Important News Update

Hi Everybody :)

So the competition is over and we performed very well this year. I’m really proud of everyone: the scouts, the safety people, the spirit people, the pit crews, the mentors, the drivers, the programmers, the pit reps, the people who brought food to the pit people etc. Thanks to everybody.

Now, we have three things to do:

1) If you took pictures at the competition, please upload them on facebook (to the Saints Robotics page) if you have one. If you don’t have a facebook, send (or exchange through USB) the pictures to someone who has facebook (I think Marc-Antoine volunteered to put up pictures). We can all look at pictures and then upload the ones which aren’t inappropriate on the website forums so that we can still have a record but we can control who is able to view it.

2) We will have a meeting this Wednesday and we will go over the competition in what is called a “Post-mortem” – which literally means “after the death”. But for us it’s more like “after the win”. But in any case we will brainstorm and review the whole season and see what we can do better and what we can do better next year (I hope you’re all coming back!) We really need your feedback to improve the program!

3) We will start working on new projects! We have a ton of cool ideas for off-season projects, and we need your creativity and ideas too. It’s a great time to get more experience with engineering outside the crunch-time of build season :) PR/FR also needs to start working on budget for next year and Kevin and I need to find new officers!!

Great job to everybody, I’m really happy so many people showed up. I hope you had as much fun as I did!

Olivier

Microsoft Seattle Regional and VEX Challenge Preliminary Results!

Hello Saints!
We had an extremely successful year this year at the 2010 Microsoft Seattle regional. Our robot finished qualification matches with a 4-4-1 Win-Loss-Tie record, and ended the competition as a quarterfinalist. We took home the Excellence in Design Award sponsored by Autodesk, as well as the Regional Best Website Award.

For the VEX Challenges, both our website and our promotional video has been selected to be one of 10 finalist entries eligible for winning the robot packages! Wish us luck in the formal judging!

Important Update

Hey everybody!

A couple quick reminders:

1) Final meeting this Wednesday! Make sure to come!

2) Get your teachers to sign the pre-arranged absence form.

3) Sign up on the FIRST website and get your parents to approve you!

4) Talk to your parents about Carpooling! We need A LOT more parents to carpool! Call or send an email to Kevin Kimura at 425-533-7098 or Kevinsushi2@hotmail.com

5) Make sure you have a T-shirt. Pick it up on Wednesday if you do not have one yet.

6) Get all the information necessary from your teachers concerning missing work. We don’t want to ruin your grades.

Thanks everyone!  Get ready for the highlight of this year’s season!!

VEX Challenges Community Voting Results

The VEX robotics design challenge voting is officially over. Here is how we currently stand:
Video: 4th place
Website: 3rd place
Essays: 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, and 11th.
Thank you to everyone who supported our video, website, and essays, couldn’t have done it without you! Let’s hope the judges like our entries as well.

Reminder to all!!

We will be having a meeting from 1pm to 3pm like always this Wednesday!
We will be handing out t-shirts and there will be a group meeting!
Remember, there will also be meetings on Friday from 3pm to 5pm, Saturday from 4pm to 9pm, Sunday from 1pm to 5pm.
This is the last week to prepare for competition so we really need everyone’s help.

Getting ready for competition!

This Wednesday (3/17/10), we will be handing out t-shirts! Make sure you come and get yours!

March 24 (Wednesday) is the day before competition. You should come to school dressed up with saints gear and our team shirt on, regardless of whether you’re going for one day of the competition or you’re going all three days. Spike your hair, and paint your faces! Go SAINTS!

WEEKEND MEETINGS!!

We NEED ALL people in Build to be at the weekend meetings.
Saturday from 1-6pm at STI Optronics
Sunday from 1-5pm at STI Optronics

We have a lot to do, both for FRC and VEX!

VEX Challenges Update

Thank you Tyler for collecting some statistics.

I apologize for the massive amounts of emails that everyone is getting regarding this subject, but just a few minutes of your time can save our club hundreds, even thousands!

                This is how our VEX entries stand at this point in time:

Promo Video: 6th place  (in the past 20 hours, two people voted the video a 50 and five people voted it less than 10)

Website: 2nd place (in the past 20 hours, one person voted the video a 50 and two people voted it an average of 23)

Top Five Essays: 1,3,4,5, and 6th place

Watch out for the following websites:

“Robotica Challengers Website” – high threat

“Team 254” (Cheesy Poofs) – first place website so far

“DiscoBots” and “VEX team 1138” – rising slowly

And the following videos:

“We Are One” – very close to ours, but with more votes

“254 promotional video” – 79 votes and counting

“What’s the meaning to be a VEX Team?” – very popular

“Lynfield College Robotics” – rising fast

“VEX, Its about” – this team won second last year

If you haven’t voted yet, now is the time to vote.  Voting will be over on March 19th.

So far, our video has been doing very well, moving into first place.  However, I am becoming increasingly concerned because our video did not top the charts by our high ratings, but because people voted the previous first and second place videos poorly.  We need to win through our own video’s popularity, so we should not vote other videos dishonestly.  I don’t believe that any video in the top positions deserves any lower than a 20 out of 50.  The VEX judges may disqualify us if they can prove that our team lacks good sportsmanship.  However, I still recommend spreading the word to vote for our video because this is a popularity contest.

-Tyler

Very well said, Tyler. Vote for Saints 1899!

VEX needs YOU!

Hello everyone,
The VEX team not only constructed a fantastic robot to compete in this year’s competition, they have written a number of essays as well! We have a good chance this season, but we need everyone to vote in the VEX web, video and essay competitions this week! Hopefully, we can win an award for at least one!

VOTING INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Register an account at http://forum.robotevents.com/register.php
a. Type in your user name, password and e-mail address
b. Type in the verification code
c. Click “Complete Registration”
2. Log in to your new account here: http://forum.robotevents.com/design/
a. Click the “LOGIN” button in the upper right hand corner of the page.
b. You may already be logged in after registering.
3. Vote for our video
a. Visit the following link to view our promotional video: http://forum.robotevents.com/design/entry/detail/1189
b. Push the play button on the video link at the bottom of the page.
c. Under “Entry Voting” on the right hand of the page, drag the three red sliders to give us a score. The farther right you drag, the more points it gives us. Please give us a high rating.
d. Finally, click “Submit” to send your score.
4. Vote for our website
a. Visit the following link to view our website: http://forum.robotevents.com/design/entry/detail/1426
b. Click the “Saints Robotics” link under the category named “Entry Files” to visit our website: http://www.saintsrobotics.com/
c. Under “Entry Voting” on the right hand of the page, drag the three red sliders to give us a score. Please rate our website high.
d. Click “Submit”
5. Click the “LOGOUT” button at the top of the page.

Register here: http://forum.robotevents.com/register.php
Vote for our video here: http://forum.robotevents.com/design/entry/detail/1189
Vote for our website here: http://forum.robotevents.com/design/entry/detail/1426
Vote for Larry’s essay here: http://forum.robotevents.com/design/entry/detail/1021
Vote for Kevin Tam’s essay here: http://forum.robotevents.com/design/entry/detail/1171
Vote for Isaku’s essay here: http://forum.robotevents.com/design/entry/detail/13

VEX Design Challenges Open for Voting!

Hello everyone.

As you all well know, we’ve submitted a few entries to the VEX Design Challenge, among them the website and promotional video competitions.

Hence, we encourage you to vote for Saints Robotics 1899!

You will need to create an account first: http://forum.robotevents.com/design/register

The challenge overview can be found here: http://forum.robotevents.com/design/ 

Lastly, visit our entries and tell us what you think! Thanks for your support!

MEMBERS: More information, with the titles and links to our entries, can be found at our forum: http://teamwork.saintsrobotics.com/showthread.php?tid=180