This morning we find K-Bots helping people stay safe! At FIRST robotics competitions the public is welcome to come and view the pits, but before doing so they must put on safety glasses. We helped with the sign-in/sign-out system today!
Our robot was seen doing much better. With a lot of hard work, and thoughtful analysis, our system was debugged. We were shooting 2 point shots very consistently from the fender, even when being heavily defended against.
We are so proud of our drive team, and our pit crew, both students and mentors for persevering through many tense moments and finding ways to make it all work out in the end.
We gave hugs all around today! Hugs to each other….
…and hugs to the little kids. Our blue bear was one of the favourite mascots in the venue. 
We saw other mascots in the pit. This one reminded us all of Captain Canada who came to New York…
….and to St. Louis with us last year.
We know that Captain Canada was in action at the Arizona Regional with our friends Team 610. Congrats to Team 610 on their regional win! We’re looking forward to sharing Captain Canada at worlds!
Meanwhile back at the pit, we received an award from team 1305. We were given the “personality in the pit” award. 
Back on the field, we were selected by team 781 to be on the 6th alliance. We selected team 288 to join us, and we set off to prove ourselves in the elimination rounds.
We needed to pass inspection once more before eliminations. We put on our final touches and then took to the field.
In the quarter finals we had our autonomous mode working, scoring high baskets even when slightly nudged by our alliance partners! We staged an upset, taking down the 3rd alliance, and making a debut of a new defensive strategy.
Morale was high, and we were dancing up a storm in the stands….
…and on the sidelines. We played very strongly in the semi finals, against a very strong alliance. We lost a heartbreaking last match by only one point!
The number 1 alliance, led by teams 1114 and 2056 worked so well today with rookies 4372 to win the regional. There was one surprise “upset” though, when team 2056 was tipped over while crossing the bump. It is rare to see them up-ended like this!
In our last match, a motor was knocked off, and we weren’t sure how badly our robot was damaged. In the pit we realized that a bolt had been sheered, but the electronics and motor were still in working condition. The robot then got bagged and tagged, and loaded up with the rest of our tools onto the bus.
We gathered for a team photo before heading home. It was a very exciting day, full of hard work, good fun, lots of dancing, and a robot that scored more balls today than any other day!
We stopped on the way back to Kingston for dinner. Our waitress took one look at our group and said “You guys look like a lot of fun!”
It was great to have time to unwind and have a few laughs, and to discuss what we need to do next. When mentioning bumper repair, it was suggested that they get bedazzled….“My favourite colour is sparkle!” -Michael, Queen’s Mentor. 
As is our team tradition, on the bus ride back, we played music, and cracked open the glowsticks to have a “bus rave”.
Returning home to the school, we unpacked the bus….and started to load back into our classroom.
But we were faced with a rather shocking scene when we returned:
Our room had been broken into, and computers taken.
The police came and took over the scene….
…and we packed all of our robotics gear in another area for the time being.
K-Bots: enjoy a few days of rest from robotics, be proud of what you have accomplished this season so far. It will soon be time to gear up for St. Louis! Thanks to all of the friends, families, and sponsors who have been cheering for us. We appreciate your support!
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 arrived to the competition and took our place in line behind our friends 1114, 2056 and 610. Team 188 followed quickly behind us, and together we ensured that today the mad rush was a little less pushy.
Everyone is so excited to get started in the morning….some of our grade 9 students were quite surprised to be waking up before 6AM on a weekend morning while on a school trip!
And while competition continued on the field, repairs (both small and large) happened in the pit. 
Our matches this morning were not as successful as most of the ones yesterday. We ended the qualification rounds with a 5-3-1 record, and in 16th place at the start of alliance selection.
We worked out a strategy with our alliance partners and developed a game plan over lunch.
During the elimination rounds the game plan changes from earning coopertition points using the middle bridge with your opposing alliance member to earning extra points for getting an entire alliance onto the bridge. 3 robots on the bridge barely fit, but we saw it a few times. Here’s team 1075, team 548 and team 4307 with a triple balance in the quarter finals…
….and here’s our friends team 610, team 188 and team 3360 who balanced like this for much of the afternoon!
We were not so lucky with our end game balancing act. We could usually get 2 robots on, but this time, the clock stopped with our partner half off. We were eliminated in quarter final play.
Our team continued to watch the rest of the drama unfold as the semis and finals progressed. 
Part of our team returned to the pit to clean up and pack all of our belongings. When in the pit, we’re super safe. Here’s Michelle, dressed in her purple, wearing her proper safety attire!
We’d like to thank our sponsors for all that they’ve done for us, and all of the support that they gave leading up to the competition. We would not be here without the financial backing, the material donations and the time and energy spent making our team what it is.
As we were cleaning up our pit area we got to know some new friends from team 2056. It’s a small world when we realize that our purple and blue families intersect with the Cyberfalcons! FIRST is great for joining individual teams together as families, and creating networks of teams among communities. 
Even though we were eliminated from play, we continued to dance up a storm!
We danced in the stands…and we danced on the sidelines with a few other teams. 
We watched as the finals progressed….it was a grudge match between an alliance of 1114 and 2056 facing an alliance of 610 and 188. We know these teams well–we meet them in line for the doors to open each morning! Some of our mentors were once part of these teams, and we cheer them on and watch in awe at the things their robots can do.
At the end of the competition, awards are given out to many teams. Many teams qualified to go to championships from this regional. Many congratulations and standing ovations were given to the following:
“The Engineering Inspiration Award celebrates a team’s outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering and engineers, both within their school and their community. Criteria include: the extent and inventiveness of the team’s efforts to recruit students to engineering, the extent and effectiveness of the team’s community outreach efforts, and the measurable success of those efforts. This is the second highest team award FIRST bestows.
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.
Programming needed a little tweaking to make the robot easier to drive.
It takes a little time to get used to the controls….
…and then it takes intense focus to drive the robot without hitting the cones. We saw a lot of promising drivers today! We’ll keep practicing, and have some driver tryouts in early February.
We’re organizing all of our tasks on our big organizational chalkboard. There is so much to do!
We’re working on our CAD drawings still. We’ve got lots of part drawings to get done before we can manufacture all of the parts. 
We’re prototyping various devices to manipulate the ramp. To make it more fun we split up into two teams (girls vs. boys) and had a competition.
We’re planning and measuring and cutting material carefully.
We’re working together, mentors and experienced team members are showing our rookies how to work safely.
It’s exciting to see our designs work well! Even if our designs don’t work well, we can learn from that.
We also get to meet family members…
…and welcome them into our big purple family. Family members love Tweedles as much as the rest of us!
After dinner we kept working on our prototypes for ramp manipulation. When tested on the ramp, the boys’ prototype was definitely the loudest, but the girls’ seemed to be a little more effective. Good work girls!
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.
Then we use our organizational chart to divide ourselves up into several groups. We have a timeline of season goals, along with weekly goals and daily tasks on our blackboard. Each student and mentor have their name on a magnet, and choose their tasks for the session.
Our field building crew worked really hard to get the backboards complete, including the proper coloured tape. 
Today we completed the middle level backboards. We can’t wait for the hoops to be delivered.
To test some of our ideas, we tried to use our robot from 2010.
We’ll know a lot more about how to approach our design dilemma when we can see a robot moving over a barrier and onto a bridge. Programmers are keen to get their hands on the test chassis too. We like to multitask in a productive way.
K-Bots, beware…..more pop quizzes are in your future. Please learn the 
Today we were very lucky to get a tour of both of 
We saw their machine shop, and also saw one of their automated high speed assembly robots. The robots are really intricate and complicated. They are also top secret, so we couldn’t take pictures of them. We did take a picture of the warehouse. This was where we practiced driving our robot last year.
If you are interested in trying to drive a robot with the Kinect, please come to KCVI room 107 on Saturday. We’re there from noon until 3PM.
Other adventures of the day included a tube throwing competition in the courtyard since teams and the semi-formal were taking over the gyms. The courtyard is not ideal–it’s too small, but at least it’s not windy. We’ve had some pretty good throws.
Our bear mascot has a fan in the head now. We’re working on making sure that nobody’s hair gets caught in it! Safety first!
Our CAD crew has been hard at work and will continue to work all weekend long. Drawing deadlines are coming up!-
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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
