One more sleep before competition! We’re getting excited about going to Oshawa for the Greater Toronto East Regional Competition.
We met after school to organize our scouting supplies, pack the pit area, and tie up any loose ends related to the robot and its components. Thanks to Transformix for doing a last minute welding job for us! 
We got two deliveries today. One was from FESTO, bringing us pneumatics supplies and some cool swag to distribute at competition.
We also got our T-Shirt order today! K-Bots, please bring in your $10 (per shirt) tomorrow! Mentors got jerseys this year for Rebound Rumble. Thanks very much to all who helped organize our very large shirt order, and prepare the shirts for distribution.
K-Bots: carpools leave from the school at 4PM. The carpool list is posted in our workroom. Sleep well tonight!
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.
Today we started off bright and early in the Transformix Engineering Plant 2 Warehouse.
We worked hard to reassemble our robot to get everything in working order to test some key components that Purolator delivered today! 
We’re so excited to be in the warehouse and wrapping up build season. Some of us are wearing robot themed accessories!
Before too long we set to work putting holes into our robot….EVERYWHERE!
We weighed the robot….and look what the scale said!
Just kidding….that was only part of the robot. We think we’re on target though.
We ate a yummy lunch provided by our parents. It’s so nice to be well taken care of during a very stressful time.
After lunch it was nap time, until we had to construct the field. It takes a lot of power to keep the warped wood lined up properly.
The Cyberfalcons, FIRST team 3710, joined us in the warehouse today, and helped out fastening the field pieces to the carpet with heavy duty velcro.
Hard work leads to more nap time!
Our electrical and programming team worked hard to get all of the sensors connected and working.
Productivity was everywhere….
The Cyberfalcons made bumpers…
We worked on programming….
…and built a human player station….
….and made sparks fly!
Some of our mentors were ABSOLUTELY happy with all of our progress…..while others were a little concerned to see the robot disappearing before their very eyes.
Our families came to visit us and see our progress all day long. All of Mr. Wood’s family was here all at once!
We appreciate our families encouraging us through these last busy days. It’s nice to share the excitement with everyone we love.
Spontaneous sweeping is always a good thing….so is collecting piles of files! Rhyming organization is the best kind.
While waiting for the testing to begin, we entertained ourselves in many different ways….one of which was a crazy hair extravaganza! Thumbs up to everyone!
It was such a great work day today. Thanks to everyone for bringing your best effort, enthusiasm, and patience today. Please also bring your homework tomorrow….there will be some moments of down time where you can get ready for Tuesday. Also….when you arrive tomorrow, say happy birthday to Kevin!
See everyone here at 9AM!
Scouting meetings have happened, and we’ve started working on a database.
Our robot must have done a lot of exercise and eaten a lot of healthy food! Today it lost some weight. We used rivets instead of bolts…. 
We cut holes in everything…
Using the vacuum is important….otherwise the 4 pounds of aluminum shavings would have ended up in the chain.
We nibbled a lot of lexan….
…and a lot of metal…
Challenges were given, and accepted….to get all the nibbling done in half an hour.
We ate MEAT….on a stick! Thanks parents for keeping us fed.
After dinner we cleaned up our workspace. “I used the vacuum! It sucked” -Sam
We packed up our gear to get to the warehouse tonight. We’re making a nest…but we feel it will be empty without you!
We worked hard today putting more pieces onto our robot. Wheels are turning, and other components get added each day.
Thanks so much to Bruce at Transformix for all of the machining support this past week.
Outside 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.
We had so many treats today! Thanks so much to our supportive parents who take care of us so well. 
Thanks 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. 
This 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.
The LEGO robotics portion included putting together a robot and also programming it.
After a short time we had little robots spinning around and singing songs.
Knitters 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!
Many thanks to the girls and their leaders for agreeing to make some 
Many thanks also for the gift of girl guide cookies!!
We have also been cutting various materials to attach them to different components.
It’s hard work to stay focused after a long day of school…
The wires are all in place now. Sensors and drive motor controllers have been connected.
Things have really come together quickly in the past few days.
The Cyberfalcons have been hard at work too. We had a visit from them today. Their robot is looking very cool. We look forward to sharing time in the warehouse with them this weekend.
Our dinner tonight was delicious as usual. Each night we’ve had something different and interesting to eat. Thanks so much parents for looking after us so well.
After dinner we worked on some of our projects. Our super-top-secret knitting project is getting really large. We got some yarn donated to us today from Wool-Tyme. 
This sweater was never completed. We’re not sure if we should finish it or take it apart and use the yarn.
We’ve got great Valentines day plans for tomorrow. We’re spending the evening with a girl guide group teaching them all about LEGO robotics and knitting. They’re going to make some Kare-bots for us.
We’re making supports for the pneumatic systems and for the battery. It’s quite a riveting experience.
Programmers worked hard today getting robots ready for driver tryouts.
At 
Jags are now mounted….
So are the victors…
And the wires are all being put in place
We’ve had lots of helpers working on our electrical system. Thanks to Richard from Transformix for lending a hand today.
We took a break to de-stress today. Bubble wrap is a wonderful toy!
In the afternoon we set up the gym for driver/operator/human player tryouts.
We practiced throwing long distances. Some of us scored on the basket–some came close. Our mentor, James, scored twice!
The tryouts consisted of driving an old robot around the gym, through an obstacle course, over the bridge and back, and balancing. We had a defense robot to deal with too!
All interested drive team members then took a test to see how well they knew the rules of the game.
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!
We put duct tape on the aluminum to make sure we didn’t file away our robot!
With wheels and sprockets on, we attached our chain.
Pretty soon, this robot’s going to be driving!
We’re working hard to get all the needed parts to fit nicely within the frame. Sometimes those parts need a bit of filing too.
Some of the parts needed a little bit more work. A few sparks flew!
In other news, our circuit boards arrived from Advanced Circuits, so we got straight to work soldering on various components.
It’s precision work, but when done with friends, the assembly line process is lots of fun.
Another fun job is bending Lexan. We worked with a heat gun and bent various robot parts. It takes a lot of muscle power to make bends with large pieces.
Programmers are working hard with the cameras and other sensors. We’re all going to be excited to get our hands on the 2012 robot to test out the code for real!
For now, we’re using our 2010 robot for drive testing. We are dealing with a real opportunity for trouble shooting as we often need to fix bits and pieces.
We want to thank our school principal for the wonderful pizza dinner. It’s great to have such support from our school community.
After a long day of machining, our trusty mentors need some well deserved nap time. We might need to make our nest again soon.
It’s going to be a long day tomorrow. Be prepared to stay late. We’ll see tomorrow if we need to do that.
…then made a template for our bear paws…
…we punched to mark the center of each circle….
…and then started to drill.
We lined up the holes pretty well this year…
..it is a precision operation!
There are lots of cheese holes to make, so we all took turns.
While not cheeseholing we occupied our time updating the media binder with our recent news coverage.
We drilled access holes to the valves for our wheels…
…and we displayed our Kare-bots in the main hallway at school.
CAD drawings got completed…
…we weighed our metal…17 pounds!
…and we took a trip to buy bumper material.
To burn off steam we took a break to practice throwing.
We’ll have human player tryouts after we have a bit more practice time.
The Tweedles showed us how to throw with great distance and accuracy. 
Programming work is coming along too. “We’re declaring Friends”-Mr. Wood
