Broncobots Blog

Open House

Jessica B. — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 20:09:24 +0000

Our open house is tomorrow! From 2-4 PM, all three R-7 Alliance team’s (Team Driven, Team Broncobots, Team Titanium) build sites will be open to the public. This is the first time all season that everyone will see what we’ve been up to. We will also be selling light bulbs and coupon books to fund-raise. We hope to see you there!

Week Four Video Posted!

Jessica B. — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 02:26:09 +0000

Our week four video is out! The media team works hard on these every week, so show everyone!

We’re Making Progress!

Jessica B. — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 02:21:48 +0000

Our robot is coming along well! CAD is almost complete. They are working hard to finish everything in a timely manner. Once the designs are done, our pieces are cut out. Our students have the opportunity to use a water jet machine at Kastle Grinding. Other parts are custom ordered and sent to us later. After the parts are cut, they are welded together. Students weld some, but we’re thankful that Douglas Welding and Hi-Tech Welding & Machining help us out!

Our hopper is welded!

Now that most of our pieces are cut out, we’re working on integration. Integration is proving some challenges, but it is still going well.

Members work on a part for integration.

The programming team is working hard to stay one step ahead of build. They’re perfecting their code in C++.

Ben W. is working on the programming code.

The media/public relations teams continue to organize, plan, and produce! We are continuing to use scrums to keep track of our progress! Our sprints are very organized, and we get everything done, all thanks to our new software! The open house is next Sunday from 2-4 pm. We hope to see you there!

Week Three Video Posted

Jessica B. — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 22:24:41 +0000

Our week three video is out! Everyone watch it and pass it on to your family and friends!

We’re Halfway There!

Jessica B. — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 02:42:11 +0000

It’s scary to think we only have 25 days to build our robot. We have buckled down and really started working. Our robot parts have been delivered, and we are starting to assemble our robot! One of our students custom machined the chassis with a water-jet machine. By the end of tonight, the chassis will be completed! We have switched our CIMs to Mini-CIMs and now we’re testing the differences. Hopefully the Mini-CIMS will work so our weight goes down. The CAD team has been busy finalizing all of their drawings.

Our CAD team will continue to work on our models.

Also, the programming team has successfully completed the electrical board, and they are continuing to learn their new language, C++.

Our programmers work to complete the electrical board.

We all hope that the next few weeks will be successful, and we’re working hard to accomplish it!

The shop is so empty!

Jessica B. — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 01:40:18 +0000

During these past couple of days, there have been very few people in the shop. After our daily homework time, the team meets for their scrums to determine what needs to be done that day. About 80% of the team is either working on CAD or testing the shooter. CAD is computer aided drafting. It makes the components of our robot on the computer with exact measurements, so there is nothing to question when actually building.

The CAD boys are hard at work!

The shooter testing has been successful so far. However, there are many variables that require testing. In order to get through this process quickly, the shooter team has developed a very concrete system. The testing lasted a total of two days, and now they’re analyzing and fixing everything.

The shooter team is hard at work with our prototype!

Hopefully building will start within the next couple of days!

We have a dream…

Jessica B. — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:38:22 +0000

Technology is a part of our everyday lives, but everyone takes it for granted. What if smartphones didn’t exist? What would happen if there were no computers? You couldn’t even read this blog post! Technology is so advanced because people love to design it. FIRST was developed to change the way kids think about science and technology. Instead of looking at science and technology as lame, hopefully kids will be interested and want to learn more. Robotics helps start this. It is so much more than simply building a robot. Our team advertises FIRST 52 weeks of the year. It’s very important to us that FIRST is evident in our daily lives. We work hard as a team to perform community service and tell people about FIRST Robotics. Our dream is to promote FIRST and change people’s thoughts about robotics.

P.S. Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Jon B is in deep thought.

Our mentors are so photogenic.

They’re so smiley!

Week Two Video Posted

Jessica B. — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 22:45:57 +0000

Our week two video is out! It does an excellent job of capturing all of our funny, intelligent, and hard-working members! Watch it and show all of your family and friends!

The Week in Review

Jessica B. — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 02:38:03 +0000

Week two has gone by so fast! There are only 31 more days until bag and tag! We are almost done prototyping, and then we’ll start working on our robot! At the design freeze we weeded out ideas and now we have finals for our shooter, collector, drive train, and climber!

Lia and Steve discuss the drive train.

Our robot is going to shoot and climb the pyramid. We decided that it would be a game changer to pick up from the ground, so our robot will do that as well.

Our team is not all about the robot; we love to help out our community as well! On Wednesday, four of our team members made 230 PB&J’s to give to the homeless. Everyone is looking forward to the next four weeks of building, and the regionals!

They worked so hard to make those sandwiches!

Time to Freeze!

Jessica B. — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 02:33:57 +0000

The design freeze is tomorrow! The team will decide which prototypes are most effective, and discard the rest of the models. Tomorrow the robot will finally be able to come together, but for now, the ideas are constantly flowing. The CAD Team continues to work on the drive train and shooter designs, while the rest of the team is scattered on various prototypes!

This prototype is under construction; however, our other one is complete!

Sometimes we need to connect wires, and that’s what Ben is for!

Andrew E needs a little more sleep, don’t you think?

We are excited to see what the teams decide during the design freeze tomorrow. Our 2013 robot is taking shape!