Comments on: Year Overview and Postmortem

By: Allan Kuan (1346 Trobotics, Vancouver, BC, Canada)

Allan Kuan (1346 Trobotics, Vancouver, BC, Canada) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 05:29:16 +0000

Someone asked for a team photo? I just released it onto Facebook.

- Allan Kuan

By: aleksey

aleksey — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:16:34 +0000

It’s always Robotics-Time, even during Summertime! I suggest PR work on fund-raising, starting an FLL Mentoring Program, getting posters/promotional materials ready, and the like. Build should put the omnibot back together for promo purposes and maybe work on the ever-elusive RaveBot to practice pneumatics and to pimp it out with speakers, cathodes, and a sweet paint job. Of course, to be fully pimped out it needs pneumatics that are like hydraulics in cars.

If the new build team is organized and motivated enough and has a place to work, I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t work on an awesome robot for practice. If you think the RaveBot is too pointless, I suggest you work on a highly maneuverable robot with four-wheel-drive, 4-wheel-steering (yes, steering), and possibly gear-shifting. The drive/steering combo will mean you’ll need to design/buy a differential if you’re going with a shaft drive or to design the wheels for independent control/power and emulate a differential with software.

Consider a custom control system, knobs and switches with retro lights and a brushed steel look are awesome.

If you don’t have any ideas you’re thinking too small…

By: Edward

Edward — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:11:45 +0000

Of course it’s Eric Sun.

The ASB fund request forms are due April 14th! Submit it soon.

By: Olivier

Olivier — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 06:58:46 +0000

Yeah…One of my main goals right now is to get a hold of the PTSA and/or the ASB and asking them for funds so we can participate in possibly two competitions next year. It would be very helpful to improve our robot and get more experience.

We could also spend money on rebuilding this robot and getting more experience working with different kinds of materials etc…

Eric, sorry to bother, but which Eric are you? Sun? Lei (idk how you spell it x_x)?

By: Angela

Angela — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:49:14 +0000

haha… if we can get enuf money, we might b able to attend the oregon regional next year too =D
that would probably be really helpful to test our robot and stuff

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:15:54 +0000

I’ve already almost finished a list of potential sponsors. I also finished a the thank you letter to our sponsors, case and magellan.

I also agree with what angela said! we should start fund raising really soon so that we can have even more money for next year.

Just a thing I would like to bring up, and see if anyone could research. Are there any more workshops over the summer?\\

I know that people might not want to spend time on robotics over the summer, but that’s the time when we have the most time, and it would be good to get ready for the school year (when we have less time on our hands to fundraise)

By: Angela

Angela — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 01:31:39 +0000

Yeah, about that[Larry]…. just cuz the competition is over doesn’t mean robotics is over! *cheers*

There is still plenty of stuff we can do such as look for possible sponsors, recruit new people (and make posters), and discuss our upcoming hexbug sales.

We can even start collecting/making the spirit gear for next year’s competition (cuz this year we kinda made it all in one day).

Another thing we can work on is this website.
It’s already really good, professional thanks to our web people
But there are still a few improvements (such as fixing the picture slideshow function and making it more “creative”)

Finally, we have to decide on a date and start organizing things for the robotics potluck/year-in-review night.

By: Kevin Kimura

Kevin Kimura — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:27:40 +0000

For everyone, this postmortem meeting will definitely not be the last meeting. Plan to come to robotics meetings every Wednesday, the with exception of AP and IB testing weeks, which will be coming up soon.

By: Larry

Larry — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:04:44 +0000

Ugh I will not be able to attend this upcoming meeting for I have a math competition from 12:45-3:45.

Is this the last meeting?