Category Archives: Wednesday Meetings

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

Mandatory Reorganization Wednesday Meeting

Hey Everybody!

The Wednesday after vacation will most likely be one of the most important dates after the competition season. This is the day when we annouce next year’s officers!! Also, this year’s leadership has decided to completely reorganize the whole system and restructure the hierarchy. There will be just as many officers, but at the same time a lot more leadership opportunities for YOU!

I will let the suspense build up until wednesday on who is the CHOSEN ONE(s). If you do know, don’t spill the beans, just for fun. So make sure you come because if you don’t you will be missing out on being part of the leaders for next year. If your parents aren’t letting you, just tell them that the leaders have “titles” and that it’s for your own good and that it will get you into a good college (or something like that). Just make sure you come!

Wednesday Meeting Recap

For everyone who didn’t get to attend the last bit of the Wednesday meeting, we discussed the spring sports assembly on Friday. We’ll be preparing a skit for the assembly.

Here’s the current plan for the skit. In the skit, we’ll be “revealing” what people didn’t know about Robotics – that we built robotic teachers. We’re then going to have a few teachers wrapped in aluminum foil pretend to be robots, with “drivers” carrying the Vex remote controls. The teachers line up for a game – autonomous mode starts. The teachers can do whatever they like during the “autonomous mode”. After autonomous mode, drivers step forwards and pretend to control the teachers during the match, telling them to pick up space rocks, throw them at the other alliance, etc. We’ll have a few people dressed up as a crowd, cheering. They could hold the 1899 sign, wave around the flag, etc. During the match, the blue alliance robot “breaks down”. We’ll have people come with huge wrenches/etc pretend to fix our “robot”. We’ll then send the robot to another match, where blue alliance wins. The end.

Things to consider:

  • Not everyone in Robotics will be up on stage. We’ll need some of us to cheer from the crowds – to get them fired up.
  • Wear your Saints Robotics T-Shirt!
  • Assembly rehearsal is tomorrow after school.
  • Assembly is Friday after 7th period.

Year Overview and Postmortem

Hi Everybody,

So the end of the build season and competition has arrived. Even though the final result was not what we expected, we were still a great team and we have improved a lot compared to last year. We have made significant improvements in terms of communication, membership, dedication, engineering, organization, spirit and much much more. This year was a great year and we should all be proud of our hard work.

However, like in all things, we can still improve a great deal. This is why every year, we have an event called the Postmortem. This means that we will all sit down and have an organized discussion (and we will try to keep the digression to a minimum) where we will go over the whole year. What went well? What did not? What should we improve on? What can we do to be more interactive with other teams? Be more recognized in FIRST? You get the general idea. This is also a time when we go over the organization of the club. Next year’s leaders will NOT be announced at that time, but we will discuss possible position openings and how the organization is possibly going to work next year.

We will also discuss future plan of action. We will go over what we will do in the next three-four months before we leave for summer vacation, and most of all, what you the members would like to do more of in Robotics. What would you like to learn? Do? Do you have any specific projects you would like to work at? etc…

We will also try to take another team picture because not everybody was at the competition and also because we could not get a hold of some people at the competition itself. So put on your team t-shirts if you have them. If you don’t we can hand the out on Wednesday or maybe a bit earlier too.

Thanks for participating this year, and we will see you on Wednesday! Please try to come for this is one of the most important meetings we will have before next year.

Quick Updates

Due to the unanimous decision today, we will purchase and register one kit of VEX parts. The whole thing, including the kit, registration, and extra materials, should average about 700$. Please note however, that this is being done under the condition that the team shall participate in sufficient fundraisers to makeup for the kits. There are numerous ways in which that can be done, and there will be plenty of time to worry about that.

The task list that we must complete before the competition is:

  1. Build all the spare/replacement parts (Build, headed by Kevin)
  2. Finish all the flag/banner/button stuff (Graphics, headed by Angela)
  3. Present a Parent Meeting (PR, headed by Olivier)
  4. Buy spirit Gear (Joint PR-Graphics effort)
  5. make a sign (probably made of cloth) that says “Saints Robotics since we’re required to have our team name on our robot (Graphics, headed by Angela)
  6. gather/prepare extra spray paint, paint, cloth, etc. to bring to
    the competition (Graphics, headed by Angela)

If I missed anything, email me so I can add it into the list.

Looking Towards the FRC Competition

Thanks for all who showed up to today’s meeting to help clean up! As we get closer to the FRC competition on March 26-28, there are a few things we need to start thinking about:

Hotels

The FRC competition is in Seattle. However, as it is over several days, many of us will be staying in a hotel. You should start thinking about if you will be staying at a hotel or staying at home.

Spirit Gear

We should start thinking about buying things to show our school spirit at the competitions. Start thinking about them and start sharing ideas soon.

Vex Robotics

There seems to be some interest for Vex Robotics. At today’s meeting, both Angelas, Larry, Darian, Dominic, and Eric expressed interest. I believe that Kevin, Vivek, Dennis, Teresa, and a few others showed interest during the monday meeting. If we do Vex, we need to decide whether or not we will participate in the upcoming competition at Redmond High. The competition is on March 14th, so we will have an effective build season of around three weeks. However, the robot will be much smaller and thus easier to build. If you are willing to show the dedication and put in the time needed to build the robot, it should work out just fine.

Wednesday Meeting Update

Sorry for the late notice, but Mr. Eden has stepped up to the occasion and will be our mentor for the meeting. As such, the meeting on Wednesday the 18th will be in session. Hugo is out sick, so Kevin Kimura will be running the meeting.

Tasks for Wednesday:

  • Finish the list of spare parts
  • Inventory of tools for competition

No Meeting Wednesday

This is an announcement to SR Members that there will be no meeting tomrrow, Wednesday 18th. Mr. Cooney is sick, and Mr. Moore can’t come, so we don’t have an advisor for our club on that day.

Just wondering – who here is interested in VEX Robotics? I showed people the video on Sunday and Monday at the Robotics meetings, and Redmond Robotics came to STI Optronics to show us their VEX robots last Monday. See the video on youtube. Post a comment on this if you’re interested!

Painting the Robot

Cutting out Stencils

Bonnie and Katie cutting out stencils

I went to Kinko’s yesterday and ordered the robot design.
My mom picked them up this morning and they look REALLY awesome but I’ll need a lot of help cutting out the shapes, taping, and painting them.
Here’s the painting schedule for this week unless anyone has suggestions or comments (we can adjust it depending on how long it takes for the paint to dry. Also, I checked the weather and, lucky for us, it shouldn’t rain the entire week except tomorrow, when we’ll be cutting out the shapes ^^):

  • Tuesday 10th (tomorrow): Start of tutorial to around 4:00 (unless we finish), we’ll probably be focusing on cutting out the shapes. We can start painting if there’s enough time.
  • Wednesday 11th: We’ll probably paint on the light blue coating (I don’t have spray paint for that so we’ll need to actually paint it on after mixing colors x.x) and spray on the other two blue layers. We might need to go until 3:00 but try and stay for as long as possible.
  • Thursday 12th: Hopefully, we can finish the white by today. We’ll start at the beginning of tutorial until probably around 4:00.
  • Friday the 13th *dramatic music*: Sorry I won’t be here on Friday, I promised I’d meet with my group for a History dialogue/project/presentation thingy so Iwon’t be there that day. If everything goes according to plan, all we need to do on Friday is outline the shapes though. It’ll be from the start of tutorial to around 4:00 (unless we finsh) for today also.

So if you’re going to help paint, make sure you bring clothes that you wouldn’t really care if they got painted on because the spray paint DOES NOT COME OFF (very easily). You can also bring gloves or something since the spray paint doesn’t come off your hands very well either (I still have specks of spray paint on my hand from Sunday ._.”’). That’s about it for now but I’ll repost/resend if there’s been a change or something. Thanks pplz! =]

No Wednesday Meeting!

Kevin

Important!

Due to the finals this week, there will be no meeting this wednesday! We will be meeting Friday however! Since that Friday will be short (school ends @ 12:30, unless you’re a loser with a zero period), we’ll do all the work we then.

This means we will also need to have a sunday meeting, same time same place. We have to ramp up the production in order to get the robot done in time guys!