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”
Others worked on soldering components onto the new circuit boards that came in the mail from our sponsor 
We’re excited to have our name on our circuit boards!
On the other side of the room, we knitted away on our top secret knitting project. Little by little, it is growing, thanks to the efforts of many knitters!
More machining was done today at Queen’s University. We’re thankful to Queen’s for helping us get all of our machining done in such a short time.
Of course, when we have new parts, there’s going to be a lot of filing. Some of us are experts at filing!
We cut pieces today for welding projects tomorrow. It takes a lot of planning to have everything done on time to be put together.
All systems are important. We don’t want to forget pneumatics! We’re investigating what parts we have, and what parts we need.
To help with our research, we examined the pneumatics from last year’s robot.
Despite the long hours and the chaos of week 5, we’re still smiling!It’s Remi’s birthday. He’s smiling too!
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 
After doing extensive calculations, we purchased Galaxy Twill fabric from Fabricland. We cut out pattern pieces, and pinned them to the fabric, and cut out what we needed.
Making bumpers is hard work. Sometimes you just need to take a nap.
“I didn’t know that I could sew!” -Liam, grade 9
We took turns making sure that the seams were straight. While sewing machines were used in one half of the room, the saws were working in the other half.
Today we got the bridge done
We build Saturday from 10AM-6PM.
We decided to suspend a weight from a meter above our robot to mimic anything we might build up there, and then give it a try. We installed plywood chain guards to keep us all safe.
Some of us spent a great deal of time doing calculations, doing research and gathering our materials.
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.
To test some of our ideas, we tried to use our robot from 2010.
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.
K-Bots, beware…..more pop quizzes are in your future. Please learn the 
It’s nice to see things coming together so quickly! We look forward to making more progress on the field pieces tomorrow too.
At 6:00PM we were excited to see so many people arriving to take part in our fundraising test. We had 52 people in attendance, which gets us approximately $1500 more for our trip to the Championships. Parents, friends, high school students from our school and others, recent graduates, Queen’s students, teachers, nurses, and even some Cyberfalcon mentors!
In other news: we’re in the NEWTON division for Championships, so scouting can begin again! We’re excited to be playing with so many famous teams. It will be a great opportunity to learn from them, and watch them in action on the field.
