Today we were excited to welcome the CKWS news into our workspace. We showed what we’ve been working on, and what a finished robot has looked like in the past.
Some of our team were interviewed. We’re thankful for our media training sessions. CKWS will be filming again on Bag and Tag day, Feb. 21st at the warehouse at midnight. It will be exciting to see ourselves on TV, but we’ll have to wait until after the 21st! 
Many projects got worked on today. Chains are now adjusted…
Support plates have been made…
Gear boxes have been assembled…
Motors are now on our chassis…
And the wiring is in full swing.
As in years past, we’re making an electrical box to house our components. We’re getting fancy with colour coding this year. The electrical box will be very pretty!
Our whole robot will be very pretty this year. We can’t wait to see it in its final state. For now, we will be satisfied to admire the CAD on the computer screen. Families and friends are always impressed to see what we’ve been up to. Please feel free to drop by and have a look!
We’re continuing to work hard, making parts and assembling our robot. Safety is very important–we all wear safety glasses in the back of our workspace.
Some of us even wear them when we go for dinner! 
We’re starting a new fashion trend.
K-Bots: We’re meeting this weekend on Saturday and Sunday. This is a very critical weekend. We need all hands on deck to assemble the robot pieces. Be here, be positive, be productive, and be safe!
We also want to emphasize the importance of cleaning up!!
If you do not clean up, you’ll have to wear the “apron of doom”
It’s so important to measure twice before cutting…
We need to leave adequate seam allowance, and leftovers to staple to the plywood.
We cut, sewed, and stapled, and then put the numbers on. To do this we use a stencil, and white pencil crayon to mark out the numbers. This is a job to do when everyone is awake and focused so numbers end up oriented properly.
Fabric paint, in a squeeze bottle, is used to apply the border paint for the numbers. This is a job for someone with really steady hands. Once the numbers are outlined we’ll have a painting party to fill the numbers in. Painting within the lines is an important skill!
We also spent time organizing our connectors…
…and making some last minute CAD edits.
We’re also continuing with the Kare-bot production! 
We’re thrilled that Wool-Tyme Kingston has helped us to spread the word in their 
…then made a template for our bear paws…
…we punched to mark the center of each circle….
…and then started to drill.
We lined up the holes pretty well this year…
..it is a precision operation!
There are lots of cheese holes to make, so we all took turns.
While not cheeseholing we occupied our time updating the media binder with our recent news coverage.
We drilled access holes to the valves for our wheels…
…and we displayed our Kare-bots in the main hallway at school.
CAD drawings got completed…
…we weighed our metal…17 pounds!
…and we took a trip to buy bumper material.
To burn off steam we took a break to practice throwing.
We’ll have human player tryouts after we have a bit more practice time.
The Tweedles showed us how to throw with great distance and accuracy. 
Programming work is coming along too. “We’re declaring Friends”-Mr. Wood
To make these parts we needed to go through quite a process. Drawings were made using CAD software.
The printed drawings, were then checked over
And then they were taken to Transformix for machining.
We turned all of our metal into much smaller parts.
Thanks to the machinists who made it happen!
When parts are completed, they need to be examined, and the sharp edges removed.
Looking at the pieces in this small cardboard box….we begin to wonder about the final size of the robot.
Meanwhile…back at KCVI. We had a visitor today who dropped by to get more yarn for 
We also had visitors who brought us our batteries from Florida. Thanks so much!
We devised a way to do tandem knitting. 2 knitters on one project is pretty cool stuff.
We did some bumper math calculations. Look at our reversible bumper instruction 
We looked at various sensors and how to use them effectively.
Our team had been working on a super top secret project for the past few days. We’ve made warm fuzzies for our mentors. Today they were delivered. Mentors are appreciated for the time and effort they put into our team.
Who doesn’t like warm fuzzies?! Why not thank a mentor today!
Even though there was snow, many K-bots showed up bright and early. As they say, “The early bird catches the worm.” During exam weeks, room 107 is open starting at 8:30 a.m, so drop by whenever you can!
…with greater or lesser success…
The wool will be used for team hats and for Kare-bots
We love it when people bring us snacks. Parents sometimes bring us left overs from work. Today we got some interesting treats from Stacey.
We were also very happy to have some friends of friends come to check out what we are doing.
We received a call from the Cyberfalcons, team 3710, asking some software questions. Our lead programming mentor was unavailable, so our student lead took his turn being tech support.
Programming needed a little tweaking to make the robot easier to drive.
It takes a little time to get used to the controls….
…and then it takes intense focus to drive the robot without hitting the cones. We saw a lot of promising drivers today! We’ll keep practicing, and have some driver tryouts in early February.
We’re organizing all of our tasks on our big organizational chalkboard. There is so much to do!
We’re working on our CAD drawings still. We’ve got lots of part drawings to get done before we can manufacture all of the parts. 
We’re prototyping various devices to manipulate the ramp. To make it more fun we split up into two teams (girls vs. boys) and had a competition.
We’re planning and measuring and cutting material carefully.
We’re working together, mentors and experienced team members are showing our rookies how to work safely.
It’s exciting to see our designs work well! Even if our designs don’t work well, we can learn from that.
We also get to meet family members…
…and welcome them into our big purple family. Family members love Tweedles as much as the rest of us!
After dinner we kept working on our prototypes for ramp manipulation. When tested on the ramp, the boys’ prototype was definitely the loudest, but the girls’ seemed to be a little more effective. Good work girls!
Our orders have been coming in so we’re unpacking boxes, and moving forward with our plans. The biggest excitement came when boxes of electrical components were unpacked.
In other great news, we got some machining done today! Thanks to our Queen’s mentors who spent lots of time in the shop and accomplished so much.
When the pieces came back to our work room, we deburred…
There’s more machining to come in the next few days. Here’s another cool part that we’re using for our robot. 
Does anyone know what it is?
“The muffins are SO DELICIOUS!” -Liam, grade 9
After snack time we got back to work putting together the wheel assemblies for our robot. Working together is always more fun!
We got to work on our top secret project
A few snips later and it looked like this.
Some more secret business involves our strategy for flipping the bridge down. We’ve been working for a few days to develop a good idea. Today we moved our sketches onto CAD.
Some shenanigans took place repeatedly today. Over the course of the evening almost everyone ended up trapped at one time or another. Here’s proof that even a Tweedle can get caught! Despite being caught, the Tweedle is still smiling!
Part way through our work session today we took a time out to learn about talking with the public, particularly to judges and to the media. We are lucky that CKWS TV, our local TV station is interested in following us through build season, checking in from time to time, watching our robot grow and develop, and watching us come together as a team.
We look forward to the opportunity to share FIRST Robotics with the rest of Kingston!
Some of our mentors are working very hard on their knitting. 
This season we’re knitting little hats to be give-away buttons for competitions. We’re known for our hats!
We had a wonderful ham supper from Jan and Ann tonight, and some special treats for Chinese New Year! 
After dinner, we got right back to work. Some of us are trying to get the camera code to work properly.
Our Chairman’s video is really starting to take shape. 
…and we had a great session to edit our Chairman’s essay.
Plenty of us are working on the very confusing bumper math. 
We’re trying to make reversible bumpers again this year, but in a slightly different configuration. It’s a pretty good math problem! We did lots of research today, and called different stores to source fabric and white Sharpie markers.
Our prototyping team is looking at various ways to manipulate the bridge. We’re coming up with some good ideas! It helps to work with such a big creative group.
For those of us who are in the know…this picture marks a rather momentous occasion. We’re starting to work on the next part.
Lots of us are tired out from long hours at robotics.
Nap time is much more comfy with bumpers as pillows!
We made LOTS of cookies!
We’re thankful to everyone who is pulling strings to help us out. We are lucky to have a great support system, including our own superhero!
We’re getting a second driver station up and running so we can have drive practice before we hold tryouts later in the season. 
