K-Botics is the talk of the town! We’ve had a great article in the Kingston EMC newspaper.
We also were pictured on the CTV coverage from Waterloo.
Last night we also were featured on our very own CKWS TV.
Great work to all who were interviewed!
After school many parents volunteered to drive us to Transformix Engineering where we ate snacks and did homework….
…and worked on programming the robot….
…and finishing up the wiring.
Thanks so much to Transformix for letting us use their space for the weekend and letting us bag and tag tonight. We’re making ourselves at home! There are Queen’s jackets everywhere!
We had a few visitors come to see the last exciting moments where our robot was driving around and shooting baskets. It’s really thrilling to see everything come together at the last minute and work like it was supposed to!
Chris, from FESTO, was excited to see the pneumatic components in action. He’s arranging FESTO giveaways for competition this season.
We also had our follow-up with CKWS TV. It was exciting to have media present for the final moments of our build. Bag and Tag was officially documented this year, and a two part series about our team will air Monday and Tuesday at the 6pm news on CKWS.
One minor hiccup that we had to negotiate before bagging the robot was our bumper design. After recent clarification our original split number bumper was deemed to be against the rules. We quickly made some patches to sew on. 
There were still plenty of people taking naps on the sidelines…It will take time to regain all of the lost sleep from recent days.
With 30 minutes to go, we separated our shooting device from the robot to hold back and work on over the next little while. Thank goodness for a withholding allowance!
There was great hustle near the robot, and also in the Transformix lunch room. We cleaned up all of our dishes and food and prepared for the excitement of putting the robot into the bag.
But first…we needed to weigh our robot. Using the bathroom scales gave us one estimate…
…Transformix’s industrial scale gave us another….
With a 20 pound shooter, we’re under weight! 
We gathered at 11:50 to bag our robot. Everyone wanted to be a part of the momentous occasion.
It’s all caught on film!
With a sigh of relief and a few cheers we were done, with a few minutes to spare!
It’s a strange feeling to be done building. We’re used to seeing each other every day, and now we’ll take a day to rest and recover before we start thinking of all that remains to be completed before going to competition. 
We’ll miss each other in the mean time though! Good work everyone. Thanks to all of our families and supporters for helping us through an intense 6 weeks. Enjoy your rest.
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”
We experimented with the bridge, to see how possible it will be to get three robots balanced on it. We needed to use extra weights from the weightroom next door to simulate the situation.
…and it looks like the camera is working! Here’s a robot-eye-view of the bridge balancing experience.
We worked with sensors, and are deciding which kinds of sensors give us the best data. 
For some of us, today was a great time to get hands dirty, 
greasing a gear box. 
Others spent their time evaluating our website, and looking for scouting information about other nearby teams.
We’re thrilled to announce that CKWS will be following our team this season, and will be in to film on Fridays. In preparation, we have had a media workshop to prepare for speaking in live interviews. 
Lunch was delicious chili and yummy desserts. Thanks again parents for all you do to support our team. By eating together, and laughing together, strong bonds are formed. We enjoy getting to know families too. Many little siblings are excited to grow up and join our team.
During lunch we had some very interesting discussions “Why go on a date when you can play Starcraft” etc.
It’s nice to have our workroom buzzing with activity. It’s also nice to see how other teams are approaching the design challenges. We look forward to sharing warehouse space with them during the last week of build.
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!
The hallways were buzzing with excited teams, coaches and parents. For some teams this was their very first FLL competition!
…and then we danced…
After much debate and discussion, and CAD mock-ups we’ve also got a good plan for how we’re going to deal with the tube scoring mechanism.
We took breaks for dinner, snacks, and also homework. Homework is very important!
We are thrilled to have another article to add to our media binder. We were in the Whig Standard today with the 
To spread the word about our club, and try to show people what fun we have, we put together a display for the case in front of the main office. We put two of our game pieces in there for safe keeping, along with some tools that we don’t need for the next week, and several colour pictures of our team in action.
We asked our members, new and old, to give us a phrase to explain our team, or to dispel myths about what goes on at robotics club. Each answer was cut out and taped to the glass on the front of the display case.
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award brainstorming breakaway build season bumpers CAD Chairman's Report communication community competition construction Cyber Falcons dance demo design electrical families field field trip First Robotics FLL FRC fundraising GTR kick off Logomotion Machining media mentors New York City Regional organization pre-season challenge programming prototype Queen's University rebound rumble safety scouting sponsors team building testing thank you Transformix video WAFFLES
