Day 17: Today is the last day of classes for us at KCVI! For the next little while our work space is open all day AND after school. This will be a productive week! Our electrical team went for a field trip today to Kraftwerk to discuss how we’re going to bend metal for several robot components. We are so glad to have the assistance of Kraftwerk again this year!
We worked today on our driving skills. We carpeted the hallway and set up an obstacle course.
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.
our design is tweedle approved!
We took a break for a delicious taco dinner. It is fun to eat all together like this. Everyone gets to know everyone else. “My favourite meals in the week are the ones I eat at robotics” -Olivia, grade 8
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!
Best of luck to anyone writing exams this week. Study hard, and come build robots when you’re done.
The test chassis got used again by our programmers to test some code.
4. Tweedles can knit!
The field’s barrier was finished today! The field makers have been making excellent progress so far and we are very eager to see the completed field.
Part of our rotations today was work on CAD. Some of our CAD skills are really improving! Today saw the creation of a CAD iPod Touch.
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.
At another station we worked on our team building and communication. We all stood on a blanket and folded it as much as possible while still standing on it!
We used this time together to practice our communication skills also. We want to get everyone comfortable talking about our team and FIRST in general.
We started with some hands on skills in wiring. We cut wires, stripped wires and learned how to solder.
George, a new K-Bot this year, thought that soldering was the best thing that he’d learned this season.
After the rotations were done, we started looking at CAD. We’ve got a tutorial for everyone to work through–it’s on the robotics drive at school–email your files to Kevin when you are done!
Our game analysis session focused on Breakaway, the FRC game from 2010. it was great to hear what the new members thought of the game and what strategies they came up with.
We welcome everyone to come and visit us at K-Botics headquarters on Thursdays after school!
