intake Work on wiring We got the servo power module mounter and eventually Kai attached the parts to it after accidentally trying to solder parts to it. We also got in new tubbing for the wires around the dumper that seem to have less tension Talk about CO ideas We talked about more new CO ideas, and we also finished Mana, David S., Kai , iRobot scheduling, followed up with GWC and Seacoast Panda, Summer, Outright, and we started on the Silicon Ethics project Penny, Celine
By next meeting Reflection Finish intake Today was one of the first times Vincent and I got to work with Albert and
String up the robot Prashant who were recently added to the team. I thought we worked really well
together and it was interesting to see the different skills brought to the table. Also, Kai finished the wiring. We took their advice and replaced Velcro from the hub Decisions: with zip ties so it is directly against the actuator. CO decided on our – Joy L. upcoming outreach events for the spring
and programming Failures:
decided on the At the start of the meeting we tried soldering stuff to the servo power module. placement of the We learned that you should probably do more research about the product before sensors on the robot. trying to install it.
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February 24, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Vincent, Joy, David 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm S., Panda, Albert, Prashant, Kai, By Kai, Electrical and Engineering Notebook Celine
Goals Results Team Members Designed the prototype We have deiced our attachment has to be braced on Vincent, Joy, Prashant, for the dumper both sides to make it more supportive. We also decided Albert attachment to the linear for more support it should be triangular. slide Work on dumper We decided to make the curves straight so it is faster Vincent, Joy, Prashant, and add a piece to make the sorting more efficient. Albert Work on tracking wheels We designed a piece on the back to make the back more Vincent, Joy, Prashant, stable. Albert Engineering Notebook EN today started revamping our daily entries and Kai, Celine entering them into the new EN document
By next meeting… Reflection Finalize dumper design Overall many of our groups were really productive today. Prepare for break Mechanical has been working hard on the robot and EN has been working really hard on our notebook. In the last couple of Decisions: weeks David S. has had all the subgroups decide on harsh We decided to make the curves deadlines to get things done so we aren’t rushing to get a lot of straight so it is faster and add a piece things done the week before worlds like we were right before
to make the sorting more efficient. states. I think this will be good in the long run in terms of our
We also decided on the attachment stress levels.
of the dumper to the linear slide. – Kai L.
March 1, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Celine, Kai, Albert, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm David S., Prashant, Vincent, Joy, Albert, Mechanical David W., Neil
Goals Results Team Members Work on wire We finalized wire management, we put folds in the intake so we Kai, Vincent management don’t have entanglement issues Preparing for We packed up our stuff in preparation to transfer the robot to Vincent, Joy, Albert, break Vincent’s house for break Prashant Work on dumper We talked to CAD about the dumper design which is almost David S., David W., design complete, and we decided to print it out of versatile plastic so it is Vincent, Joy done faster. Set goals for We decided we should have everything other than the dumper Vincent, Joy, Albert, break done by the end of break so they can work on programming Prashant, Kai, Neil, autonomous Penny Preparing for David S. checked in with team members on permission forms David S. Worlds
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By next meeting… Reflection
Finish the robot Today everyone was really busy and it was nice to have deadlines and keep Set custom angular limits setting deadlines. The deadlines definitely helped keep stress down at this meeting due to how it was right before our first day of finals. It is nice to Decisions: know we are making a conscious effort to keep setting goals to reduce stress! We decided on our goal by the end of break to be to – Albert C. have everything other than the dumper done we also Failures: decided on the dumper design so that can be printed Not everyone has their parental permission forms done yet and since and revised during break. Student Activities isn’t open till after break this will be cutting it close with booking flights and hotels.
March 3, 2019 – March 17, 2019 Spring Break Attendance: Vincent, Kai Vincent’s House Vincent, Mech Goals Results Team Members
Design a new A new intake was successfully designed and printed based off of the Vincent intake and strengths and weaknesses of our previous intake. A new dumper was dumper. also made, based off of the CAD of the original. Wiring. Wiring for both the Extensions were completed. Vincent, Kai Sensors. Sensors were mounted all over the robot and wired. Expansion hubs Vincent were configured. One-Layer A system was designed so that the intake would keep all minerals to Vincent, Kai Mineral System one layer, so there would be no stacked minerals, making it easier to intake. Finish the robot. The rest of the robot was finished mechanically. Vincent Set custom The intake and dumper servos were programmed using the REV SRS to Vincent angular limits. custom angular limits.
By next meeting… Decisions:
Driver Practice Vincent decided to make everything stronger by using REV servos instead of
Start setting up CO HiTech. Vincent came up with a new design for a more efficient intake and a
meeting faster dumper.
Reflection Failures:
Penny was in India so we couldn’t get any programming For some reason, as the robot arrived at done, and Kai was away for the majority of break. Vincent’s house, a wheel had been disassembled. Though I was the only one working on the robot most of The team needs to be more careful with the the time, it was still nice to have a longer period of time robot and handling, and only Mechanical Group
to finish up the robot. A few new systems were installed should make changes. Wires were found broken.
and the robot is ready to be programmed when we Be more careful when taking tape off of wires.
return. When reusing wires, make sure the wires are intact before installing. – Vincent X.
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March 20, 2019 Design Lab, Physics Classroom Attendance: Penny, Albert, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Prashant, Vincent, Joy, Celine, Mana, Outreach Kai, David S, Neil, Mana
Goals Results Team Members Driver Practice Drive team got down to a 7-8 second cycle on getting cubes and Vincent, Joy, spheres out of the crater and to the lander. Then Penny came and Penny, Albert through programming helped drive get it down to a 6-7. Then Albert came and helped drive team reengineer the teeth on the intake which got it down a 3.12 second cycle. Re-engineering First Albert helped reengineer the teeth on the intake to make them Albert, Vincent parts of the robot more flexible and longer. Then they found out the actuator was too weak, so Vincent and Albert worked on redoing the gears in a 1 to 3 gear ratio. Fixing the robot Albert and Vincent worked on fixing the d-boards and screws. Albert, Vincent Working on Prashant implemented his new idea on having a bar on the actuator Prashant hanging from the to help us hang from the lander. lander Running test on We practiced our intake for 3 hours Vincent, Joy the intake Reflections EN group sent out reflections for everyone to do for both the Celine, Kai scrimmages and the CO events iRobot came Even though we have previously had problems setting up a time with All members iRobot, because they needed to find people to come, we finally set up a date for today and we got to listen to a presentation as iRobot as a company.
By next meeting… Reflection Continue Andrew from iRobot came and he showed us some of their robot models and
practicing driving presented about iRobot as a company, the company’s accomplishments, and its
Autonomous timeline. Andrew also talked about how in high school Andrew wasn’t really sure
what to do so he joined his school’s FRC team and discovered his passion for Decisions: robotics. It was really fun because we also got to talk to Andrew in a small group setting and we got to learn more about the industry that many of us will be entering We got and in a couple of years. Andrew was also able to come see our robot in the lab. implemented a ton of
– Mana V. new ideas.
Failures: Our dumper hasn’t arrived yet so we haven’t been able to practice full teleop.
< Andrew, presenting to us about iRobot!
We showed Andrew our robot while Vincent and Joy were practicing driving. >
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March 22, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Kai, Neil, David S., 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Celine, Mana, Albert, Prashant, Joy, Mechanical Vincent, Joy
Goals Results Team Members Work on Engineering Celine and Kai got a lot on progress on the entrance of daily Celine, Kai Notebook entries into the EN and also putting in the reflections on scrimmages and CO events they have been receiving from team members. Stringing the dumper We strung the dumper extension which allowed for driver Albert, Prashant, practice. Joy, Neil Driver practice Drive team worked on latching onto the lander. Programming Joy, Vincent, Penny, also helped make some tweaks to the code. Drive team was Neil able by the end of the day to get the robot to latch onto the lander Programming Programming taught mechanical about tensor flow and worked Penny, Neil on the dumper code in teleop.
By next meeting… Reflection
Make a new aligning Overall, this meeting was very productive. I think with a couple of
mechanism for the intake mechanical tweaks we should be able to give the robot over to
Make a new phone mount programming to program autonomous. I think it is good we are being productive so we are on schedule so there isn’t a last minute cram to finish the robot before Worlds and so that none of our programming Decisions: members have to pull all-nighters. We decided to go back and -- Joy L. have CAD redo the dumper so we can have a working dumper Failures: for worlds. We also decided to have programming teach us We attached the dumper then we realized there are problems with the
tensor flow. CAD so the cubes don’t sort correctly.
Everyone’s working hard! Finally attaching (a version of) the dumper!
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March 24, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Celine, Penny, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Vincent, Joy, Neil, Kai, Panda, Joy, Mechanical David S.
Goals Results Team Members Make a new We created a new aligning mechanism for the intake extension out of Vincent, Joy aligning three bearings, this aligns the string and makes sure the string doesn’t mechanism for the slip and so it is aligns correctly left to right, so it is parallel to the slides intake and we maintain vertical alignment. Wire management We used some Lego pieces to create a first iteration of the wire Kai, Vincent, for dumper management Joy Finalize design of CAD group finalized the new dumper design and we ordered on new David S., Panda dumper dumper Make new phone CAD group started and finished making the new phone mount David S., Panda mount
By next meeting… Reflection Have programming Today we created a new aligning mechanism for the intake extension out of
start working on teleop three bearings, this aligns the string and makes sure the string doesn’t slip
School photos and so it is aligns correctly left to right, so it is parallel to the slides and we
maintain vertical alignment. However, we took a long time to get stuff done Decisions: and we weren’t very efficient. We sent our second – Joy L. dumper design to be printed. We used some Failures: Lego pieces to create a first
iteration of the wire We tried to get in some driver practice but it was hard to practice teleop
management. Also, we because the dumper we currently have isn’t working. We also didn’t have the created the alignment right, or enough Legos to finish the wiring. Things also took a long time to system. finish today.
Mechanical Group, partaking in a mini Harkness Kai, about to slap David in the face. Just kidding! discussion. Or just a discussion. [Joy, Kai, Vincent] They’re giving David a high five! I think.
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March 27, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Summer, Panda, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Neil, Programming Mana, Celine, Kai, David S., Joy, Vincent, Neil, Penny Goals Results Team Members Put an IMU in Programming put the IMU in the expansion hub and this allows us to see Neil, Penny the the robots angle at any time, this allows us to have the robot turn expansion accurately by 90 degrees, additionally our robot uses machine learning at hub any time based on its uncertainty rate at any time based on velocity data which allows us to adjust our robot due to wheels slipping. Photos We had a school photographer Ms. Pellaton come to our meeting today so All members we are able to get photos done of us and the robot before we get too much on our plate before worlds. The photos will be used in a school magazine. Driving Since we are now done with our build season drive team is now working Vincent, Joy, Neil practice with programming on cleaning up teleop. Penny
By next meeting… Reflection Grease the linear slides It is nice that we are sticking to the timeline of mechanical
Work on event planning for FTC group giving us the robot I think this will decrease the amount
meet up of stress by members on programming group, and will also
decrease the frequency of all-nighters being pulled by a lot. One Decisions: of the problems we had right before states is that mechanical team didn’t predict accurately how long it would take them to We implemented the uncertainty rate. finish the robot, so I am glad programming group is getting the Also, mechanical group decided to stick to robot sooner rather than later. their schedule and gave programming group the robot so we can code. -- Neil C.
Failures: Our email sent out this morning about wearing a team shirt to practice was sent out rather late so many of our team members didn’t have team shirts for the photos. Also CO, EN, and CAD lost time due to the photos.
Mechanical group seems to have forgotten their T-shirts… hmm…. [David, Vincent, Joy]
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March 29, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: David S., Summer, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Penny, Kai, Panda, Celine, Vincent Kai, Electrical and Engineering Notebook Goals Results Team Members Clean up the We hadn’t been cleaning up out parts after build season. So, Mr. Gallo, David S., Kai, design lab as a way of nudging us, decided to put some of our stuff on our cart Vincent outside of the design lab. We organized our parts between the two shelves we have in the design lab and table we have, and built the cart that we will be talking to Worlds. Grease the linear Vincent helped grease up the slides because there have been Vincent slides complaints from Joy about how the intake isn’t smooth. We think greasing the slides will make the intake smoother. FTC meetup We finished our poster and email for the FTC meetup we will be hosting Panda, Summer before worlds Silicon Valley Penny and Summer worked on drafting their lesson plans for their Summer, Penny Ethics Silicon Valley ethics videos which is one of our CO efforts. Redo mechanism Joy rebuilt the latching mechanism for the lander with help from Kai, Joy, Kai for the actuator who taught Joy how to use the jig saw and the drill.
By next meeting… Reflection Driver practice Everyone was really happy and productive today. I think organizing really
Mechanical tweaks sparked some joy in mechanical group because Vincent was very gleeful, he had
a sense of childlike wonder which is opposite to his usual angst. Vincent really
Failures: enjoyed riding on the cart after it was built. Also, CO was really productive in planning the FTC event and getting things done for Silicon Valley ethics. I think our only major
failure is that we weren’t – Kai L.
able to correctly organize Decisions: and keep our parts tidy in the first place which lead Penny and Summer worked on drafting their lesson plans for their Silicon Valley to our stuff being ethics videos which is one of our CO efforts. Kai also decided with some advice momentarily taken out of from Vincent how to organize our parts. the lab.
Our cart is so cool, it awoke a Kai, striking a very cool pose childlike wonder within Vincent. (and Joy, too).
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March 31, 2019 Design Lab Attendance: Joy, Vincent, Celine 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Joy, Mech Goals Results Team Members Driver Drive team practiced driving for 2 hours this allowed us to survey the robot and Joy, Vincent practice add some mechanical tweaks, such as a bar across the chassis which stabilize the robots and prevents cubes from entering the robot in undesirable places.
By next meeting… Reflection
Program the robot I think today was a very important day although many people didn’t come. I think
Work on planning before states we were really pressed for time for driver practice due to how late
the meetup event our build season went, so I find it encouraging that we are able to get in long stretches of drive practice now. This means we will have less stress closer to Worlds. – Joy L. Failures:
I think our only failure Decisions: this practice is that not We decided to make a couple mechanical tweaks on the robot to avoid common a lot of people came. pitfalls such as having elements stuck in our chassis.
April 3, 2019 Attendance: Kai, Neil, Penny, Design Lab Vincent, David S., Celine, Summer 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Penny, Programming Goals Results Team Members CO check in CO talked about what we are going to do before Worlds. We also realized Celine, we have slacked off a little bit since States and that we have been Summer, David procrastinating so we should get on getting events done. S. FTC meetup We decided to make a new poster for the FTC meetup we also decided we David S. need to include more information in our second meet up email. Work on We started our autonomous program and fixed our image recognition code Penny, Neil programming we also decided and worked on incorporating the bottom distance sensor the robot into our landing code that we use during the autonomous sensor. We also now have a retractable phone mount. We have decided to focus our efforts for next practice on getting our gyro sensor calibrated and working on its code so we can efficiently more around the field to complete as many tasks as possible during autonomous.
By next meeting… Failures:
Calibrate the gyro Neil’s code didn’t work and we still have an error in our image recognition code
sensor because during robot construction mech team mixed up a CR servo and a servo
Work on CO which have different coding processes. activities
Decisions: We have decided to focus our efforts for next practice on getting our gyro sensor calibrated. We also decided
to do more promotion of our FTC meetup.
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Reflection
I think a lot of people were really stressed today because we only have a couple of weeks until Worlds. I think it is good we are getting things done early because Worlds has proven to be more stressful than States. Today for example Mr. Gallo, Kai, Celine, David, and I had an in-depth discussion about how we are going to get our robot from New Hampshire to Detroit. So, we just a have a lot more on our back with logistics.
– Penny B.
April 7, 2019 Attendance: David S., Vincent, Design Lab Mana, Panda, Neil, Celine 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Mana, Outreach Goals Results Team Members Finished part of Programming group got to the point in autonomous where Neil autonomous we can collect the gold mineral and collect it using the intake. Work on hanging Mech group made a new spring powered mechanism that Vincent mechanism allows us to hang for a long time at the beginning without sacrificing hang speed at the end. Work on trinkets for We laser cut boxes for relay for life David S., Panda, Mana Relay for Life
By next meeting… Reflection
Finish autonomous Today we didn’t have many members show up but a lot of our members
Work on crafting center are getting work done on other things such as outreach, programming,
and EN. I think all of us are getting really pumped for Worlds in a couple Decisions: of weeks and for our final outreach events of this season.
We decided to make the new – Mana V.
spring power mechanism to increase robot efficiency. Also Failures: CO and CAD group decided to make boxes as trinkets to give The dumper stringing on the robot broke today and Vincent couldn’t out at Relay for Life. figure out why. Also our scissors broke. Cause of breakage still unknown.
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April 10, 2019 Attendance: Penny, Neil, Vincent, Design Lab David S, Celine 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Vincent, Mech Goals Results Team Members Finished We finished autonomous today but it still needs some work since it is Neil, Penny autonomous! over 30 seconds. We fixed the autonomous and the turning error where we kept over turning. This caused the robot to stop. Final tweaks on We upgraded the actuator and installed the dumper and we also Vincent robot retention the wire. Relay for life We worked on printing our box model for Relay for Life Celine
We worked on We worked on the crafting center which we hope will be a center on David S. crafting center campus for students who like designing and crafting from things as small as birthday presents to things as large as full scale projects. And we have started to order material for projects under 50 dollars.
By next meeting… Decisions:
Finish autonomous David S. met with the leaders of MOE, Makers of Exeter, a Work on crafting center crafting group on campus to come up with plans to help establish a crafting center on campus.
Reflection
I think our robot is finally done and finishing auto this early before worlds will hopefully lead more time for drive training along with filling out information for the engineering notebook.
– Vincent X.
Failures:
Even though we finished autonomous, it is still well over 30 seconds.
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April 12, 2019 Attendance: Albert, Prashant, Design Lab Vincent, Celine, Neil, David S., 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Kai, Penny, Joy Kai, Electrical
Goals Results Team Members Make a passive barrier We made a passive barrier mechanism for the Vincent, Joy, Albert mechanism extension so when the extension comes in it Prashant stops at the right place, it is made out of a Lego piece with two fins and some REV pieces. Work on product for relay for life We worked on making our book boxes for relay Celine, David S. for life. Celine also decided to use some of our scrap wood to make smaller boxes. Finish autonomous with cut Programming cut down autonomous down to 25 Neil, Penny down time seconds. Work on EN we finished the EN today and decided that this Celine, Kai weekend will be our last daily entries, so we have time to prepare the rest of the engineering notebook before worlds. Work on Part Shop We decided to present Part Shop and the Kai instructional videos with it on the FLL meetup on Sunday. Work on Crafting Center We started the Crafting center and we are David S. starting with the help of MOE advertisement for the crafting center on campus.
By next meeting… Reflection Relay for Life Well wonderful judges who will soon be reading this we are in our countdown to Work on Part Shop Worlds. I am really proud of our teams time management and how we have
finished auto so early. I am sure this will cause less stress. I am also really proud
of Celine for swooping in a getting stuff done for EN and relay for life. We are in Decisions: high gear and really productive! We decided that our
last EN entry will be -- Kai L.
this weekend. We Failures: decided to present Part Shop and the I think due to the high stress leading up to Worlds some of our communication instructional videos issues that came up before States have come up again, but this time we were with it on the FLL able to identify them early and reach out to Mr. Gallo to hopefully get these meetup on Sunday. issues resolved.
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April 13, 2019 Attendance: Celine, David, Neil, Science Center Lounge Penny, Panda, Vincent, Kai, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Panda Panda, CAD
Goals Results Team Members Finish autonomous We put final touches on our autonomous code to Vincent, Neil, Penny make sure it is running well Relay for Life We finalized all of our stuff and then went to the Celine, Panda Relay for life event which was a huge success. Celine also decided to make an order sheet if we ran out of stuff at our booth. Part Shop Kai finished Part Shop today in time for our Kai FTC/FLL meetup tomorrow Presentations for Meetup Penny finished the video for silicon valley ethics Penny that we will put on our website for the meetup.
By next meeting… Reflection
The countdown to worlds is still happening. Today we had to work out in the science Meetup! lounge because we wanted to make sure our work time wasn’t eaten up by the
meetup tomorrow. Overall I think we are very prepared for the meetup tomorrow Decisions: and for relay for life tonight. Celine decided to – Panda A. make an order sheet for the stuff on our Failures: relay for life booth. Also, decisions are Summer wasn’t at today meeting because of a econ club competition this meant
still pending about that we are still not very sure about the logistics surrounding the meetup tomorrow
how we are getting because Summer is the point person on that it also means that Penny had to make
our robot to Worlds. the Silicon Valley ethics videos that Summer was supposed to help with.
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April 14, 2019 Science Center Lounge Attendance: David S., Vincent, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Joy, Neil, Albert, Panda, Celine, Kai, Electrical Mana, Summer, Kai, Penny
Goals Results Team Members CAD group today is working on CAD group is working on a back plate/bumper David S., Celine, Panda the back plate for the rear of the robot, so we won’t damage our robot if other teams bump into us. Drive practice Joy and Vincent worked on driver practice and Joy, Vincent, Neil, running the autonomous code. Penny Booth design The booth design for worlds is in progress and Summer, Panda almost finalized. FTC Meetup! The FTC meetup was today and even though Summer, Kai, Mana some of our presentation didn’t really land with the FLL Jr. kids overall the meetup went smoothly.
By next meeting Failures:
Play final One failure is that in the meetup we expected more FTC teams to come but it was countdown mainly FLL and FLL Jr. teams. So my presentation of rookie FTC teams wasn’t the by Europe most relevant, even though the coaches said they liked it. Also we had to deal with a lot of people coming in and out because elementary schoolers and younger middle Decisions: schoolers can’t sit for two whole presentation.
The booth design Reflection for worlds is in progress and Well judges this is where are daily entries end. With a little over a week to go until almost finalized. worlds we are signing off this is the final countdown dadadada. Overall today was CAD group really busy with people running from the meetup to the lounge and back. I think we finalized and are in good shape for worlds and will be ready for ruckus. – Kai L. decided on the design of the back plate.
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