Broncobots Blog

This year’s build season is officially over! The team shipped the robot this past Monday night after a very long day of work. We had a great build season and can’t wait to compete in this year’s Midwest Regional in Chicago, Illinois! We would like to thank all of our mentors, parents, and sponsors for helping to make this such a successful season. To view pictures of this season, please check out the media page (which contains both pictures galleries and weekly videos and can be found here), the team’s YouTube account (click here), or view our Facebook page, where all photos from this season have been posted (click here).

On the 17th, both the animation and the website were due. This year’s animation was about changing the lives of an alien species called the iikos. Their world had been destroyed by environmental causes and the teams job was to create a 30 second animation naming the problem, the solution, and how it would affect the iikos. This animation can be viewed on the media page under videos or can be found here. The website was also due for submission that day. Almost all of the website has completely been redone within the last 6 weeks, including updated content, redone pages, and several new pages. I highly encourage you to check both the website and the animation out. Three days and two build days until ship date!!

During week 5, the team got a lot done on the robot. The team hosted their open house, has a functioning drawer slide, claw, and arm. The team is almost done with the animation and it will be turned in during week 6. The Woodie Flowers, Dean’s List, and Chairman’s essays were close to being done and are now in their final stages of editing. The CAD team has drafted a lot of the robot. The team donated valentines to two local nursing homes and the team has collected a ton of food for Lee’s Summit social services. One week left of build season! This week’s video can be viewed here.

Sunday, the 6th of February, the Lee’s Summit North Broncobots hosted an open house at their build site. The team hosted this event with its sister teams, Team Titanium, 1986, and Team Driven, 1730. All three teams opened their build site to the public, including parents of students on the team, team members from other robotics teams, sponsors, and anyone else interested in the program. The Broncobots used the day to teach the community about the robot, the team, and the FIRST program. The team would like to thank Team Titanium, Team Driven, and everyone who came out to support our team!

Team 1987’s robot is starting to come together. By the end of week 4, the robot could go forward, backward, left, right, and strafe in both directions. The team now has a functioning claw that will be attached to the arm during week 5. The team built the minibot deployment drawer slide and the robot’s line tracking capabilities were coded. Animation worked very hard and is close to finishing up and public relations has been very busy. The team made over 150 handmade Valentine’s Day cards to donate to local nursing homes, collected even more food in their annual food drive for Lee’s Summit Social Services, and began their annual mailing campaign. The Woodie Flowers, Dean’s List, and Chairman’s Award essays were also written and edited. CAD has been working on CADing more parts and is on track with build team’s progress. The team hopes to have a fully built robot by the end of week 5 to hand off to the programmers. To see this week’s YouTube video, click here.