Have you ever wanted to augment your reality? Today our team went to the Queen’s University Integrated Learning Center to see a demo of Augmented Reality Pool.
This is a project being worked on by one of our mentors who helped with programming and vision code this past season. He wanted to show us that some of the same techniques that our team used are being used by researchers in computer vision in other areas too.
We had a brief tour of the ILC, and learned about what goes on in the building. Many of us have been there before for Science Quest, or for our FLL practice tournament a few years ago. There is usually NOT a big tent set up in the computer area though. This is a special demo set up for A.R. Pool.
It needs to be under a tent to control the lighting on the pool table. There are cameras and a projector involved in the game, so lighting is very important. The cameras are supposed to detect where the balls are, and where the cue is, and the projector will then trace lines showing where the balls will travel after they are hit at a specific angle.
Unfortunately, when we arrived for our tour and demo, there were a few technical issues. The camera settings were off….
…so those got changed….
…and then the lengthy calibration process had to happen.
We know all about calibration. It is such an important step in making any system function well. We had days of calibration in the warehouse before our robot was shooting well.
Although we didn’t see any A.R. Pool today, we have been invited to come back tomorrow to try again. We definitely got a better appreciation of the calibration process though!
While all of this is going on, there’s a small group of purple enthusiasts who are choosing the colour to paint our robot cart. We’re thinking that “Victory Purple” would be a great choice…because it would match M.E.L.
While at robotics we have been experimenting with different hair styles…today Sam wore a hairband!
We shared snacks….
…and had a fantastic BBQ chicken dinner! Thanks parents for feeding us so well.
Later in the evening we welcomed more people into our big purple family!
…eating snacks…
…and having fun…
…watching blue flashing LEDs
We have got some changes to make on our scouting sheets too–scouts, please give input on what would make the process more smooth in St. Louis.
After the presentation we had a break for cookies! Yummmmm
Then we started working on our very long “to-do” list–it’s hard to imagine all of the things that have to get done before the 24th.
One of the things to do is get robots ready for our parent-teacher night demonstrations. We’ve now got two robots up and running! We’re certainly going to make an impression on all of the parents.
Finally, at the end of our meeting we were excited to see the outcome of our vision processing party on Thursday. 
It turns out that we’re pretty good at counting pixels. Our data set was very well labeled and served as a great set of test images for various vision algorithms. We are now very optimistic about our auto-aiming, and looking forward to some quality time in the Transformix warehouse to calibrate everything.
We found corners, and counted pixels, and inserted data into a spreadsheet.
It’s not the most exciting or glamorous task to do…
…but when we’re working together it is a little bit more fun. Thanks K-Bots for coming together to get this big task accomplished in one day!
We had cake too! That helps make tedious tasks more fun.
When the image processing party was done, we continued to work on wiring for our shooter calibration.
And started to debug the programming for Kasey III-Barbra Streisand. We are looking forward to showing parents all about our robotics program at parent teacher interviews next week. 
K-Bots, enjoy your long weekend! We’ll meet again after school on Tuesday from 2:45-6:30PM. Come and see charts and graphs made from all of the image processing data!
We got to the Waterloo University PAC around 7:15 and were the first team there by far. We’re not used to this, and were a little surprised not to see our friends 1114 and 2056. We think they were there just as early but at another door.
We made good use of our time to nap a bit, chat a bit, knit a bit, and get excited. 
When the stands opened up we realized quickly that things can very easily fall down through the open areas and get lost under the bleachers. We aren’t supposed to go under the bleachers to retrieve things, so we decided to tie all our important tools to ourselves so they don’t fall down. Here’s how we keep our scissors safe.
The pit crew worked hard to set up our tools and get the robot pieces back together again. Yesterday we created a long list of tasks, and decided on priorities. Today we worked our way through them all!
We put up all of our pit decor, proudly displaying our sponsor logos on the wall. Our sponsors have been extremely supportive this season, and some have already redoubled their efforts to support our team now that we are going to the Championships. Thank you very much sponsors!
We are one of 30 teams at this regional competition. The venue is divided up into two areas. The pits are 10 foot cubes of space for each team which acts as our home base for robot repairs and battery charging. Judges come by the pit to talk about our robot and our team. Teams come by our pit to scout as well.
The other half of the venue is the playing field. We’re glad that we got here early to get some pretty great seats. We were sitting right behind our friends team 771. One of our mentors was a 771 student a few years ago! 
Our mentorship team is really special. We have many Queen’s University students who are alumni of FIRST teams (1114,610,771,772,1620, and our own 2809). Each of these mentors brings with them different skills, talents and experiences from these teams. We also have many mentors who have experience outside of FIRST which provides us with a wealth of ideas and approaches to solving problems, mechanical and otherwise.
One of our K-Botics alumni, John, came to visit us today. He is studying mechatronics engineering at Waterloo. John gave us a great campus tour and explained about how being a part of a FIRST team has helped give him hands on skills, and how important it is to work hard in high school classes to learn the basics so well that you can do them quickly. 
We saw a really cool solar car on the wall….
…and dinosaurs….
….and we even snuck into a lecture hall to see what being in a university class would be like. Thanks John so much for your great tour full of fun facts!
While some of us were on a tour, the pit crew was hard at work getting our robot to pass inspection. We connected the shooter again, positioned the new electrical box, made a new battery mount, and put a second camera on. It was a very very busy day, and we accomplished a lot.
Once there were lots of robots on the field playing practice matches, our veteran scouts started to train our new scouts. We record data about each robot’s performance in each match which gets compiled in a database. After 4 years we have an scouting system that works pretty well for us. 
When not scouting, we made time for other fun activities like knitting lessons….
….or walks in the sunshine to see the wildlife of Waterloo.
Our robot passed inspection, and was even under weight…by a good 6 pounds. We were able to take to the field to test out the systems in a real game scenario. There were a few bugs, but we’ve got a plan to work things out tomorrow.
When we realized how underweight we were, we were able to put on an upward facing bridge tipper that’s nice and robust. Vacuums are very handy to have when drilling through metal on your robot. Metal shavings can cause a lot of damage and some very exciting sparks when they get into the electronics. We worked hard to avoid that scenario.
By the end of the day, we were feeling a whole lot better about our robot! 
Part of our debugging plan included bringing a target back to the hotel to test the camera code. We looked pretty funny as we rushed through Waterloo University campus with our backboard!
We had dinner at the Mongolian Grill, which was a really fun experience, and the food was great too!
We returned to the hotel, absolutely exhausted, and were in bed by 9:30PM. The competition begins tomorrow. Here’s our match schedule.
Here’s a link to the 
We programmed the shooter to accurately score on the top basket from many locations. With a little more time, we’ll have it working every single shot!
We enjoyed watching the SanDiego regional webcast today. We’re picking up on a few strategic ideas as we watch.
We’re preparing for our tournament…making lists of tools to pack, and checklists of things to do between matches. One of the things we’re doing before the tournament is to repair any faulty battery leads, so we have our full complement of batteries ready to go.
These guards weigh less than Lexan, and will therefore allow more weight in the final component design that we’re working on.
The pieces are all coming together. We look forward to seeing all of the robots in action in Oshawa in a few days.
Congrats to our friends FIRST Team 772, 
We’re starting to really notice the time passing. Some of us are feeling the time crunch! There are only 5 more days until we are competing in Oshawa, and we’re still working on some critical components. We’ll figure something out in the nick of time!
Our skills at vacuum forming chain guards is increasing by the day. We made another mould today, and will work on our final moulds tomorrow. Thank goodness for all the Timbits consumed today. We needed the cardboard to help stabilize the styrofoam!
Between designing, scouting, programming, shooting, and vacuum forming we got pretty hungry. Pizza sure was delicious! Speaking of food, K-Bots: if you have not yet put in your food order for Oshawa, you need to contact Colleen.
While we ate, our new friend the Roomba helped clean up some of our carpet. It’s mesmorizing to sit and watch it move around and around.
Come see the Roomba and the rest of the excitement at the warehouse tomorrow from 10AM-6PM. Bring your own food!
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.
…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 
