Tag Archives: community

Day 35: Valentines, LEGO and Kare-Bots with Pathfinders

Happy Valentines Day from K-Botics.  Thanks so much to the W.A.F.F.L.E.S. for bringing us some treats.  They were really good, and so creative!valentinesWe worked hard today putting more pieces onto our robot.  Wheels are turning, and other components get added each day.robotThanks so much to Bruce at Transformix for all of the machining support this past week.drive tryoutOutside in the hallway we continued our driver tryouts.  Thanks to all who tried out for driver and operator this season.  A list of competition roles will be posted soon.valentinesWe had so many treats today!  Thanks so much to our supportive parents who take care of us so well.  MikeThanks also to Mike for coming to visit us today.  It’s always great to see members of our big purple family come back to lend their support during build season. demoThis evening a small group of K-Bots went to a local Pathfinders meeting to do a workshop using LEGO robotics and to also teach them how to knit.LEGOThe LEGO robotics portion included putting together a robot and also programming it.LEGO demoAfter a short time we had little robots spinning around and singing songs.knitting lessonKnitters on the other side of the room were hard at work learning the skills of casting on, knitting and casting off.  It takes great focus to get all of the steps in order!focusMany thanks to the girls and their leaders for agreeing to make some Kare-bots for us.cookiesMany thanks also for the gift of girl guide cookies!!

Day 25: While We Wait

Today we got caught up on some little jobs.  We’re still waiting for our machining to be finished, and for our welding to be done.  In the mean time, we painted more bumper numbers… bumpers…looked online for teaser videos to see how others are approaching the competition….videosWe worked with programming some more…programmingAnd, while all this was happening, part of our team met with CanAssist to get feedback on our Kare-bots initiative.  We were glad of the good ideas our discussions produced, and we’ll be talking with them again in the near future to discuss details.drilling holesWe machined a few parts today.  working hardMost of our cheeseholes are now complete!

cheeseholes

work in progress

Things wrapped up a little early this evening, but we’ll be back on track again tomorrow.

Day 16: Smiles All Around

Day 16:  We got lots of great news today!  Our machine shop scheduling issues have been resolved!  Thanks to Transformix Engineering and McLaughlin Hall at Queen’s University!smilesOur 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.

electrical

“OOOOH!!!  pushy button switchy thingies!” -Elizabeth, grade 12

tweedlesIn 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.deburringWhen the pieces came back to our work room, we deburred…deburring

…and labelled the parts.partsThere’s more machining to come in the next few days.  Here’s another cool part that we’re using for our robot.  robot partsDoes anyone know what it is?

muffins!

There were MORE smiles when we had a surprise snack delivery!  We love it when parents experiment with making large quantities of food, and show up at our door.  delicious“The muffins are SO DELICIOUS!” -Liam, grade 9
The oranges were so good, we couldn’t stop smiling!orangesAfter snack time we got back to work putting together the wheel assemblies for our robot.  Working together is always more fun!high fiveWe got to work on our top secret projectsecretA few snips later and it looked like this.secretSome 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.CADSome 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!

tweedle trap

A Tweedle in a Trap!

We worked hard to modify some of our robot structure and try some new ideas.  There are some creative ideas that we’ve been working on.  Look at this…we even smile while we’re sawing!prototypePart 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.

workshopWe look forward to the opportunity to share FIRST Robotics with the rest of Kingston!

Day 13: Parents, Pasta and Progress

Day 13: Our team celebrated another birthday today!  Happy Birthday!

After singing, we got right to work on our tasks for the day.  Part of our group worked on CAD, programming, electrical and mechanical design…

CAD

We’re making our 3D model into 2D drawings

drawings

Others got the robot demo ready to go for when our parents arrived.

robot

Some ideas are being prototyped using meccano that one of our mentors brought in.

meccano

"We're playing with Mike's childhood"

The rest of us headed up to the kitchen to cook up a lovely pasta dinner for our Parent Appreciation Pasta Night.

hand washing

hand washing--step 1

One group made the cakes, which included lessons in egg cracking…

egg cracking lessons

…and a little bowl licking

lick the bowl

There were icing lessons…twice! (the original batch had to be discarded because the electric beaters broke and metal ended up in the bowl somewhere….it was sad to throw out all of that icing.  Thanks to Mrs. Wilson for lending her mixer and rescuing us with extra butter and sugar!)

icing

Here’s everyone with the finished cakes.

kitchen crew

Another group worked hard chopping up vegetables for salad, sauce and stirfry.

peppers

onions

crying over the onions

stir fry prep

We cooked up 4 different sauces (spicy meat, spicy vegetarian, plain meat and plain vegetarian).  Some of us are particularly skilled at stirring!

stirring

At 6:30 we had the food ready, and were excited for the families to mix and mingle in the cafeteria.  Kids, siblings, parents, mentors were all sharing in the fun.  It was great to see parents of so many rookie members of our team.

family dinner

We were thrilled this year to have our custodial staff join us for our pasta feast.  They are with us during the long hours of build.  Without them we couldn’t be building in the school!  We hope they’ll join in more meals with us in the future.

custodians

After dinner, part of our group got right to work on robot design once more, while the other part worked hard to clean up the dishes and rooms after our meal.  Thanks to the parents who helped out with the clean up!

CAD

We’re planning once more to put electrical components in a removable box.  Now that the CAD for our robot is almost done, we know the dimensions that we can work with for the electrical box.  It’ll be a tight squeeze to fit everything in!

electrical box

In the end we’ve got plans for our “really big” (note the air quotes for sarcasm) electrical box.

plans

All in all, we’ve made lots of progress today.  We are looking forward to a very productive day tomorrow.  We work from 10AM-6PM, and will be eating LOTS of leftover pasta!

We’d like to say a very big thank you to all parents who came to eat with us, and a very big thank you to all the parents who were unable to attend.  We appreciate your support from afar.  Not only do you drive us to and fro, cook food for us, and help us cope with the stress of build season, but you also give us a good laugh from time to time!

parents

New Sponsor: BKIN Technologies

We’d like to welcome BKIN Technologies to our big purple family!  Thanks so much for sponsoring us this season.

bkinlogoWe appreciate all of our generous sponsors that help us accomplish our robot building goals.

Introducing the Kare-bots

kare-botsKare-bots provide comfort for children in recovering nations, they also reduce environmental waste and provide a practical alternative to traditional packing protection for medical or other aid supplies. The dolls will allow our team to connect with children and spread a love of robots all over the world.

kare-bots

Our big purple family is knitting up a storm.

knitting

If you’d like to knit some, here are the instructions ( and here’s the .pdf version)

karebot pattern

Day 8: What…It’s Day 8 Already???

Day 8:  Today started off with writing sponsor e-mails. We have had some workshops on how to do this over the last few days, and we sent some off this morning!
emailsWe’ve continued working on a top-secret knitting projects, and we’ve started some hats for some of our newer members.

knitting
Some people have been very creative in where they choose to knit… when we asked Sam why he was under the desk, he blamed “corporate America”.
knitting

Another knitting photo of our top secret project:  Watch it grow over time!

progressOur programmers have been working very hard, using our test chassis to decide how the controls will be laid out.programmersAfter modifying things, it’s really fun to drive the robot around!
programmersWe held a meeting right before lunch to discuss our latest outreach activity… we’re going global!  After our meeting we ate a delicious lunch.  Thanks parents for keeping us so happy and healthy!  We couldn’t survive our hectic build season without your support.
lunchAfter lunch, we split up into groups to work on various tasks that needed to be completed before the end of today.

field

Some of us worked on finishing up the field and setting it up in the gym…
field…While others worked on CADing various parts of the robot, including the drive train and some other ideas we’re working on.

CAD

We’re doing CAD in small groups, and in bigger groups too.
CAD

After consulting some of last year’s parts, we’re almost ready to order the things we will need to start building.
researchWe’ll meet next at the usual time after school on Monday. Enjoy your day off to relax and do your homework!

We’re The Talk Of The Town!

K-Botics would like to thank our local media for covering the kickoff to the FIRST robotics season!  We love to get the word out in our local community about the interesting things we’re doing at KCVI, and explain to everyone about how great the FIRST Robotics program is.

We are excited to have an article in the Kingston This Week newspaper

Kingston.this.weekThere’s a great, lengthy, feature story on us and our good friends the Cyberfalcons, FIRST team 3710 from Frontenac Secondary School in the Kingston EMC newspaper

EMC EMC

and we were also aired on CKWS News.

Students: please remember to bring in any extra clippings you have so we can keep filling up our media binder and so we can post our news on bulletin boards around the school.

Beta Test Open House

We had a great time today showing off our driving skills with the Kinect.  Students and mentors for K-Botics and the Cyberfalcons (team 3710) were in attendance.

betatest

We showed off how easy it is to drive the robot around the room using the Kinect system.

“I really like driving the robot, it is like my pet!” -Rodrigo, grade 9

Some of our teachers gave robot driving a try.betatest

Even one of our custodial staff gave it a whirl.  He was a natural!betatest

We’re excited to see how the Kinect will be incorporated into this year’s challenge.  The countdown to Kick-Off is in full swing–28 days left!

Food Factor: FLL Tournament

Our tournament today was a big success!  We arrived a little bleary eyed at 7 AM, but by 8 AM everyone was ready to go and our school gym was buzzing with activity as teams arrived and set up, robots were tested on practice tables.

food factor

All morning teams presented their projects, robots, and core values for judging panels.

judgingThe hallways were buzzing with excited teams, coaches and parents.  For some teams this was their very first FLL competition!

food factor

Each team was assigned a K-Bot to be their guide for the day.  We love making connections with our FLL friends and we look forward to seeing them in the next few years at competition, and eventually when they join us in high school!

food factor

We showed our past season’s robot and offered driving lessons to our younger friends.  Many parents and judges were really intrigued with what we can accomplish during a 6 week build season.  We invited them to come and visit us sometime in January to see us in action!

demo

Along with the FLL tournament, we also had a Jr. FLL Expo happening at the same time.  Our two teams were the Mini W.A.F.F.L.E.S. from Kingston, and the GermBusters from Brampton Ontario.  Many thanks to the GermBusters for making the trip to Kingston to join us.  We hope to see them again next year!

germbusters

Our good friend the blue bear showed up to help pump up the crowd.  The blue bear got lots of hugs from young and old alike.

blue bear blue bear

All day teams spent their time programming and tweaking their robots to perform all of the required missions.food factor

There were demonstrations for local news media…

news

…and lots of anxious moments at the game tablesfood factor…and then we danced…dance

….and danced….

dance

…even the referees danced!

ref's dance

We danced until we got tired.

tired

Thanks so much to the DJs from our high school radio station 91.9FM CKVI The Cave for making sure there were always great dancing songs ready to go!prizes

The prizes were announced at the end of the tournament.  We love to line up and give high fives to everyone as they collect their participation medals and their prizes.

adult mentor

Congratulations to Mrs. Dossett for earning the Adult Mentor Award

young mentor

Congratulations to Wesley for earning the Young Adult Mentor Award

food factor

Congratulations also to the W.A.F.F.L.E.S., winners of the Champion’s Award, and Lancaster Roarbotics for qualifying for the Provincial competition in January.  We wish you all the best in your preparations for the next level of competition!

Other Awards

Robot Design Award: Lancaster Roarbotics

Robot Performance Award: Lancaster Roarbotics

Core Values Award: The Rhinobots

Project Award: The Roborhinos

Volunteer Award: John Shaw, our head judge from OPG Nuclear

quote

robotics is the gateway drug for our future!

Thanks to all of the K-Bots who helped to keep things running smoothly today, from set up and registration, timing, cuing, working with FLL teams, working with judges, driving our robot, monitoring practice tables, being referees MCs DJs and the blue bear, cooking lunch, moving tables, writing thank you cards, taking great photographs, operating video cameras, making slideshows, dancing with enthusiasm, talking with media, and helping with all of the clean up.  Special thanks to Christine for organizing the entire event.

See you all again on Thursday when we’ll go to Transformix for a tour (time is not yet confirmed).  Permission forms are needed to go on this field trip.  Parent drivers would be greatly appreciated too–there are volunteer driver forms to fill out before driving.