I found more cool robot information, including a story in Popular Science on FIRST Robotics:

Robotic Adventures at the FIRST Competition

Study Shows Robots Could Prepare Lunar Landing Pad

Scientists Build Robot That Responds to Human Gestures

See what the St. Louis community thinks of our visit to their fine city, and their thoughts on FIRST Robotics Competition.

Smart Thinkers Tinker With Engineering at FIRST Robotics Regionals

All students involved with this project have a lot to be thankful for and should be thoroughly content with what they have accomplished.

Cruising the web, I found something fun on the Wall-E website. You can build your own robot and play games with it.

Build-A-Bot

You can build a virtual robot here too:

Build A Robot 

SearchBots 

Then there are sites that let you buy parts to build an actual robot:

Machine Science

Robot Kits

Robot Marketplace 

And information on how to build robots:

Society of Robots

Arrick Robots

Let's Make Robots

Robot Building Lessons

The BeetleBot

Lastly, science information about an octopus robot.

The New Scientist

Have fun!

Saturday at the St Louis Regionals, we competed for seed positions in the regionals competition matches to be held Saturday afternoon. I will update this news item as the day goes by to keep viewers up to date on scores and other events.

Here are the numbers from Saturday's competitions:

Each time a match is scheduled, the team is assigned to an alliance of 3 teams. It can be the blue alliance for one game and the red alliance for the next game.

Our record in the seeding matches is now 6-5. We were seeded as #10 before the elimination matches began.

Friday at the St Louis Regionals, we competed for seed positions in the competitions on Saturday. I hear that we are currently seed 16 out of 36 teams. The top 8 teams get to pick who will be part of their 3 team alliance on competition day (Saturday, 3-21). Team Argos competed in 8 games today. Our record is 4-4.

Here are the numbers (as best as I recorded them) from Friday's competitions:

Each time a match is scheduled, the team is assigned to an alliance of 3 teams. It can be the blue alliance for one game and the red alliance for the next game.

Look for better formatting, more pictures, more information, addition of the 2009 game video, and the removal of the comments section. We were not interested in keeping that section anyway, so I moved the column About FIRST to that location. I'll be spending lots of time tweaking the style sheets to refine the look as days go by...

Sweet!

Well, this is it... the robot has shipped! We spent the last few days at the practice field working out the bugs and fine tuning some things. I even heard our software mentor say that we have 7... count them, seven autonomous modes programmed for the robot. That should keep the opposition guessing!

See you at the competion in St Louis.

This is it! Team Argos is nearing the end of the robot build. We're putting the final touches on the 'bot, running practice drills on the practice field, running scrimmages against other robots and having friends and family out to watch the scrimmages. It's getting exciting to be so close to the end of the build...

Update: things didn't go as well as hoped for at the practice field, but the team pulled together and worked hard to improve the robot for competition. Powder coating had not yet happened when I left the practice field today...  :-(

If you're one of the students working on Team Argos, look at the students page under 2009 Season to the left. The webmaster could use some information and/or pictures to post on the site. If you have anything to send to the webmaster, email it to argos1756@gmail.com.

Thanks for the help!

A new look for the website now incorporates our team colors of blue and yellow as a consistent theme throughout the website. A new section has been added for the 2009 season and pictures have been added under the photos link. Be sure to take a look! Also, we now have an embedded calendar on the website with all of the important dates for the robot build entered. It's a live calendar and the user can navigate forward or backward in time to see what's on the calendar for that time frame.

More updatres are on the way. Maps and instructions to the practice field just to name a few.

Check back often!

Season kick off with the big game announcement live from NASA! Area teams gathered at the Caterpillar Tech Center for the offical announcment, it was a packed auditorium! This year's game is called...

Lunacy is a game set to be similar to driving a robot on the moon with the challenge of throwing or shooting a ball into an opponent's trailer to score points. The robots have to try to navigate on a slick surface that emulates trying to get traction on the moon's surface where the gravity is 1/6 the gravity of the Earth. Now that the game is unveiled, the frantic action to build a robot to compete in 6 weeks has begun! Updates will be posted here often, keep checking back.

Hey people!  For te people who have not been to the meetings, or heard, we will be taking the ball shooting robot to the Bradley Basketball game on Dec. 29.  If you will be in town or available, it would be great if you could come.  Thanks!

All -

After our month (or so) of rest, we are ready to begin working towards FRC 2008! We are planning to get together on Tuesday, May 8, from 6 pm to 8 pm at Manual Rm 134. This is short notice. We want to get some balls rolling before school is out.

Basic agenda will be:

• Leadership changes
• Summer activites -- June and beyond
• Room clean-up

All team members from last year are welcome, as well as any friends that may be interested in participating this coming season.

See you next week!

NASA has updated their web page to make finding the 2007 FIRST Championship competition fields easier to find for viewing.

Please go to http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/robotics/ and scroll down to find the field you wish to view (you may also want to catch some of the FLL and FVC rounds too!)

A public agenda of all the 2007 FIRST Championship program activities can be found at http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Community/Assets/Agenda_Final.pdf.

UPDATE:

In case you haven't heard, Icarus (Team #2081, based at Notre Dame HS in Peoria), did make it to nationals by winning the Rookie All-Star Award at the Boilermaker Regional in Lafayette, IN. 

Cheer them on when you watch!

• Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA): http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/index.asp
  When you go to the website, note the 5 vehicles shown at the top of the page. Caterpillar sponsored 3 of those teams.
• Carnegie Mellon University Tartan Racing: http://www.tartanracing.org/
• Red Whittaker: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/whittaker_boldly_050209.html or use Google to find out more.

• Our team was 8-2 in the seeding matches, and finished as the #2 overall seed.  The seeding matches were extremely exciting for our team.  We did not have the sexiest robot on the field.  We did have one of the scrappiest.  Using a combination of driver skill, team scouting, sound strategy, and a bit of luck, we found a way to win matches.  Match after match, our scout team and drive team was able to develop a winning strategy using the alliance we were with.  As an example of this, we entered one match with Argos as the only tube-scoring robot.  We blew a transmission the match before, and couldn't move.  The other two robots played defense, and one was able to climb a ramp on the other for the 30-pt bonus, and thus won the match.  In the end, communication between our student drive team, student scout crew, and other teams made the difference in a lot of matches.
• In the pits, our robot needed a lot of TLC throughout the weekend.  I can't say enough about the hard work our students and mentors did in an extremely intense, high-pressured environment to keep the robot going.  If any of you get a chance to see this year's robot this coming year, note the blue plastic frisbee used to repair the claw-actuating motor.  Great job of making use of materials on hand!
• Our first elimination round was against an alliance led by the Motorola Wildstang team (#111) -- the eventual regional champion alliance (congratulations to them!).  Quite honestly, our alliance was overwhelmed, and we lost 0-2 in the best-of-3 match format.  This was a bitter way to end the season.  Our team, though, has nothing to hang it's head about.
• We put together a Chairman's award submission.  As a sophomore team, winning a Regional Chairman's award is a long shot.  The award went to Team #71 (Beatty Int'l) -- congratulations to them!  I was impressed by our submission, and I believe it will lay the foundation for years to come.  With hard work, I have little doubt that we will be able to win the Chairman's award in coming years.  If there was an award for most creative Chairman's award presentation, our skit would have won hands-down!  
• We had a quality submission for the Animation award. In the end, we did not end up winning.  The animation is very creative, and the end product has a very professional look to it.  If you get a chance to watch it, see if you can pick out the FIRST logo. . .

Information about the Midwest Regional Competition in Chicago has been posted!

Included are bus departure/arrival times, maps to the Caterpillar Technical Center's parking area, as well as information about the competition location, lodging, and Caterpillar leader/chaperone contacts. Additionally, links to live scoring and webcasts web sites are available.

2007 Midwest Regional Competition

Please use the "Printable Format" link at the bottom of the above page to print out a copy, if desired.

Midwest Regional Match Results

Midwest Regional Rankings

Midwest Regional Awards

Good luck team!

Got skill? Let it show at the Fab. Lab., hosted by Team Argos on Tuesday, March 13th at 6:30 PM in room 134 at Manual High School. Any FLL student and their parents may attend.

Activities:

• Complete tasks presented by the mechanical and electrical sub teams
• Compete for prizes
• Drive the Argos robot from 2006 Competition
• Work with students from Team Argos
• Enjoy drinks and cookies

If you have a break today, check this out. For this weekend, they are showing regionals in Virginia and New Jersey.

Want to see other regional events but can't travel to them? NASA is webcasting some events (and many will be archived!). Follow this link for more information...

 

http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/webcasts/regionals_2007.php

Team -

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, 2/27, 6pm to 9pm at Manual HS. Parents specifically are invited to come from 6pm to 7pm to discuss travel to the regional event in Chicago. The rest of the night will be dedicated to preparing for the regional.

Listed below are two documents.  The first is some general information about the trip, including hotel and meal arrangements, daily schedule, and bus departure/arrival times and location.  The second is the travel rules. These are specific to the students.  After reviewing these, the back sheet needs to be signed and turned in by March 6.

FRC_Regional_travel_info_022407

2007_Argos_FIRST_travel_rules_and_expectations

We will meet weekly until the competition. Next meetings will be Tuesdays, 3/6 and 3/13. Same time, same place.

Thanks,

Scott

• Electrical/Software and Mechanical teams worked most of the day and night to get the robot competition-ready.  All in all, it is a good robot.
  
• Robot was packed for shipping!
  
• Media team finalized entry for Chairman’s Award.

THANK YOU! To all the students, mentors, parents, and other volunteers that helped with this project.  As team lead, I couldn’t be happier.  Get some rest, and let’s get ready for Chicago!

• Primary control of robot passed to Elec/SW group. Mech team – we need to be aware of this, and avoid congregating around the robot if at all possible. The Elec/SW group needs time and space to work.
• Met as team to discuss the next week.
• 8 days left; as team, expect to work all 8 days
• Includes Friday night, Saturday, Sunday afternoon
• Doesn’t mean that all team members will need to be there every night.
• We may have an Elec/SW-only night to focus on controls.
• Key will be to communicate about who will be meeting and where we’ll be meeting.
• Scott will use email and website, www.teamargos.org, to communicate.
• Electrical team worked on wiring robot.
• Mech teams worked on fabricating remaining items:
• Mounted electrical board
• Camera shield
• Battery box for shipping crate
• Media team worked on scrapbook.
• Animation team going strong – submission deadline is 3 day away!

• Elec/SW team working on wiring the robot, mounting sensors, and testing control software.
• There is a software glitch with the arm motor. This will take time to work out.
• A defined course was set up in the gym using Argos1. This course will be used for driver practice and selection.
• THANK YOU to everyone who brought cookies.
• Media team continued to work on Chairman’s Award . . . and dog ears??
• Animation – how are you coming?
• Mike M – I picked up the polycarbonate. Thanks for finding the source. We’ll have to remember them for next year.

• Animation team submitted for award on Thursday night (actually, Friday morning!). CONGRATULATIONS on a job well done!! For those with access, the animation is located on the Doing Our Part page.
  
• There has been a tremendous amount of good work be a lot of people over the weekend.
• The robot is operational. Elec/SW is working hard on arm control issues, and Mech is working hard at tweaking things.

We will be meeting at Manual HS at 8:00 am.  Elec/SW has the option of meeting at the playing field around 10 am.

The mechanical team will be organizing and prepping our tools and materials for the playing field.  Plan to be ready for moving to the playing field mid-morning.

Once there, all robot work will be at the playing field through shipping on Tuesday.

The mechanical team will be working in shifts through the weekend. 

Roads are somewhat slick.  As always, use your own judgement when venturing out.  Your safety always comes first.

Friday, 2/17

• 5 pm to 7 pm - All meet at Manual HS

• Mech - finish task list

• Elec/SW - pack for playing field

• Select drivers

• 7 pm - Team meeting (20 min)

• 7:30 pm

• Elec/SW leaves for playing field; time at playing field TBD within subteam

• Mech organizes, cleans, and packs for playing field; team is done for night after this.

Saturday, 2/18

8 am to 6 pm

Decide Friday whether to meet at Manual Sat morning or playing field. Will communicate Friday night via e-mail and website.

Directions to the 2007 Peoria-area FIRST practice field are now available. You can view these directions by clicking on the Playing Field link in the navigation menu.

The Team Argos 2007 FIRST Game Simulator has also been published. You can download it from the Game Simulator link in the navigation menu.

As we near the end of the build, our schedule is going to become chaotic. At this point, the primary task is to get the control systems to drive and manipulate the robot. Until this task is complete, it is our #1 priority.

Progress on this task will largely determine our schedule. I will update the schedule on a daily basis, and use this email list and website as the primary form of communication.

Thursday, 2/15 -- Manual HS

• 5 pm to 7:00 pm - Elec/SW
• 7 pm to 9 pm - Mech (Elec/SW can stay, if desired)
• 9 pm to ?? - Elec/SW - Mech can leave at this point.

Friday, 2/16 -- Manual HS (tentative)

• 5 pm to 7 pm - Mech: finish task list; Elec/SW: pack for practice field
• 7 pm to 8 pm - Mech: Clean-up and prep for practice field; Elec/SW: drive to practice field
• 8 pm to ?? - Elec/SW ONLY at practice field for development and troubleshooting

Saturday, 2/17 -- see below (tentative)

• 8 am - Mech meets at Manual for drive to practice field; Elec/SW meets at practice field with robot
• Sat am - Troubleshoot robot (mech, elec, SW)
• Sat pm - Driver/operator practice

Sunday, Monday -- TBD

Monday, Feb 5

• Met as team to discuss the next two weeks. The next two weeks will be busy, and will probably require overtime on the part of certain subteams.
• Mechanical team worked on several things needed to complete the mechanical systems of the robot.
  

Tuesday, Feb 6

• Mechanical team continued to work on task list. Things are going okay. We’re learning a lot, but not much has been checked off yet. Two steps forward, one step back. We’ll get there.

Wednesday, Feb 7

• Mechanical team continued to work on task list.

Thursday, Feb 8

• Mechanical: Continued to work on task list.
• Mounted toggle clamps for ramp – Seth
• Mounted and actuated clamp – Team Effort
• Battery mount in progress – Alex
• Breaker switch mount in progress – Jonathan E
• Mounted ramp release motor – Evan / Aaron
• Modified elec board frame – Elyse / Lauren / Jonathan D
• Electrical: Team decided to redo electrical board to provide more room. New Lexan pieces were cut. Electrical team is working on re-mounting board components.
• Software: Team is progressing well. They need a complete robot soon!
• Media: Team is progressing well.
• Animation: The team has locked themselves in the adjacent room to focus on their work. Submission date for animation is 1 week away!

Friday - Saturday, Feb 9-10

• All major mechanical and structural components are mounted on the robot.
• A lot of work by mechanical team to make this happen – Good Job!
• Robot is ready to be wired and brought to life.

We are making good progress and are working well together as a team. However, we are behind where we should be -- we are assembling things that we should be testing by now. But, we are not so far behind that we need to panic. I do feel we need to address this, though.

Some changes I’d like to make:

• Move announcements, etc. to the start of the night (~6:15 pm), and leave the rest of the night open-ended. I’m willing to stay as long as any of the students are willing to work.

• For students on the critical path (this week, the mechanicals), I’d expect those that are able, to stick around until ~10:30 or so until we’re caught up. For others, they can clean up and leave at 9.

• Open up Friday evenings.

• Keep Saturday from 8 am to 2 pm, and keep Sunday’s off. We’re limited on weekends by the school’s custodial staff. The longer we stay, the more overtime is required from them.

Note that the robot is a single assembly; only a limited number of students / mentors can work on it at one time. Those not working on the robot need to have other activities to work on. Having said all this, the time that students and mentors put in during our sprint to the ship date needs to be weighed against school work, work load, and our need for sleep.

Monday, Jan 29

• Drivetrain still waiting for wheels.  Rebuilt base.
• Note: Wheels have arrived, per FedEx.  Scott will bring tonight
• Mechanical: Continue work on arm.
• Electrical: Scoped out ramp release mechanism.
• Software: Continued to work on drive software.
• Notes:
  
• Rob S and Ben E attempted to drive on roads with a friction coefficient of 0.00.  This didn’t work well, so they wisely stayed home.
• Didn’t have get-together at end of night.
• Need to announce this earlier so students don’t leave.

Tuesday, Jan 30

• Drivetrain: Worked on completing drivetrain chassis.
• Mechanical: Began detail design of claw. Fabricated arm.
• Electrical: Created testbed for ramp release mechanism.
• Software: Camera is tracking.
• Animation: Continued to work on city.
• Media: Work on t-shirt design.

Wednesday, Jan 31

• Chassis and drive train completed.  Initial operation of chassis took place.
• Continued to work on structural and mechanical aspects of the rest of the robot (grabber, arm, ramp release, etc.)

Thursday, Feb 1

• Teams worked in subteams. 

Saturday, Feb 3

• Basic robot components (chassis, ramp, arm, grabber) all assembled.  Need to focus on actuation and packaging.
• Drivetrain: Completed drivetrain.  It’s driving straight now!
• Mechanical: Completed arm and claw structure; mounted on robot.  Completed cable drive for wrist motion.
• Electrical: Allocated space within chassis for electronics board.  Began work on final electrical component layout.
• Software: Worked on drive code.
• Animation: Continued with material mapping – mapping actual pictures to animation background components.
• Media: Helped with bumper construction.

Monday, Jan 22

• Drivetrain: Finalizing gear ratios. Finishing fabrication of robot chassis.
  
• Mechanical: Beginning to fabricate the mast.
  
• Electrical: Studied control of arm joints. Looked at software for arm movement.
  
• Software: Worked on rate-limiting. Worked on servo drives.
  
• Animation: Working on cars and background.
  
• Inventor: Got the transfer process between Pro/E and Inventor worked out.

• Drivetrain / Mechanical: Continuing to work on robot chassis and mechanism frame.
  
• Software: continuing to develop systems.
  
• Electrical: Tested gear-tooth speed/position sensor – worked well.
  
• Media: Completed letters to government. Continued to work on logo and fundraising thank-you’s.

Wednesday, Jan 24

• Idea for community involvement from Mical: hold “open house” for FLL teams (Bill’s?) some night
  
• (Scott) Approach B. Moser about the idea.
  
• (Mical) Plan event.
• Drivetrain: Stalled a bit due to omni wheels and no mill tool.
  
• Mechanical: Fabricating upper arm. Identified motor for arm lift mechanism.
  
• Electrical: Conducted experiment to verify torque capacity of Globe motor for arm lift mechanism. Developed concept for ramp lock mechanism.
  
• Software: Figured out rate control. Looked at dead zones in control systems.
  
• Animation: ~30% complete with items that need to be animated.
  
• Media: Colored logo. Worked on peer awards. Began website update discussions.

Thursday, Jan 25

• Student attendance a little low.  Looked like there was quite a bit of other stuff going on at Manual last night.
  
• Mechanical: Completed welding on ramp frame. Completed motor-mount modification on chassis frame.
  
• Software: Worked with target light.
  

Saturday, Jan 27

• Team worked in subteams.

Tuesday, Jan 16

• Drivetrain: Scale drawing of drivetrain.
• Mechanical: Working on a gripper model.
• Electrical: Laying out electrical board.
• Software: Creating overall software layout.
• Animation: Review theme – “Environmental Nightmare”. Worked on background.
• Inventor : Attempted to import concept from Pro/E – didn’t work.
• Media: Finished letter to government officials. Created new logo options; circulated for team input.

Wednesday, Jan 17

• Team worked in subteams.

Thursday, Jan 18

• Drivetrain: Completed base frame. Agreed on 4-motor, 4WD configuration.
• Mechanical: Completed grabber prototype.
• Electrical: Working on board layout.
• Software: Overall SW/controls layout.
• Animation: Working on background.
• Inventor: Dimensioning parts as they become defined.
• Media: Completed letters and invitations to gov’t officials.

Saturday, Jan 20

• Team worked in subteams all day.
• Need to make point of having all-team huddle each day.

Monday, Jan 8

• Spent night learning and discussing the game. Discussed in small groups.
• Did full-scale “walk-through” simulation of game.
  

• When doing a lot of sitting / talking, need to incorporate breaks

Tuesday, Jan 9

• Completed talk on strategy, and filtered our strategy down to robot requirements.
• Breaks worked well. Saw a lot of students coalescing into ad-hoc small groups with mentors.
• Started concept brainstorms. Need to solidify concept groups and review brainstorming rules first thing on Wed.

Wednesday, Jan 10

• Productive (yet lengthy) prioritization discussion
  
• As part of requirement prioritization, we discussed the practical difficulties of scoring a game piece on the opposite side of the rack.
  
• Out of this discussion we (a) reduced the importance of the spoiler, and (b) increased the importance of the endgame bonus points in our strategy.
  
• Broke off into 3 concept brainstorming groups.

Thursday, Jan 11

• Discussed kit-of-parts (KOP) – looked at what’s available in the kits.
• Discussed mechanical systems of different robots.
• Students divided themselves into sub-teams. Need to review this and modify as necessaryConcept teams completed concepts, and are ready for concept selection at our next meeting.

Saturday, Jan 13

• Team went through concept selection process. Students tended to trickle in during the first 45 min. or so. Weather was questionable. Need to re-emphasize timeliness.
• Team had a lengthy discussion after concept selection regarding robot complexity vs. our 5 weeks left to build. Chosen concept design was simplified somewhat.
• For last hour, broke into sub-teams.
• Go-forward concept is (in words):
• 4 wheel drive; 2 traction, 2 omni-direcitonal
• Tube lift/placement mechanism is a 2-jointed (“wrist”, “elbow”) arm, with the elbow pivot on a tower structure ~4’ in the air. Target start size is 4 ft / 120 lbs
• Clamp-type tube grabber; grabs single edge of the tube
• End-game robot lifter TBD

• 8:00 - 8:45 am: Arrive, get settled and watch a presentation of past FIRST events
• 8:45 - 8:50 am: Live call-in from New Hampshire
• 8:50 - 9:00 am: Opening remarks
• 9:00 - 11:00 am: NASA Live Feed of the worldwide kickoff
• 11:00 - 12:00 pm: Lunch - Pizza, soda & cookies in the TC-A Cafeteria
• 12:00 - 2:00 pm: Teams go into breakout sessions and start discussing strategy

Wednesday, March 15:

• Lead mentors and students will travel to Chicago.

Thursday, March 16:

• Lead mentors and students will unpack the robot and prepare it for the practice competitions. Team and sponsor decals will be applied to the robot.
• Early that morning the remaining students and mentors will travel to Chicago via bus.
• After practice competitions, all will be treated to dinner at Ed Debevic’s Diner.

Friday, March 17:

• Bus will take attendees past the Illinois River, which is turned green in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, on their way to the competition.
• After competitions end, attendees will be treated to a pizza party at the hotel.

Saturday, March 18:

• Attendees will check out of the hotel, put luggage on the bus, and head to the competition.
• After we win the Rookie of the Year award, Team Argos will get back on the bus and head back to Peoria.