OMGrobots - Blog Posts

We brought in our donated 3-D printer today!

http://instagram.com/p/jDKcdpM_g2/

Prototyping with ways to throw the ball today... We aren't saying how yet but it's on it's way! 

Working hard as we close on week 1 of the season! Off to a great start! How is everyone else doing? Good luck to all and you can do it!

It's officially the end of week 1 of build season, and we're right on track. We're still working on a few prototypes and starting to refine them.

Here's hoping your team's doing well too!

Our team's pretty excited about this year's game, what about yours?

Throwback Thursday to when we got our motorized cart system working just before winter break!

We finally got a twitter, so come and follow us there too if you like!

Theme update!

Today we updated our theme, check it out here!

Our 2012 robot is getting into the spirit of the holidays!

One project that we've been working on in the off season is motorizing our robot cart! A lot of progress was made today.

Working on fundraising and spirit stuff in the off season!

Here's one of our very successful matches from Robocon!

Our robot did very well on Day 2 of Robocon considering that it fell off the pyramid from Zone 3 during a practice match the day before.

Although we got eliminated from the finals, we're going home with the "Awesome Pit Award!"

Today our robot fell off the pyramid and was damaged, but we’ll be working on it tonight so we’re ready for day 2 of robocon!

Hey all! We now have a GoPro camera for our robot! We'll be able to get footage of us flipping up on the pyramid now.

We're going to be at Robocon in Tampa this weekend, so come out and say hi if you're going!

After school today we worked on our autonomous for Robocon next weekend!

Here's a video of Team 2152 SMASH climbing the pyramid at Panther Prowl 2013!

This was our first time at Panther Prowl. We ended up as finalists with 801 Horsepower and 1592 The Bionic Tigers. We also won the Judges Award!

We're also going to be at Robocon in Tampa.

Hello Worlds: NASA Co-Op #3 Week 15

This year launched the inaugural dual FIRST Robotics Championships in Houston and St. Louis. Before, only one Championship dubbed "Worlds" was hosted where teams around the world competed for one title. Due to the growth of the teams involved in robotics, FIRST has decided to split Worlds into a North and South Championships with the intent to bring the winning alliance form each championship to battle it out during a live televised event. Unfortunately this means a Northern team will never be able to compete against a Southern team unless they win championships or pay to attend an out of state regional earlier in the season. There was ~700 teams, 15k students and 30k attendees!

My time volunteering was fantastically frantic! Resetting the Steamworks play field after each match for the robotics teams was a challenge requiring over 400 wiffle balls be picked up and dozens of yellow gears to be stacked.

Worked on the "Newton" FRC field. Winners from this field competed in the finals held in Houston's Minute Maid Park where their Astros baseball team plays. Logistics of getting 700 robotics teams into Minute Maid was a challenge that took longer than expected. There will be time for improvement as the southern robotics championship will be held in Houston for at least three more years.

The field had to be cleared within seven minutes to keep matches on schedule.

Robotics Houston Championship concluded with the announcement of he highest award, Chairman's, earned by team Thunder Down Under from Australia and fireworks!

Even the VIP seats did not have a good view of the final matches! Growing pains but lots of opportunity to improve over the next couple of years.

It is rumored the winners of the St.Louis and Houston Championships will go head to head at the FIRST Festival of Champions July Friday 28th - Saturday 29th, 2017. WAYS TO GET INVOLVED What is FIRST Robotics? Volunteer at a FIRST Robotics event or with a local team. Donate to FIRST Robotics. Read about my "Robo" Mater, Daredevils Robotics. Theme of the 2018 FIRST Tech Challenge, 18inx18inx18in robots.

Robotics, Simulation & Future: NASA Co-Op #3 Week 8&9

Robotics: Many NASA interns and Co-Ops got hooked on STEM disciplines by participating in FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics. In fact there is a robotics team that meets at NASA Johnson's Space Vehicle Mock Up Facility, the Robonauts. There are four levels for FIRST Robotics; Junior Lego League for ages 6 to 10 (JrFLL), Lego Robotics League for 4th to 8th grade (FLL), FIRST Tech Challenge for 7th to 12th grade (FTC), and FIRST Robotics Competition for 9th to 12th graders (FRC). There are still FIRST Robotics events you can take part in.

Search for FIRST Robotics events pick “Event” and use filters such as dates, program type, county and zip code.Volunteers apply through the Volunteer Information and Matching System and need to pass a background check. Once you are accepted into a position the volunteer coordinator will supply you with the necessary training.

WATCH TEAMS COMPETE LIVE (every Thur - Sat through weekend of April 27th, 2017).

Robot my FRC team made

Robot the team who builds here, Robonauts, made.

This year’s FRC game.

Simulation: A group of us toured the Systems Engineering Simulator (SES) lab a part of NASA Johnson's Robotics Engineering division. Astronauts visit SES to practice docking Orion, capturing the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship, and driving a Mars rover. They simulate realistic physics and scenarios with in house software (Unreal Engine couldn't cut it). The have simulations with the International Space Station, Japanese Cargo Vehicle (HTV), Dragon, Cygnus, Orion and future space exploration vehicles.

Future of NASA: Center Director Ellen Ochoa, Deputy Director Mark Geyer and Associate Director Melanie Saunders hosted an All Hands where they shared with NASA Johnson employees essentially our state of the union. Ochoa described that NASA of priority and interest of the new administration. Per the request of the administration, NASA is conducting a study to weigh the risks of adding a manned crew to Space Launch System and Orion Space Craft's EM1 test. This study is expected to conclude late March.

SCIENCE PACKED WEEK: NASA Co-Op #3 Week 7

The amount of science that occurred this week was so overwhelming that I had to make the title all caps. Five major science related events occurred this week... I was a Judge at the FIRST Robotics Tech Challenge SE Texas Championship, assisted in astronaut user testing, watched a briefing about seven new Earth-like planets found, watched SpaceX Dragon cargo ship dock to the International Space Station, and trained on the job in Mission Control during the Dragon cargo ship unstow.

1. FIRST Robotics Tech Challenge Judging

FTC is like FRC (that I was in back in high school) except FTC robots are 18in x 18in x 18in, rather than 120lb robots we built, and play a different game. This year's game is Velocity Vortex which required students to build a robot in only six weeks that could lift large medicine balls and shoot Whiffle balls at a target. I had a great time at the FIRST Tech Challenge's SE Texas Regional Champs judging teams. It was a challenge to judge teams when there was so much talent to sift through! Unlike Minnesota FRC's one regional these TX FTC folks have to go through three levels of competition to get to the World Championship. Worlds will be held in Houston this year April 19-22.

Volunteer with at a FIRST Robotics event.

2. SpaceX Dragon Launch to Space Station

Launch of Falcon9 carrying dragon cargo to Space Station went wonderfully. Additionally, a stage of Flacon 9 successfully landed ON LAND back in Florida to be refurbished and reused. This private space industry/ US Government/ International effort demonstrates Scott Kelly's quote: "Spaceflight is the biggest team sport there is, and it's incredibly important that we all work together to make what is seemingly impossible possible." Kelly said this when he handed over command of the ISS to fellow NASA astronaut Tim Kopra during his Year In Space Mission in 2016. Despite public belief, spaceflight is a team collaboration (not competition) between government, private and international groups.

3. Astronaut User Testing

In parallel to hands free stowage app development I am "Project Manager-ing" for, I am helping with a similar app on an iPad. This iPad app is going through user testing to get approved and sent up to Space Station. I assisted with user testing including participants from ISO and participants from the astronaut crew office who have flown. The test participants were asked to gather items in the ISS mock-ups and pack them into the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship mock up. I was available for test participants to ask about space station locations. Additionally I made the “play” stowage items that participants gathered and packed.

4. New Earth-like Planets Found

First known system of seven Earth-sized planets has been found! This solar system is called TRAPPIST-1 and the planets are named letters "a" through "g" from closest to furthest from the Star. These planets are one hundred times closer to their star and closer to each other than the planets in our solar system. This means that on the surface of one planet you can see other planets clearly like our moon. Since this star is significantly cooler than ours which leaves three of these planets habitable despite close proximity to the star. At light speed it would take 39yrs to reach this solar system. In 2016 in Chile, researchers used the TRAPPIST telescope to find two of the planets in TRAPPIST-1. In part of a global effort NASA's Spitzer telescope found total of seven reported this week. In the future NASA's James Webb telescope, set to launch in 2018, will take a closer look at TRAPPIST-1.

Check out what the surface of planet TRAPPIST-1d looks like. Find the other six planets in the sky.

Take a 3D tour of TRAPPIST solar system.

NASA's press release about the new found exoplanets.

Full breif/ exoplanet discovery announcement video here, it's only 30mins long with press questions.

5. Dragon Cargo Ship Unstow

Conducted on the job training with DISO (Dragon Inventory Stowage Officer) in a Mission Control support room. DISOs are in charge of monitoring the astronaut’s cargo unstow of SpaceX’s dragon cargo ship docked to the International Space Station. Dragon delivered many scientific experiments, food and temperature sensitive items. During unstow astronauts Peggy Whitson and Thomas Pesquet were about an hour ahead of schedule. This crew is extremely efficient and is ahead of schedule for every task, even spacewalks. Pesquet unpacked cold bags where temperature sensitive science is stored and should be unpacked quickly. Whitson retrieved CTBs (Cargo Transfer Bags) from Dragon which included science that needed kept at a particular temperature and pressure. CTBs are White, rectangular, cushiony, sewn bags sealed with a zipper and are used on every flight to contain items.

Unloading items from dragon in an elegant organized fashion is critical because SpaceX must always know its center of gravity. If there is a Dragon emergency in which case dragon cannot stay on ISS and needs to return to Earth the center of gravity is available for accurate trajectory calculations. During my on the job training I followed the procedures sent to crew and recorded changes astronauts made to the procedure. I listened to the voice loops of each of the flight control consoles communicating to each other about the astronaut’s tasks. I was able to confirm “words”, what was spoken over the loop, to the official DISO flight controller as a second check. Sometimes DISO are asked to confirm that an unstow procedure is being completed correctly and sometimes DISO needs to call the Flight Director to point out a stowage item concern.

Guess what day it is?! Have to post this video every year: https://youtu.be/G_bOA3qrC-c Link to FIRST Robotics Kick Off webcast starting 9amCT with preshow and 9:30amCT with new game info: http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/2017-broadcast

FIRST Robotics Kick Off is THIS SATURDAY Jan7 at 9amCT! 

3,400 teams made up of over 85,000 students will learn what game their robot will be playing. Within a six week build season students will have to fabricate, wire and program that robot. The game's name, "STEAMworks", has been revealed along with some vague hints. Here is a post with some of my theories and the link to watch the unveiling of the game live.

These are essential tips for FIRST Robotics teams starting build season this Saturday!

8 Ways to Stay Healthy During Build Season

Three more days until kickoff! You know what this means: pizza, caffeine, and no sleep for 42 days.

However, despite all the jokes we all make about awful diets and bad sleep habits, self-care is something we all need to remember during build season. Here are some tips to stay healthy as we approach a time when our health often, unfortunately, ends up as a low priority.

Reusable water bottles. Water is pretty important for obvious reasons, but multiple bottles of water can be tiring to lug around. Plus, it’s better for the environment than the recyclable water bottles.

Sports drinks in moderation. Although water is always a good go-to when you need to hydrate, if you’ve been sweating a lot, you also need to replenish the electrolytes you lose. Drinks like Powerade and Pocari Sweat are great for those purposes.

Don’t fall asleep in a binder. We all know how it happens: after a long day’s work, you get home, plop in bed, and pass out in grimy clothing. It’s fine. Just make sure you remove your binder if you wear one.

Utilize team sweatshirts and layers. Depending on what part of the world you live in, it can get pretty cold outside, so make sure to bundle up when traveling to and from your team’s shop. If you wear a binder, you can also use sweatshirts and larger clothing to take a break.

Fruit instead of sweets. And most snacks in general. Vitamin C prevents colds, which is extremely important when you spend a lot of time close to people in the winter. It’ll also help prevent breakouts.

Protein bars. Pizza is the solution to almost all your problems most of the time, but if you’re eating it three meals a day, that’s a problem that can’t be solved by more pizza. Protein bars are just one alternative, and a fantastic one at that.

Set an alarm for lunchtime. Speaking of eating three meals a day, you need to make sure you really have three meals a day. It also goes for anything else you need to remember at a certain time, like picking up an object, taking your meds, checking a monitor, etc. This is also useful during competition season, because it’s very easy to forget in the heat of things.

Work out. You don’t necessarily have to do any intense workouts, but doing at least one physically active thing for an hour each week serves as a good distraction from spending so much brainpower on robots every day. It will also help prevent you from passing out at competitions when you run back and forth between the pits and the stands, or when everyone gets up to do the Macarena.

Good luck, and remember: safety and your health come FIRST.

~Staff: Errica 1073

Throwback to when I captained a FIRST Robotics team and a really fun interview about my NASA Co-Op experience:

http://www.fox21online.com/news/local-news/UMD-Student-Reaches-For-The-Stars-With-NASA/42581116

STEAMworks: Robotics Game Theories

Teaser trailer for the 2017 FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition for Science and Technology) Robotics Competition was released late September revealing a Steampunk theme. Now is the time for my annual game conspiracy post about what I think teams can expect based on nuanced clues and veteran FIRST experience.

FLYING MINI BOTS - "Prepare to take flight!" was the closing statement of the 2017 FIRST STEAMworks Teaser video. Could minibots be coming back with quadcopter features? Minibots was a successful and entertaining aspect of the 2011 FIRST challenge Logo Motion. At the end of the Logo Motion teams' primary 120lb robot deployed smaller minibots to climb a tower. A FIRST inspired robotics competition, Collegiate Aerial Robotics Demonstration (CARD), launched at the 2011 World Championship with the hope to start a College-Level FIRST competition. According to CARD's Wikipedia page the competitions were held between 2011 and 2013. In the teaser video the flying contraptions illustrated have circular quadcopter like rioters. With the growing interest in quadcopters, drones and other flying robots it would be easier FIRST to suppliers for teams' Kit Of Parts and easier to find mentoring help from college students and companies than years prior.  

STEAM (Science Technology Engineering ART and Math) - Within the past decade educators and professionals have realized that the arts do indeed belong in STEM education. FIRST appears to be adopting the trend by imagining STEAMworks. Even a paint brush is visible in the STEAMworks game logo. What would life be without music and art? (My father is a high school art teacher and both of my parents and myself play stringed instruments). The Beautility factor or engineering, when something is aesthetic while serving a purpose, is due to the blend of STEAM disciplines. FIRST could include arts in the 2017 season by adding a Beautility award, challenging teams to combine their brand with the game's theme, continue the team website competition and add scholarships to their ~200 already offered that include students in the arts.

PNEUMATICS - It would be disappointing if STEAMworks did not emphasize the use of pneumatic devices. Although water is a component that makes steam happen a water game does not seem feasible... I'm imagining teams trying to isolate electronics from water reservoirs... don't get your hopes up. Likely, FIRST will require teams to have at least one pneumatic device. In past seasons pneumatics have been used for championship winning actuators but primarily underutilized. In the teaser trailer a gauge showing 40psi was visible, a possible operating pressure for Kit of Parts pneumatics parts (that est. 1989 is the year Dean Kamen Founded FIRST).

Hopefully these theories get you excited about the upcoming season!

Kick Off Saturday, January 7, 2017 at 9:00 amCT, will update with broadcast link before 1/9/17.

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

Find a local team to help.

Mentor a team.

Check out my past robotics team.

Reporting All Robots!

This FIRST Robotics season I joined forces with BlueDevil Press to live report on the Duluth Robotics Regional. BlueDevil Press is a collaboration of three teams to give an unbiased view of the robotics world to the community. As a part project mentor part alumna I helped edit articles, devise interview questions and follow beats. For the Duluth Regional we crafted a wrap around the Duluth News Tribune, submitted four articles to the paper and published eight articles on the BlueDevil Press blog. Some of the stories include...

"Starting ’em Young" - Kindergartners visit the FIRST Robotics Regional

"FIRST President Don Bossi Interview" - FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) President shares he visions for the future of robotics

"Phoenix Robotics" - A norm busting robotics team

"A “FEARless” Season" - Overcoming disaster, robot drove off the stage during community demo

Wrap around the Duluth News Tribune. Part program part “What is robotics?”

Following the competition I visited the Kindergarten class that took a field trip to watch the robots. We reviewed the robotics challenge reveal video one more time, then they were challenged to build a robot of their own out of odd materials. Students were given googly eyes (cameras), clothes pins (robot defense manipulators), pom poms (boulders), foam (robot structure),  construction paper (robot field) and pipe cleaners (aluminum rods). I expected the students to glue their creations down on provided construction paper but instead they made the robots 3-D! Folding and building their robots like a diorama recreating the scenes they saw at the competition. Every time I give a class a design challenge I am amazed by what they imagine!

Robot shooting a boulder into a tower.

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

Watch FIRST robotics competitions live every Thursday to Saturday until May 1st, 2016.

Support your local FIRST Robotics team. Teams often have their own website and 501c3 so you can donate to them. Find them here.

Visit a classroom and read a book, teach some coding, talk about your career. Teachers will love the extra prep time and students love a fresh perspective.

Pit area where teams work on their robot between matches.

Robots Storm the Castle

After a year of watching robots playing forklift simulator in the FIRST Robotics 2015 game Recycle Rush FIRST has raised the bar with their new game Stronghold. Alliances will work to take over the opposing team’s castle with Medieval flair. Robots must break through opposing alliance’s defenses, launch boulders to weaken the castle, and climb its walls to claim it as there own. A unique aspect of this game is the modularity of the defenses. Outer barriers that the robots will be navigating through can be swapped between matches with the choice of a portcullis (gateway to be lifted up), Cheval de Frise (teeter totter), moat, rampart (opposing steel ramps), drawbridge, Sally Port, rock wall, rough terrain, low bar and platforms. Five of these defenses assigned with obscure french names will be picked before each match. For the first time in FIRST Robotics history there will be audience participation enabling spectators to choose one of the defenses. There are 10,000 different field combinations!

Creativity of Stronghold was manifested from FIRST’s new partnership with Disney Imagineers. They collaborated to carry the season’s Medieval theme through the game’s decorative field pieces and motivating the teams to create a standard, a sort of battle flag. Ample Monty Python and the Holy Grail references were scattered though out the Kick Off broadcast from FIRST Headquarters. I am suspicious that the Stronghold theme was solely conceived for that reason. The trailer like game hint was created to capture interest of folks outside of the FIRST world instead of “in joke” game hints like this. It seems FIRST will continue to release game hints with this a mobile game aesthetic style in future years revealing the years’ theme.

Already most teams have brainstormed a design and a strategy. A group called Ri3D (Robot in Three Days) has already built a fully functional robot. This robot can complete in every aspect of the game proving from my perspective to be worthy of a regional competition win. The idea of building a competitive robot in three days must give rookies teams hope.  Check out Ri3D’s final product: https://youtu.be/Kd1FaSNoDiM

This season my hands are off the robot and on the computer as a project mentor helping students write newspaper articles covering the build season and competition. Check out earlier publications by our group BlueDevil Press and online here.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED

If you are a strategy engineering feel you may enjoy reading the Stronghold game manual:

https://firstfrc.blob.core.windows.net/frc2016manuals/GameManual/2016GameManual-Full-20160112.pdf

Mentor a team or volunteer at a regional event: http://www.firstinspires.org/ways-to-help/volunteer

Find a local robotics team to donate to. Often local teams will have their own website with instructions on how to donate/ where to send a check to: http://www.firstinspires.org/find-local-support

Check out my old robotics team the Duluth East Daredevils: http://www.daredevils2512.org/

Teams watch robots compete at a FIRST Robotics Regional in Minnesota

Wiring the basement of my team’s robot.