A long wait....

Hello all!

I'm sorry this has taken so long to post but you know how building robots is in a six week time period. I'm happy to say that by week 5 we had little snow left on the ground and a fully functioning robot! We were only missing a mini bot and an arm but at least our drivers could practice by the time we had out mini bot and arm, it was time for competition.

Now while all that was going on with mechanical side, we had PLENTY of chairman's stuff to do. I can't even LIST everything we have done but some of the most memorable things have been a rap. We've discovered a secrete ability of mine and a few other members of the team. We can make and hold a rhythm.I'm not going to say it is the best thing in the world but I am pretty proud of it. We even made a music video for it. The song grew on the team and well, it is now our chairman's video for this year. Wanna watch it? Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXEaQ0jMdwQ&feature=player_embedded

Oh wonderful New Jersey competition. 3 days strait with out sleeping and just basically competing and celebrating. Thursday was the slow day as it always is but i got to say hello to a lot of my friends. Then Friday happened. We presented for chairman's and stormed through the regional with our Robot. We had a few shaky matches but pulled through. We even had a party that night! I'm sure a lot of us will never forget that party. :)

I woke up Saturday already tired, running off of the excitement of it all. The whole bus ride, I felt, went on to slowly. I just wanted to get on with the competition! I hurried off the bus and after 5 minuets, complained of the cold and went back on. After another 10 minuets the doors opened and the mad rush to get in doors started! We rushed to our seats and waited for opening ceremonies. Everyone was bubbling with joy. After some matches, it was alliance selection. We were lucky, Team 1676 (Pascack PIoneers) who was the 1st seeded team picked my team, 2016 first! We were extremely happy! After the other alliances picked, we picked Team 303. All 40 kids (including myself) was thinking; LET ELIMINATIONS BEGIN! Our alliance pressed forward every match! We made it to finals and, to our joy, won! :D That was not the biggest surprise of our day. We waited for the one award we always go for to be announced... the Chairman's Award... We listened quietly as Bart Kamen read the speech. Clue by clue we understood better who won this prestigious award. All of hard work through out the year has won us Chairmans! I, along with others on my team had tears fill there eyes. Now, on to Washington DC...

So, I guess I can say this as the question of the blog post... will I be seeing YOU in St Louis?

I want to take the time out to say thank you to our alliance partners (mentioned above), Mentors, Family and our entire cheering section (Teams 1382 [ETEP], 1860 [Cephas], 75 [Raider Robotics], and of course some members of 2753 [Overdrive])
Your support means a lot to the team. :)

A forgotten post...

Dear Mother Nature-

I hope you are happy with what you are doing. Do you see it is robotic season? You are making it so hard to do everything in the 6 weeks we have. You are depressing me. We are somewhat behind because of you! You better be sorry...

Hoping for things to be warm soon-

Nikki

Snow.

Alright. This snow is ridiculous. We are very far behind and yes, I am annoyed.This is the worst it has been in a while. And, well, School comes first but we need this robot done. Our team will be working double time for the rest of the season and I am prepared to work later than normal.Chairman's has it easier at least.They have some time since they started before the season (thank goodness they did) I might go crazy from the lack of robotics work. I haven't had time to even film for the youtube part of this! But I do have some pictures of our craziness.

Anyways I hope other teams are doing well. So everyone... how is your team managing the time this year?

What a week!

Hello all!

Sorry there hasn't been a video uploaded onto the youtube channel. I haven't been filming much because I have been working, (its good that we are busy at least.) But we have everything prototyped currently and I have been able to do some fabrication of the parts. :) I love fabrication!

So, are freshmen usually very excited to do anything? Cause for a few days, We've been singing random songs. It brightens my day after working for a few hours on the same part.Ha! The FUN Song! Its even better when you get some mentors to start singing along with you or they just sing on there own. I've grown to love my noobs. They may be overly hyper and kinda crazy, but they are still great.

I need to give a shout out to team 1382 for the Skype chat today. You all made my morning so good! :) We can't wait to see you in Trenton this year! :)

I'll be posting more about our robot and chairman's soon. I should have pictures up with in the week also! :)

Building in a winter wonderland!

So, It was snowing since tuesday and finally ended yesterday at about 11. Luckily, we haven't lost much time in build. We just have a lack of students and also some mentors. We started with out mini-bot and have basicly decided apon our drive train. Its nice to be ahead of schedule. But with this northeastern weather, who knows how winter will be. So, currently, our drive train is half done on the floor and our mini-bot has many ideas surrounding it.

On a less build seasony tone, our new students seem to be quickly getting use to the build scheduel and are having plenty of fun. Tuesday, we sang the fun song, as a team. Oh how we all love spongebob. And yesterday, older kids tolled stories of Dallas and Atlanta last year (and unfortunetly, the story of me going to robo prom in a dress.) Its nice to have everyone able to work with eachother with out any problems. I can honistly say, I love our team this year. To mentor Rich, if your reading this in heaven, we miss you and your crazy ideas are very much needed right now.

The Start of another Season...

Hello all!

I hope all of you are finding this blog in hopes of some robotical new. The new FIRST Robotics Season has started and I, and my team, have been designing our new robot for this years competiton, LOGOmotion! :D

We have a few ideas for the drive train and arm currently. Its a debate and I personally want to combine a 4 bar lift with an elevator style life. (not the real name for it but thats what it reminds me of.) Anyways, I'm excited to see how my final year as a student on my team shall be.

I'll post later on tonight after robo if I am not too tired.

Good luck teams!