We’re always thinking up things that need doing around here….
Parent Teacher Interviews are coming up soon, and we love to show the KCVI parent community all the cool things our robots can do. Since our new robot is in a crate in St. Louis, we have to make sure that we have another robot that’s ready to go.
We had changed Kasey-III’s wheels earlier in build season to do some testing, so we needed to change back to mecanum wheels before we get it rolling again.
We had to make sure that all of the little rollers still rolled….
…and then we got the wheels back on in the right spots.
Part of the fun of robotics is getting to do homework on the whiteboard and working through problems with your friends. Sometimes this turns into a bit of a math competition on the board. It’s a good thing that we’re all friends here at K-Botics!
Today we got new tools! We’ll try not to lose them….
“I’m Wolverine!” -Duncan, Queen’s Mentor
One of our recent projects has been to build and mount a shooter stand on our robot cart for testing and for collecting images to test our vision code.
After careful planning, purchasing, a few hand clamps, and a bit of giggling….
…everything was square and level, and attached to the robot cart.
Now we’re ready to roll! We’ll be calibrating our shooter again soon.
We’re getting really excited about going to St. Louis! We love spending time together as a team. 
There are some activities that we can participate in, please fill in the form to indicate your preferences. There’s also the Relay For Life Team that we’re putting together. We need 10 people minimum, and each person needs to fundraise at least $100 for the Canadian Cancer Society. The event is May 11th (a Friday night, from 6:30PM-7:00AM on Saturday). It is a lot of fun, and we do robot demos at some point in the night.
Today after school we repaired the crate walls…
…and strapped robot and bumpers down so they won’t jiggle around too much in transport.
The finishing touch was to screw down the top of the crate.
Here are two very proud crate assemblers. Many thanks go out to the crate builders who put in a lot of work last year. We all owe them one. 
Just to prove that the crate is solid, they gave it a kick for good luck.
Miss Compomants will be making her way to St. Louis via FedEx tomorrow! Hopefully it’s a smooth journey.
Today was also a special day for two K-Bots. Happy birthday to Jacob and Brennan!
Programming is happening so we can test our shooter tomorrow in the warehouse.
Knitting is happening so everyone has a team hat for competition. We’ve got only a few more to go!
Today’s major project involved a lot of vacuuming! We have spent the last few meetings working on creating a vacuum former to create our chain guards. Today we put the finishing touches on, and gave it a try.
We needed to make a mold for our chain guard, which included some creative measurements through the bag. We’re really glad the bags are clear! After our measuring we used styrofoam, cardboard and duct tape to create a 3-D shape that melted plastic would form to.
Since thin Lexan is about $80 a sheet, we had the brilliant idea of using crazy carpets instead. They are on sale now–we’ve not had much snow this winter! We were lucky to find some in our team colours at Canadian Tire.
The crazy carpet was cut out to fit on our frame.
We used a staple gun to attach it. It’s important to put the staples close together. We used a hammer to make sure the staples were secure.
Next came the vacuum contest….which vacuum sucked the most! Our vacuum from our workroom had holes in the tube and a clogged filter. The custodian’s vacuum was not much better. Thankfully one mentor lives really close to the school–her vacuum sucked the best!
We put the plastic into the oven which had been set to broil. We watched as the plastic went wavy, then flat. When it is flat, it is ready to go.
The vacuum was turned on, the mold was placed on the vacuum box, and the plastic sheet overturned on top of it all. Using oven mitts and a heat gun we massaged the plastic in place around the mold. There’s a bit of a learning curve with this process. Sometimes there are holes. After our 4th try we got a really good one!
We chilled it in the fridge to cool it down a bit.
Then we removed the plastic from the frame and took the mold out and cut around our shape to reveal the coolest chain guard ever!
We’re taking our vacuum forming supplies and our robot shooter to Transformix tomorrow to keep working.
We also re-made the shooter stand that we started yesterday, which ended up being really tippy. This time we made sure that everything was nice and square, and all the same length. 
In the end, we had a nice square table that could support the ball shooter….
…and what’s best is that it is exactly the same height as the robot! 
In other news, we realized that a lot of our tools are still at the Transformix warehouse, so when we were working on some electrical projects we ended up using a kettle steam to shrink the heatshrink around the wires.
We’re working Friday from 5PM-10PM at KCVI. This is the last date to submit trip forms and fees.
…and pre-competition scouting is being started. It’s hard to believe that some teams are already headed to their first competitions. We’ll be doing the same thing in a week!
We’re working on mounting our ball launcher on a robot height platform so we can continue to work on our programming this weekend. 
Programmers are hard at work. 
Today we learned how to revive a corrupt cRIO! If you’re dealing with a similar issue, please check out our 
We have been trying hard to get an accurate weight for our robot so we know what leeway we have to add more appendages. We weighed the bagged robot, and then the bag….did you know that the bag weighs 2.5 pounds?! 
We’re working away, enjoying our lovely new work tables. Thanks so much to 
We unloaded a truckload of boxes and carried them upstairs.
There’s not a lot of space in room 107 anymore! All of the old furniture is on one side of the room, and the new furniture is being assembled on the other side.
As we unpacked the boxes, some of us decided it would be fun to hide out inside.
Some of us weren’t so good at hiding.
Our bin racks are looking really great. We’re going to know where everything is soon!
There’s another storage rack for the wall. 
We started putting together the workbench frames. With a little teamwork it became an easy job.
Most of us are pretty skilled at assembling things with nuts and bolts.
Others resort to hammers to make pieces fit.
“I’m going to use a hammer, because my name is Kevin” -Mr. Wood
We are currently having a $5 old team shirt sale. There are limited sizes and styles available–first come first served.
With all of the assembly happening in our workroom, we ended up with a lot of boxes, which we stacked in the hallway.
Our stack of boxes quickly was transformed into the most incredible box fort that we’d ever seen. 
The fort was ruled by a king, queen, court jester and a horse. They survived and thrived, expanding their kingdom halfway down the hallway. They defended their realm against enemy clans, and maintained peace until it was time to collapse the boxes to be recycled.
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.
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.
