Day 3: We have a new system this year to keep ourselves organized! This year we scan our finger prints when we enter and leave the lab to track the time that we’ve been working here.
Then we use our organizational chart to divide ourselves up into several groups. We have a timeline of season goals, along with weekly goals and daily tasks on our blackboard. Each student and mentor have their name on a magnet, and choose their tasks for the session.
Our field building crew worked really hard to get the backboards complete, including the proper coloured tape. 
Today we completed the middle level backboards. We can’t wait for the hoops to be delivered.
While working to construct something so large, we learned quickly the hazard of structures that are at eye level. We’ve flagged them with vivid colours of painters tape to keep ourselves safe.
We love showing our school what we’re up to. We have decorated the display case outside the main office to show our spirit and theme for the season. We hope to inspire more participation both this year and for years to come.
Our programmers learned the basics of the standard FIRST code today. We broke down different parts of it to learn what they do.
We discussed the priorities for our robot, and have had many interesting ideas about how to tackle the end-game balancing. We’re thinking outside the box to imagine how to balance three robots on the bridge. To help with visualizing the geometry, we used a scale model of paper robots on our whiteboard.
To test some of our ideas, we tried to use our robot from 2010.
Later we started building another test chassis. 
We’ll know a lot more about how to approach our design dilemma when we can see a robot moving over a barrier and onto a bridge. Programmers are keen to get their hands on the test chassis too. We like to multitask in a productive way.
For dinner we were treated to a delicious dinner of Indian food. We are thankful to our supportive parents who are also REALLY good cooks. Some of our K-Bots learned how to wash dishes today.
“Robots aren’t the only thing we learn about around here”-Harry, grade 9
Today was a special day for one of our founding K-Bots, and current mentor, Opti. We sang Happy Birthday, and presented her with her very own birthday cupcake, and tiara.
Nothing is more important than knowing the rules to the game. To ensure that everyone takes rule-learning seriously, we had a pop quiz today–high scorers earned cupcakes. 
K-Bots, beware…..more pop quizzes are in your future. Please learn the rules.
In case parents are wondering….we have done LOTS of homework today too!
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It’s nice to see things coming together so quickly! We look forward to making more progress on the field pieces tomorrow too.
Our auditorium was a perfect location to watch the webcast. We had the big screen and big sound this year! Thanks to our talented A-V crew for getting that hooked up and running smoothly.
We discussed the plans for the 
Our group split up for rotations of CAD tutorial work–some of us are getting really good at the practical applications of CAD.
We held a brainstorming rotation for Chairman’s report ideas, and activities we should engage in over the year to help our community and build up our team. We also walked everyone through the 
The remaining station was a super top secret design challenge. Groups had 30 minutes and a variety of materials (wheels, newspaper, straws, plastecine, skewers, cardboard, wood, screws, saws, measuring devices, and lots of tape) to construct a vehicle that was powered by a balloon that could travel the farthest down the school hallway.
We’re still trying to figure out how to deploy our minibot properly. We’re thinking of redesigning a few things.
We’ve started to clean up and organize our tools so we know what to pack, and what to order more of.
