About a week ago, the Broncobots started collected food for their annual food drive! If possible, please bring non-perishable items to the build site in the next week or so. These items will be donated to Lee’s Summit Social Services. If you have any questions, you can contact me at Broncobots@gmail.com. Thanks for your support!
Week 2 of this season has been a busy one! The team began working on prototypes of many different elements of the robot, such as the claw and the minibot. The team constructed the scoring grid, feeder slot, and the minibot pole in order to be able to test the robot’s functionality. The mecanum wheels were assembled and the chassis was generally put together. CAD is in the process of designing components as well as elevator design. The animation team has been working on storyboarding and concepts. Programming has begun very basic mecanum code. PR has been updating the website, so stay tuned for many new pages on the website. For more information about Week 2, you can read the Week 2 Newsletter or view the Week 2 YouTube video. The Week 2 Newsletter can be found under the media page in the newsletters section and the YouTube video can be found here.
This past week, including the kick-off, has been a productive first week. After kick-off, the team had their first brainstorming meeting later that night. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, LSN had snow days; however, the team still met on Tuesday and Wednesday to brainstorm ideas for the robot design. On Thursday, the team met after school at presented their ideas to the team’s mentors. On Friday, the team moved into their new build site and got to work. Friday night was mostly used to set up the build site so they could work. The week one video can be viewed here.
The 2011 FRC Season has officially kicked off! This year, the Lee’s Summit North Broncobots hosted a pancake breakfast kickoff at North. The Broncobots had a silent auction and had a live viewing of the NASA Kick-Off Telecast. Both the other Lee’s Summit schools, Team Driven from Lee’s Summit High School and Team Titanium from Lee’s Summit West, were invited to attend as well. This year’s game is called Logomotion. The basic goal of the game is to place inflatable tubes in the three shapes of the first logo (the triangle, the square, and the circle) on the scoring rack. Extra points are scored for putting the tubes in the correct order of the logo. Teams also have a bonus task this year: building a second robot. During the end game period, teams can deploy a mini-bot on a scoring pole to earn extra points for their alliance. This year’s game animation, which explains the game in more detail, can be found here. The Broncobots are looking forward to competing in Logomotion at this year’s regional in Chicago, Illinois!
This year, the team adopted two families from Meadow Lane Elementary School, which has become a yearly tradition for the Broncobots, and provided Christmas gifts for them. The families made Christmas lists and the team members donated items on the list for the families.
On November 5th and 6th, the Broncobots competed at the CowTown Throwdown, a competition held at the Cerner campus. Robots competed in Breakaway, last year’s game. The team participated in practice matches on day one and qualifying and final matches on day two. The team made semi-finals, but fell out after they competed in the semi-finals.
The team participated at the Safe Halloween event hosted at Lee’s Summit North on October 31st. The team passed out candy to trick-or-treaters. One of the team members dressed up as a robot.
One of the team members hosted a bonfire at their house on October 29th for all the team members. It was a chance for the old team members to get to know the newer team members.
The team took the 2010 robot to the Hazel Grove Carnival on October 15th. The team demonstrated the robot to students at the carnival and let them make buttons.
The team took their robot to Oktoberfest on September 25th and demonstrated the robot’s kicker and talked and answered questions about the robot. During other times throughout the day, Team Driven from Lee’s Summit High School and Team Titanium from Lee’s Summit West presented theirs robot as well.
The team demonstrated last year’s robot to spectators at the Overland Park Balloon Fest on September 18th. The team also explained FIRST and the team’s mission to people.
The team took last year’s robot to present it to the Missouri Chamber of Commerce on September 17th. The team presented and explained the different aspects of the robot. Two other teams were there: Team 1730, Team Driven from Lee’s Summit and Team 1986, Team Titanium from Lee’s Summit West. All three teams spoke about different aspects of FIRST and each Lee’s Summit team.
For the Lee’s Summit North Homecoming parade on September 16th, the team created a float on a trailer. Two team members, Dan and Colton, dressed up as robots and danced to techno music with lightsabers. The team handed out candy at the parade as well.
On August 16th, Team 1987 took their robot from Breakaway to the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia, MO. The team competed in a small off-season competition there.
