We have decided to work on our autonomous routines before we head out to St. Louis. We’re going to test our vision and auto-aiming functions, and to do this we needed to process a lot of images of the backboards.
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 moved all of our things back into our workspace. We’ve got the computers working again, and the locks are back on the closets. Things are slowly returning to normal. 
We were working with our CAD drawing to design a shooter stand that better simulates the real robot geometry for our calibration.
We’re also working on our electrical box. Knowledge is being transferred from veteran K-Bots to rookies with great enthusiasm.
We’re preparing for scouting at the championship level. This includes a primer on wheels and drive systems. Thanks to everyone who put in work to prepare these materials.
Kare-bots are still being made….
…and we received a great post card from India which told us of how much fun it is to give Kare-bots away!
Finally, today we celebrated Olivia’s birthday! She got good news today, she’ll be at KCVI next year in the I.B. program! We’re excited that she’ll be on our team for years to come.
Thanks to our mentors and parents for driving. Thanks to Petey, a founding mentor of our team, for donating many years worth of bottles!
Parents worked hard, loading and unloading cases into their cars and doing the returns.
Kids worked hard collecting, sorting and crushing cans.
We ended up making over $600 on the day. Thanks to all who helped out! Feel free to collect more bottles, return them, and give us the money. This bottle drive never ends.
It is a big relief to have a working computer lab again. We hope the rest of our equipment can be retrieved soon.
In other exciting news, Canadian teams received Bimba orders today! This is really late for build season this year. Hopefully we’ll be able to incorporate them into next year’s robot.
Today we made a new friend for our team! It’s amazing what an impact FIRST robotics has on people. Our new friend was on a FIRST team, and is excited to get involved here in Kingston. She loves our Kare-bots initiative and had to buy one! We’re raising money currently for a Kenyan school via CanAssist.
Today after school we repaired the crate walls…
…and strapped robot and bumpers down so they won’t jiggle around too much in transport.
The finishing touch was to screw down the top of the crate.
Here are two very proud crate assemblers. Many thanks go out to the crate builders who put in a lot of work last year. We all owe them one. 
Just to prove that the crate is solid, they gave it a kick for good luck.
Miss Compomants will be making her way to St. Louis via FedEx tomorrow! Hopefully it’s a smooth journey.
Today was also a special day for two K-Bots. Happy birthday to Jacob and Brennan!
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 
It was great that so many parents came to see us off at the bus. We know that parents will be cheering us on, and watching the 
Our precious cargo got seats on the bus with us.
We had a pretty great bus ride. There was a lot of music and dancing….and for a brief time, there was a nerf-gun war….We had many games of MASH, and giggles about what everyone’s future life would be like.
One of our K-Bots has forgotten their hat. Hats are an important part of our uniform. When hats are lost or misplaced or forgotten, they are often replaced…but with hot pink accents. This hat is starting off with a beard! It will grow over the course of the tournament.
When we arrived at our hotel, many of us took time to relax. Parents and teachers will be glad to know that some of us got right to work on homework and assignments.
Others took advantage of the time to catch up on sleep.
Our chairman’s team has been working very hard, and takes all opportunities to practice their presentation.
We are looking forward to sharing the story of our team with the judges at Waterloo. To help pass our message along, we created a little book. Time was tight, so the book got shipped to our hotel, and we got our first look at it today!
After the pit crew loaded our robot and equipment into the venue, we gathered at East Side Mario’s for our dinner. Our team is so big we take up 2 huge tables!
We had a delicious dinner, and enjoyed the time together. Our big purple family meal times have really bonded us together this build season.
This evening’s business included a strategic meeting for our pit crew. There are many tasks to complete before noon tomorrow. We need to re-attach all of our components that we removed to work on between competitions, and then start calibrating our robot for this event.
With a list of priorities firmly established, everyone headed to bed. Lights were out by 10:30PM. It’s the start of a busy few days, with early wake up calls for breakfast bagel parties!-
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