We’re here working hard while we watch the Waterloo Regional competition webcast. Scouts are busy looking at game strategy and sizing up the competition we will face at GTR.
Our Chairman’s presentation materials are taking shape, as is our new and improved minibot design.
Our pit is looking more like home now with tools in their proper places.
We’ll be back in tomorrow (10-4) watching more webcasts and preparing for GTR.
Posted in 2011 Logomotion
Tagged competition, First Robotics, FRC, GTR, Logomotion
Have you ever wondered what it looks like when a 10 square foot pit area expands to fill an entire computer lab? We witnessed it today as we unpacked and repacked all of our tools and supplies.
The pit is all clean now though!
We’re getting better at packing everything so it is easy to find. We use plastic baggies to keep everything together.
Organized to our high standards!
Our Chairman’s team escaped from the chaos of tool organization and the sounds of drills and vacuums to practise their presentation in the hallway. It was great to have Petey come visit and provide his advice.
Out the back door of the lab we have an area that is tall enough to house a minibot pole. We all gathered to see if our improvements have reduced the time it takes for the minibot to get all the way to the top.
We’re still working hard to perfect the minibot. A good minibot is a definite game changer!
We look forward to watching the webcast of the Waterloo Regional competition tomorrow and Saturday. How fast will their minibots go?
Posted in 2011 Logomotion
Tagged Chairman's Report, First Robotics, FRC, GTR, Logomotion, organization, testing
Today was a really exciting day full of productivity. The meeting began with a mass collection of all our wonderful crew. We found out information about our upcoming trip to Toronto including our carpool arrangements and all of the rules. We also ate some candy given to us from “Under Control” team 1156 from Brazil. It was delicious!
We continued to work on the minibot deployment feverishly.
Our Chairman’s presenters organized themselves and continued practicing their presentation for GTR, top secret of course! Our video is posted here. Our scouting/strategy crew took a look at game video from past regional competitions to look for new strategies to try.
We got really wacky and broke out the suspenders. They look really awesome!
It was learned today that WD 40 is fantastic at removing logo goo. New logo’s were also printed and cut to fit the armour. We’re not going to stick them on until we’re sure that the armour is in its final configuration. It all depends on the minibot deployment!
Our colourful lights that have many uses, are now much lighter. They were cheeseholed, and some mechanisms were replaced with lighter alternatives.
And of course the back of our room is still a mess, we really should stop looking at it and clean it up.
Maybe tomorrow will be the day!
Posted in 2011 Logomotion
Tagged Chairman's Report, First Robotics, FRC, GTR, Logomotion, scouting
When we left for New York it was rainy. When you drop your robot’s armour in the water, the ink runs a bit. Today we are trying to make our armour pretty again for Toronto’s competition. We scraped the old logo stickers off the armour using putty knives and vinegar. The vinegar seemed to help loosen the paper, but it makes the whole lab stink!
We worked on cutting bits and pieces for the minibot deployment mechanism.
Also to go along with the minibot deployment, we re-wired our minibot. We’re aiming for it to be even faster than it was at New York.
Our teachers and parent mentors spent lots of time figuring out how to mobilize our team and get carpools to Toronto. 
Along with coordinating rides, we need to coordinate breakfast for all of the people going to competition. How many bagels does it take to feed 47 people for 3 breakfasts? How much cream cheese? How much jam? How much peanut butter? It’s a scary number! We did round one of bagel math to figure it out. We’ll check our calculations again before hitting the grocery stores.
We also need to manage team clothing for all going on the trip. Some of our teammates were very helpful and folded and packaged up the rest of the t-shirts that needed to be distributed before GTR. Now everybody can finish packing! If you don’t have your shirts yet, you can pick them up tomorrow at our meeting! 
We are excited to see some new iron rings in the room. Our fourth year Queen’s University engineering students received their iron rings this past weekend and were eager to show them off. Congrats to JNo, Kevin and Drew for their accomplishments!
Mike welcomes JNo to the club
Some of us spent lots of time today researching our competition for GTR. We’ve noticed that many teams have not yet competed in a regional yet, but we’ll see them compete in Waterloo. It will be exciting to watch!
Our big goal for tomorrow–CLEAN UP OUR ROOM and get the pit set up again. We want to make sure we pack what we need in the right boxes, and we don’t want to forget anything. 
We don’t want anyone to have to wear the apron of doom!
Posted in 2011 Logomotion
Tagged First Robotics, FRC, GTR, Logomotion, mentors, organization, Queen's University
We’re back after March Break! We had cake today and celebrated our success at the New York City Regional competition.
We’ve unpacked some things, including our recently acquired hardware, and our brand new K-Botics flag.
We’re working on refining our minibot deployment system and making our minibot go faster.
We’re preparing for the Greater Toronto Regional competition. Our scouting binder is now prepped and ready to go!
We’re still trying to get our awesome lights back on the robot. It’s all a question of weight. 
K-Botics is meeting daily this week until 5PM to prepare for GTR.
Posted in 2011 Logomotion
Tagged First Robotics, FRC, GTR, Logomotion, New York City Regional, scouting
Congratulations Remi!
Your shirt design was selected to represent the 10th anniversary of FIRST Robotics in Canada!
They will be available in black and red. Get yours at GTR!!
Day 42: Today we are at Transformix Engineering‘s warehouse. We got here this morning and set up our quarter field.
We are glad of the carpet that we brought back from GTR last year.
Our robot is doing well, and has scored lots of tubes, even in autonomous mode!
We’re looking forward to seeing Frontenac’s team, the Cyberfalcons soon! They are bringing their robot to practice later today.
Our driver and operator are hard at work…
…but we’re all keeping busy with lots of little jobs. We’ve been busy finishing up our circuit boards…
…we make use of all little helpers we can find!
We have found lots of uses for our tubes. They make great pillows…
nap time with cardboard Mike
…they are also really fun to throw! We love the high ceilings in the warehouse.
Our Queen’s mentors are on their reading week now, and we are glad that they are staying in town to help us out!
Thanks so much to the families who brought us food today. It was great!
We’ve taken a second look at some things….including our minibot design. We’re calling it “Minibot Revisited”.
We look forward to seeing everyone at the warehouse soon! We work from 10AM-10PM today, Sunday and Monday too.
Posted in 2011 Logomotion
Tagged build season, Cyber Falcons, electrical, field, First Robotics, FRC, GTR, Logomotion, mentors, programming, Queen's University, testing, Transformix
We got a package in the mail today. These are the samples for our team shirts this year.
Josh and Remi look great in purple
Do you know why purple, blue and white are our colours?
Purple is the colour that represents engineering. Here’s one story that explains this tradition:
“While all the passengers of the Titanic were under panic and trying to save their own lives, the engineering crew were working non-stop to keep the furnace running at maximum. The smoke coming out of the enormous furnace could be seen miles away and gave the exact position of the sinking vessel to any ship on their way to rescue. The entire engineering crew of the Titanic went down with the ship.
The colour of the engineers’ overalls on the Titanic was purple. In honour of the engineers who died on board, purple was made the official colour of the engineering profession. Like the iron ring in Canada, purple is a reminder to all engineers of the history and responsibility of their profession.” Engineering Society of Queen’s University
We want to acknowledge our connection to our engineering mentors, and to Queen’s University for their support and sponsorship.
Blue and White are the colours of KCVI. We proudly wear blue and white to represent our school wherever we go. Our mascot is the KCVI Blue Bear. That’s why our logo looks like a bear paw made of gears.
We also received a package for our beta-testers. It’s so exciting to be able to start our testing with our new hardware.
Our team of keen programmers are learning lots every day! We have many new members who are excited to see the guts of last year’s robot, and learn how the programming makes it move and operate.
Our builders were hard at work refining our prototypes as well.
Our communications team had a lot of fun drafting a paragraph for the school newsletter. It’s hard to choose the right words to describe all of our activities.
Another really great part of today’s meeting was our dance lesson. There are some great dancers on our team this year! We look forward to being a very spirited group in the stands in New York City, and at GTR.
Do you know the Cupid Shuffle?
Posted in 2010 pre-build, 2010 skill building
Tagged dance, First Robotics, FRC, GTR, mentors, pre-season challenge, prototype, Queen's University, sponsors, uniform
This week is “Where’s Waldo Week” at school. The students association has arranged for little cut outs of Waldo to be hidden all over the school.
At break time everyone seems excited to look for Waldos!
We found a Waldo, and introduced him to our robot.
So…the next question is….can you find Waldo?
We know exactly where Waldo is! Waldo is Team 1547 from Trafalgar Castle School! We hope to see Waldo at the Greater Toronto Regional competition this year.
….this is what you missed today:
We had a meeting to decide what regionals we’d like to sign up for. We’re signed up for the New York City Regional (March 11, 12, 13) and we will also attend the Greater Toronto Regional (March 31, April 1, April 2).
We’ve started taking apart an old robot frame so we can use the motors and gears as part of our prototypes.
We’re using the frame from an old FIRST kit-bot to make another prototype.
We’ve added lots more things to our list of materials….springs might be useful….we’re not sure if we need squishy ones or not.
It’s exciting to be meeting so many new friends. Look at how many people are on our list! We keep track of many things with lists on the wall. It’s nice to see the list getting longer.
One bad thing happened today…..we may have broken the internet. For some reason we couldn’t search for anything online at all. We were hoping to search out new possible sponsors, and find their contact information.
we broke the internet
Every day we meet, we’re getting to know each other, we’re learning about teamwork, and gaining new technical skills. With lots of us working together, we can do great things.
gold stars for team work
We hope to see you soon Petey!
Love,
K-Botics
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