Day 16: We got lots of great news today! Our machine shop scheduling issues have been resolved! Thanks to Transformix Engineering and McLaughlin Hall at Queen’s University!
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.
“OOOOH!!! pushy button switchy thingies!” -Elizabeth, grade 12
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…
…and labelled the parts.
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?
There were MORE smiles when we had a surprise snack delivery! We love it when parents experiment with making large quantities of food, and show up at our door. 
“The muffins are SO DELICIOUS!” -Liam, grade 9
The oranges were so good, we couldn’t stop smiling!
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!
A Tweedle in a Trap!
We worked hard to modify some of our robot structure and try some new ideas. There are some creative ideas that we’ve been working on. Look at this…we even smile while we’re sawing!
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!
Some of our mentors are working very hard on their knitting. 
This season we’re knitting little hats to be give-away buttons for competitions. We’re known for our hats!
We had a wonderful ham supper from Jan and Ann tonight, and some special treats for Chinese New Year! 
After dinner, we got right back to work. Some of us are trying to get the camera code to work properly.
Our Chairman’s video is really starting to take shape. 
…and we had a great session to edit our Chairman’s essay.
Plenty of us are working on the very confusing bumper math. 
We’re trying to make reversible bumpers again this year, but in a slightly different configuration. It’s a pretty good math problem! We did lots of research today, and called different stores to source fabric and white Sharpie markers.
Our prototyping team is looking at various ways to manipulate the bridge. We’re coming up with some good ideas! It helps to work with such a big creative group.
For those of us who are in the know…this picture marks a rather momentous occasion. We’re starting to work on the next part.
Lots of us are tired out from long hours at robotics.
Nap time is much more comfy with bumpers as pillows!
We made LOTS of cookies!
We’re thankful to everyone who is pulling strings to help us out. We are lucky to have a great support system, including our own superhero!
The test chassis got used again by our programmers to test some code.
4. Tweedles can knit!
We decided to suspend a weight from a meter above our robot to mimic anything we might build up there, and then give it a try. We installed plywood chain guards to keep us all safe.
Some of us spent a great deal of time doing calculations, doing research and gathering our materials.
We discussed the plans for the 
Our group split up for rotations of CAD tutorial work–some of us are getting really good at the practical applications of CAD.
We held a brainstorming rotation for Chairman’s report ideas, and activities we should engage in over the year to help our community and build up our team. We also walked everyone through the 
The remaining station was a super top secret design challenge. Groups had 30 minutes and a variety of materials (wheels, newspaper, straws, plastecine, skewers, cardboard, wood, screws, saws, measuring devices, and lots of tape) to construct a vehicle that was powered by a balloon that could travel the farthest down the school hallway.
Because of our short ceilings, we cut the pole to fit in our classroom. We have a longer pole that we can use in the hallway or when we get our warehouse/test area set up.
Prototyping continues on minibot and manipulators for our host bot.
We were pleased to have Richard from Transformix helping out today with wiring for our minibot designs. There’s lots of math involved with figuring out proper circuitry.
We tried hooking up our new circuits, which involved a few soldering lessons. Webinar writing continued throughout the day. Over the next few days we will be loading them on Youtube and creating a webinar section on this site.
What would you like to see in a webinar?
Today we were thrilled to have lots of parents visit us to see our progress. Robotics is a family affair: feel free to come and visit any time!
We appreciate all the support, and the cookies and muffins that our families deliver to us! There’s a meal sign up sheet by the lab door, we hope that we’ll get some families signing up to provide evening meals when we stay late. Thanks to those who already have signed up!
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.
