Delphi Circuit Stompers

With two matches left before alliance selection we knew that we would not be in the top 8 teams, but we still wanted to make a good impression so that we would be selected.  By the end of seeding matches we were in a good place- ranking in the mid teens.  We were ultimately selected by the third ranked team 3173, the IgKnighters, a rookie team from McQuaid.  Until recently this school had been famous for having the largest cross country invitational in the East.  Now they have bragging rights for being one heck of a rookie robotics team, too.  Although our alliance fought valiantly, we did not advance to the semi-finals.  We have gained much experience from this competition and have formulated some strategy for the Buckeye Regional later this month.  We also received first runner up for the Safety award.  Who knows, maybe with more effort we could capture this award at Buckeye.  It's back to work.  What do they say about this time of year?  It's something about work FIRST and sleep later?  Right about now it really makes sense.  

Hurray!  Paul worked on the autonomous last night, and we now have a robot that is competitive.  Our drivers are much less frustrated and have been able to experience what it feels like to be on the field.  We are still having some troubles, though, the ball is hard to see and we need more practice with hanging.  We will work on this at the practice field.  The scouting team is actively putting together information on the other teams to help us during the matches.  Chaz has arranged for our panther mascot to be available for Saturday. That should be interesting! The PR team is gathering information to give out our team awards.  Who has the best defensive robot, the best offensive, the most team spirit...

Can this really be happening?  Our robot worked so well in Penfield, but now it is spinning its wheels stuck in autonomous!!  Each time we think we have it fixed because it's working fine on the tether, but then it spins on the playing field.  This has not allowed our drive team time to practice on the field, and there looks to be some pretty fierce competition out there.  Let's hope that we will have some time after the practice rounds to iron out the problems!

It was great to see our friends from the Rochester and Lockport area at the Penfield scrimmage.  The robots were really interesting.  Most of us needed some time to put last minute touches on our bots and then we were anxious to see how we would do on the field.  Our robot, which is still without a name, managed to hang!  We got a roar from the crowd.  Lockport was also able to hang!  They too got applause!  After seeing what we could do on the field and what others can do, we can begin to refine driving strategy.  Thank you to Penfield High School for giving us this opportunity!  Now, if we can only come up with a name...

Our build season is coming to a close.  We are almost ready to compete.  We still have final adjustments on the robot to make.  We want to switch out the current wheels and try the Mecanums.  A drive team has yet to be assigned. We will be sure to solidify the team before our parent presentation at the church on Saturday.  We are also gearing up for Penfield and have submitted our Chairman's, Woodie Flowers, and Website Awards. It's time for the shipping team to be sure they have everything in order for the robot, too. The count down is on!

The Circuit Stompers are finishing up the wiring for our robot, and the programming is almost done! James was lost again, but Mr. Goodman was able to track him down! Anthony is working hard to finish the drawing.  Mrs. Lanighan and the rest of the PR Team finally finished the bumpers they are making even more buttons and polishing our website which will be due February 18.

This week, the team has been very busy trying to solve all the small problems we have faced. It is difficult work, but with our bright team working hard we have been able to work through the troubles. Mr. Goodman finally found James! Steve, Chaz, and Anthony have been working quickly to finish the robot’s drawing on SolidWorks. The PR Team started making buttons as well as the bumpers for the robot. It has been a great week, keep up the work!

This Friday at 11:15, the Newfane Circuit Stompers and the Lockport Warlocks will be interviewed on the show "Dialog" which will be aired on WLVL (AM 1340).  Mentor Fred Dempsey and student president Erik Taheri and vice president Rollin Hellner from Newfane's team will discuss FIRST Robotics and our team's history.

The Circuit Stompers had another eventful week.  Mr. Neidlinger would like to thank the Sellers' for bringing in a wonderful lunch on Saturday.  Each sub-group has been keeping very busy.  Steve, Tony, and Chaz are continuing to work on CAD drawings, and are about 3/4‘s of the way done.  Paul Applegate and the Electronics team have the camera working and are making great progress!  Rollin and the Safety team are working on a fire evacuation plan for both of the competitions.  They have found floor plans, arranged meeting places, and collected safety agreements.  Rick Coleman and his group are wiring the chassis and have it almost ready to go. Good job this week guys!

Our team made many steps this week.  To prepare for the final build the specialized groups really had to focus.  Tom, Sean, Chaz, and Tony fully downloaded the KOP and CAD drawings.  They are beginning to prepare them for the assembly of the robot.  Mr. Neids, Liz, Steve, and Tim found the mechanical kicker design to be quite challenging.  It became too difficult to get the kicker to do all of the functions that need to be done...what will we do now??  Steve, Norm, Clara, and Gabe focused on the hook design.  It has been refined and ready for testing.  They also have the general layout of the chassis set and the electrical component integrated.  Frank D., Jeff, Alex, James, Erik, and Paul A. made adjustments to the control board.  Mrs. Lanighan, Sam, Morgan, Amy, Liz, and Ginny have been designing team shirts and updating the website, as well as creating member bio's, taking candid photos, and other PR duties.  Keep up the hard work everyone!

Most of this week was spent sorting out ideas and deciding what the primary functions of the robot will be.  The mentors led Steve, Chaz, Tony, Liz, Clara, Gabe, Tim, Erik, and Alex in making prototypes of possible kickers and lifting devices out of cardboard and wood.  Ginny was put in charge of the bill of materials. The PR team has been busy looking for team soccer jerseys for Breakaway and keeping the web site updated.  

Wow!  Another season of First Robotics is on its way.  The Circuit Stompers met at the high school library to watch Dean and Woodie reveal Breakaway.  After the kickoff video we ate lunch and  started to learn the new rules for the game. 

 All the Circuit Stompers are excited about this year's challenge!!
Everyone met again Sunday with small groups presenting different sections of the manual and voicing their ideas.  Then we began trouble-shooting designs.

As the 2010 Season begins, we are pleased to welcome our new mentors, Sean Hill and Stephen Goodman, and our new students, Steven Gertz, Ginny Larimore, Liz Larimore, Chaz Parker, Andy Sellers, and Michael Tamakloe.  We are also participating in a project called "Wire Walker."  Under Mr. Neid's direction student teams are creating a device that can traverse a suspended wire.  Each team's design is unique.  Congratulations to all whose design successfully played the game.

The competition's over, but all the work is not done yet!  Our efforts to spread the FIRST message continue. We had many community presentations and demonstrations including a presentation for the Cub Scouts, Lions Club, and the Middle School.  We also participated in the Newfane Sidewalk Sale and Parade and the UAW Buy American Rally. We were honored to attend: we were the only student organization invited to speak.  At the Joe's 5K run the Stompers held signs to direct the runners while some Stompers ran in the race.  

Thanks to Ken O'Connor the Circuit Stompers toured Buflovak.  It was a great way to learn about new engineering opportunities. 

This Friday, Joe Olenick from the Lockport Union Sun & Journal came to the school and interviewed members of our team. He put in an excellent article of our team which ended up being on the cover of the March 30th paper! Thanks a lot Joe! After, the team had an organizational meeting to start thinking about the end of the season party as well as new fund raising ideas for the summer. We had a great season, now its time to celebrate our accomplishments!!

Check out the article here!!

With 2 wins against 224, 204, and 1089, we went on to the semi-finals.  We played three matches against 395, 365, and 56 before losing to the eventual event champions.  Although our dreams of a medal were dashed, we did not go home empty handed.  We scored enough points with the safety advisors to receive a safety citation and safety pins for each team member.  We were honored.  At the awards ceremony we were treated to an inspirational visit from Dean who encouraged us to keep working on the FIRST alumni association.  Karra and Hilary even got their picture taken with Dean.  What a cool way to finish their senior robotics season!

With three more "w's" we are the number 3 seed!  After 103 picked the number 2 seed, we became the second alliance captain.  In a very professional manner Zack proudly announced that we would like our sister team, 1507, the Warlocks to join us.  They accepted. We are so excited to have the two teams working together.   It's a Delphi combination!!  Later we added team 250, our alliance partner in the Rochester finals, to complete our partnership. We now have an all New York alliance. Our afternoon matches should be fantastic!

We have been using a new autonomous mode today.  The new mode allows us to pick up an empty cell and deliver it!  This strategy has been working really well.  After an eventful day we finished with one loss and five wins! This placed us in the 7th seed.  With three more matches on Saturday, we could wind up in a very good spot for the finals.  

Call us crazy for robotics.  After the Finger Lakes Regional, we are pumped up and ready for another go at Lunacy! Today our practice rounds got off to a great start. After an early inspection we were able to participate in our matches and enter more matches as a surrogate. Tons of practice helped us fine tune our strategy. 

Watch our live Streaming video coverage of the Philadelphia Regional!! 

After winning the Best Website and the Xerox Creativity Awards on Friday, we're charged to get in and do what it takes to get a win at the Finger Lakes Regional today.  With the support of our parents and friends and past members we were psyched to do our best.  At the end of match play we were seeded 17th and were selected by the #6 seed.  Our alliance combination of 809 and 250 did very well fighting their way into the semi-finals before being eliminated.  Can we do even better in Philly?  You can bet we're going to try!!  Look out Philly, here we come!!

We're up then we're down.  It's quite a ride.  In several matches today we won the match only to have the win taken from us due to penalties. Ouch!  We finished the day at 2 and 3.  We need to do better tomorrow.  At the awards ceremony we were hoping to see our Woodie Flowers candidate, Norm Weber, walk away with a special recognition from FIRST.  While the pool of candidates was vast, we were confident that Norm has what it takes to stand among the best.  Although Norm didn't win, he'll always be #1 in our minds.  We did win 2 awards at Friday's ceremony- the Xerox Creativity Award and the Best Website Award.  It was an exhilarating way to end the day.

Button, button, whose got a button? We do.  We just finished making our last button for the season today.  We're at the Finger Lakes Regional and we're ready to play Lunacy, but first we need to get inspected.  The process is a bit more involved and we've had to take off some weight.  Ultimately this was accomplished by removing 2" of polycarbonite.  This saved us a half pound and put us in a comfortable position.  Now we won't need to get inspected again until we are in the finals.  In match play we are looking good.  We are managing to consistently deliver empty cells.  This should help us during Friday's competition.

Wow, we learned much at our Penfield scrimmage. First, the human player is huge this year!! Although teams did quite well getting balls into the trailer, the human players were just as effective. How will this affect game strategy? We will see at our first competition in March. The other thing we learned is that the field is much more slippery than the floor that we were using at school. Our drivers will have to get used to this. Now that we have our drive team chosen (congratulations Alex and Eric), they will have to figure out how to best tackle both the human player influence and the playing field. It’s a good thing that Coach Rick is there to assist with these problems. We still have things to do to get ready for competition. Our t-shirts are in, but our polos are not. Buttons still have to be made, and we would like to put together a robot fact sheet to distribute to other teams. Our next team meeting is not until next week, so we have time to put together a list of other things that need to get done.

We are ready to ship and have decided to send our robot off in a grand fashion by inviting past team members to join us in an anniversary celebration. What a great way to connect with past members and get psyched for competition!! We also added our new members’ names to our shipping crate. We are now ready for some pre-season action in Penfield. Some team members will go on Sunday for practice and then on Monday we will all meet for a scrimmage. This scrimmage will also help us with driver selection as both teams are so close that it has been hard for the selection team to decide on a first and second team.

The final touches were put on the pneumatics and the electrical systems and our robot is working great! Students who are interested in the drive team have been meeting at the church to practice driving. Our robot has been responding positively to the programs and the teams are looking good. It will be a difficult task to determine which team will get to drive. The selection will be made by a group of students and mentors and will test and evaluate the drivers’ skills. We have started to add color to snaz up our robot and have built the bumpers. We are also seeking information on what kind of vinyl to put on our bumpers so that our numbers could be put on in vinyl. Perhaps Chief Delphi is the place to seek this information? The PR team has added a page to our web about our alumni and a page about our robot. We still need a name for our robot. Sometimes it seems that this is the hardest part. Why is it that a name is so hard to choose?

We’re more than half way! Can you believe it?   We had our robot up and running and looked like everything was a go.  Then we tried shooting and we realized we needed to make some modifications.  After modifying the valving between the belts and the hopper, we were once again in business.  Next we need to add the pneumatics.  Hopefully this won’t take too long because the controls team has the programming written and are eager to get their hands on the robot.  The PR team has been busy working on the web and finalizing the team shirt. They both look sharp.  We’ll have the shirts in two weeks.  Now we need to work on the polo order…    

We have moved from the prototype to the build, and the chassis is beginning to take shape.  The electrical team has its components laid out, and they are eager to mount them on the robot.  Paul says the big question for them is where to put the camera. To complete Dean's Homework, we have written a letter inviting all former team members to our 10th anniversary celebration.  Hilary and Amy have addressed and mailed these letters.  We hope to start receiving responses soon.  We have also finalized hotel plans for Philly and are working on our Pennsylvania non for profit status.  This should help us to save money while in Philly.  Hopefully it will come through before we have to leave for our trip.

Designs were presented on Sunday and team members voted. In a close vote Zack’s and Trevor’s design won. We will now focus our efforts on this one design by building a working scale prototype from wood. Hilary and Amy have been working on Dean’s homework. James, Evan, and Ken have been working on a prototype of the hopper. Fred, Phil, and Shane have been putting motors together for the chassis. Norm, Clara, Gabe, and Anthony have been working on game strategy. Pat has been generating much excitement teaching students to weld and building the trailer. Karra has been busy snapping picts and assigning team duties. The programming team of Alex, Eric, and Paul successfully got the default program running. Tom Fare stopped by to help with our trailer registration and told us he would help this week with our building needs. We are happy to have him join us.

After splitting into several groups, our build team started to prototypes their design concepts. These will be made of wood, cardboard, and anything else that will help demo the concepts. On design A Trevor and Zack were assisted by Phil. Leading design team B was Steve who was assisted by Rollin, Evan, and James E. In other team efforts Evan, Jeff, and Alex helped make a small scale playing arena to develop a feel for the game. Sam, Amy, Morgan, Hilary, Kara, and Mrs. L. have been working diligently to add pictures and new sections on our website. Rick has been working with driver wannabes to test the new wheels on the playing surface. Rachel and Mrs. L have been working to book hotels and transportation. Our season is off to a good start.

Just days after ringing in the New Year we have begun another intense season of the robotics competition! As new and old faces came anxiously through the High School library door we all settled into our seats. Both students and parents were waiting for the announcement of this year’s new game. After an hour and a half of encouraging words from Dean Kamen and crew we were finally introduced to the new game “Lunacy.” The rest of the afternoon was filled with eating lunch, provided by the Schulers and learning the new rules of the game.

Sunday morning we started bright and early with each group presenting different aspects of the game. After we were all comfortable with the rules and playing field we broke up into design groups to brainstorm. Our groups were joined by some of our parent mentors, Pat Wright and Kurt Schuler. Hopefully we come up with some good ideas!

As the 2009 season begins, the Circuit Stompers are pleased to welcome Ken O’Connor our new mentor. Our new student members are Anthony Costanzo, Tom Dean, James Edwards, Gabe Schuler, Jim Schuler, Tim Schuler, Alex Westgate and Julia Wright.

To help our new gang understand what a FIRST competition is all about, we are engaging in a competition.  The competition, called "Peak Performance," was designed by Boston College.  The goal of the competition is to design and construct a vehicle that can climb a hill under its own power, stop at the hill, and sustain its position against an opposing vehicle coming up the other side of the hill.  This should get our engineering minds in tune for competition in January!!!

Although the 2008 season was over the circuit stompers did not end their season.  The Circuit Stompers hosted a banquet at their local fire hall honoring the seniors Michael Lanighan, Pat wick, Joe Neidlinger, Nick Pardee,and Lucas Wong for their efforts through out the past seasons.  During the summer we raised community awareness by walking in the Pirate Festival and holding demonstrations at Newfane's annual Sidewalk Sale and parade. We also raised money by selling concessions at the Newfane  summer soccer program.

On the bus after lunch Mr. Neids told us to be prepared for an emotional roller coaster.  Emotions would be up and down, but we should hold on for the ride.  We were hoping the ride would take us to Atlanta. We knew it would be tough going against the top alliance, but we gave it our all.  In the first round of play although we lost, we were able to hold our competitors to a reasonable score.  Unfortunately one of our partners was zapped with many G22’s, and our final score did not reflect our valiant effort.  In the second round we had fewer G22’s, and our showing was much better.  Although our hopes for Atlanta are over for this year, we are pleased that we were able to make it to the finals at this competition and are looking forward to going to the World Championship in 2009.  Will they be in Atlanta or will we go someplace new? We will have to wait and see.  Until then, good luck to all the teams who will compete in this year’s Championship.  We will be watching and graciously cheering you on.

Today we had our own cheering section.  Many of our families and teachers  joined us. The Bottoms, Wicks, Lanighans, Colemans, Pattis, Lewandowskis, Snyders, and Kilcullens were joined by teachers Henri Kursten and Tom Zinteck in the stands.  We also had three of our Hall of Fame Mentors with us: Jim Christen, Lindsey Williams, and Tom Urbank.  We truly appreciate their support.  During the matches it was back to the tried and true.  We used the old method of  hurdling more often.  We also did better at autonomous.  With one more win and one more loss we went into the alliance rounds in the top third.  We were selected by team 854 in the alliance rounds.  We rounded out our alliance partnership with team 772.  As the eighth alliance team we will face the number one alliance team in the first round.  That will mean that we will face team 1114.  They have a perfect record and their alliance partner, 2056, also has a perfect record.  They have already won one regional together and are looking for a second regional.  We have to hope our strategy will shut their scoring machine down.  After lunch we will see.

We will play eight matches today, and although we had scouted teams yesterday, we were handed a new competition schedule today.  It seems many teams complained that they were playing against the same teams and that the schedule was not random so the schedule was re-run.  This makes it hard on us.  We had notes from yesterday, but they are not much good because we will be against other teams.  If only we had known, our strategy would have been different.  In competition we won our first match but we had our arm break and missed our second match because it wasn’t fixed until the teams had been announced for the match.  We were not able to play.  This hit us hard.  We have a very rough schedule and we needed to be able to play.  We also lost a match to 1114.  They really seem to be unstoppable.  Many of our alliance partners are not prepared for competition so we helped to get them on the field.  Michael and Patrick team captains helped Warp Seven team 865 with wiring and parts so they could pass inspection.  That’s gracious professionalism at its best.  Way to go, guys.  With 4 wins and 2 losses we were in the top third.  At the awards ceremony we were awarded the best website award.  That’s the second time this year that we have won this award:) How cool.  We celebrated the day’s achievements by going to Playdium.  Tomorrow will be tough, but our spirits are high.  We would love to go to Atlanta.  Will we make it?

Traveling across the border wasn’t bad.  We only had a short wait and we were off to Mississauga.  There are many more teams here than at the Finger Lakes Regional. Of the sixty plus teams only a handful are from the States.  One team even came from as far away as Louisiana.  Wow, that’s quite a drive!  Our practice matches are going well.  We modified our arm so the drivers could be able to pop the ball over the overpass without turning around.  While this may help, our drive team was used to the other method so we are not sure if we should use the modified version or stick to the tried and true.  It is nice to have options.  We also took notes on the teams that we will compete against in Friday’s and Saturday’s matches.  Some of those teams really look sharp, especially team 1114.  They have won two regionals this year.  Can any team in Toronto stop them or will they have three regionals before heading to Atlanta?  After the practice rounds the team headed to the Eaton Center for some shopping and then returned to the hotel to work on scouting sheets.  We are looking forward to the competition.

On Monday members of the Circuit Stompers spent the afternoon helping Professor Birdd from Buffalo State College teach the second graders about the human body.  Team members ran stations to show students how the digestive system and the parts of the eye work.  Other team members helped to show students the way the body is proportioned.  For example, did you know if you measure your wrist and double the measurement it is the measurement for your waist?  Try it.  It works.  The whole team also met to go over the competition schedule and responsibilities.  We also made sure we had everything in order for traveling to Canada.  It’s going to be great!

The weather has gotten worse.  Many of our parents are unable to make the trip to RIT to watch us, but our spirits are high!  In our first match we faced teams 250, 68, and 2340.  We had to go three rounds, but we won the quarter finals and have headed on to the semi-finals.  In the semi-finals we faced teams 424, 67, and 272.  Although the blue alliance was not successful in any of the previous matches, we went three rounds to win and advance to the finals.  In the finals we faced teams 19, 191, and 20.  Again we fought all three rounds.  At the end of the third match it looked like we had won, but a penalty that was assessed quickly turned the score against us.  As we proudly accepted the silver medals we were congratulated by 1507.  Together we started a bridge that would give a high five to all the teams in the finals.  Dean and Woodie would have been proud of our sportsmanship. 

The weather is terrible.  The winter storm that was predicted came with a vengeance.  Some teams had difficulties making the competition.  Team 1507 turned their bus back around to Lockport.  They only have their pit team, drivers, and mentors, but they managed to win their last match.  Their 8-2 record matched ours at the end of the qualifying rounds, but they had a higher QS so they took over the top seed.  Team 20 took second and we are ranked third.  For our alliance partners we chose 1126 and 1551.  Finals here we come…

What a great day!!  We reinforced our flippers and they seem to be working better.  Team 365 told us they had a similar problem and shared their solution.  They even offered to let us borrow their spare flippers.  While we appreciated their offer we knew that changing them out would take too long, and we really wanted to play the game so we went ahead with reinforced flippers.  Although we would still like to tweak them we have managed to handle the field and the competition well and finished the day with an 8 and 1 record.  Our last match allied us with 1126, and they came close to going all the way around in hybrid! This match helped us to secure the number 1 ranking. We will have 1 more match before Saturday’s finals and are looking forward to picking an alliance.  There are so many good bots-which one will work best for us- our sister team 1507?  1126 with its awesome autonomous?  365 with its complementary bot?  Decisions, decisions…. 

The judges had other decisions to make.  One was the best web site.  They awarded this to us!!!  We are so psyched for Saturday!!

It’s finally here!!!  We are one of 40 teams at RIT and are anxious to see how our robot, High Five, will do in competition.  We are facing some pretty awesome robots including team 20, 365, and 67.  Our sister team, 1507, is looking pretty strong, too.  The biggest challenge for all the teams seems to be the hybrid mode.  1126 is looking really good with this aspect of the game.  They credit their awesome programmer.  Team members hope to go all the way around the track before Atlanta.  That’s quite a goal.  For now we are trying to figure out why our flippers work fine on the practice field but are touch and go on the playing field.  Our mentors and students are brainstorming options including tubing, noodles, and reinforcements.  Will this work???

Hats off to team 1511, Rolling Thunder, and their sponsor, Harris.  The Rochester Rally was a fantastic opportunity for all the teams in WNY.  We tested our robot, High Five, on a course with other teams and were able to really get a grasp of the game.  It is always amazing to see how many different ideas are out there to accomplish the same goal. We also were able to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones (Good luck Nazarex with those wheels.  Hope they work out for you.) It was an afternoon of sharing and gracious professionalism.  What a great way to end the build season.  We can't wait for the competition in March!!!

Bumpers, a sweet panther for our robot, smoking motors, a visit from the local cub scouts, help with programming, and a great deal on shipping were all part of this very busy week.  During our demonstration for the local cub scouts, the scouts learned about FIRST and drove our robot.  It was a busy, fun-filled evening.  Throughout the week as our drive team practiced with the arm, the arm team continued to work to balance the sprockets to prevent the motors from too hard.  Rick is confident that today's tweaking will be the answer.  Let's hope...  Our robot design team worked with Steve to complete bumpers.  On Friday the whole team was amazed with the awesome panther that Norm made for the robot.  It may just be our good luck charm for this and future robots.  With Paul our programmer called out of town for work, our programming team got some help from Jim Christen, a member of our Retired Mentor's Hall of Fame.  We sure appreciated Jim's help during our crunch time.   Plans have also been finalized for hotel, team shirts, and buttons.  This is keeping the PR team really busy.   Usually right about now we are stressing over shipping arrangements, but this year things are quite different:  Our team will be able to save on shipping costs and get pre-view of the way our robot handles in competition by participating in the Rochester Pre-Season Invitational.  What a great deal for the local teams!  Team members will travel to Rochester on Monday morning and return Monday evening.  We will be able to leave our robot at the competition where it will be taken free of charge to drayage for us.  We are really looking forward to this experience. 

Another amazing week for the Circuit Stompers! The team has done wonders with the arm, and is almost complete. The PR team is making final decisions on this year’s tee-shirt; also Karra, Morgan, Clara, and Hilary have been blazing through the button making. The Drive team is getting tons practice in at the fire hall, so they are ready for this year’s events. We have changed the sprocket ratio to balance the loads, and we have fine tuned our grabbers. Recently, we have hooked up our pneumatics, and we still need to perfect our flippers!! Melissa and Mrs. Lanighan have been working diligently on the chairman’s award, and should be finished within the week. Our robot to be completed very shortly…..(we hope)

This week, the Chassis team completely finished the chassis, and is working now on putting the arm on. The lifters have been mounted and the flippers are coming together smoothly. After some backwards progress on the CADD team, Evan, Erik, and Phil are still working on an assembly of the robot, which will be completed soon with help from Shane. Frank, Mike, Nick, and Hilary have been working like busy bees on the circuit board, which will be put in soon. The PR team has been making buttons like crazy, finalizing the shirt design for this year, and continuing to sell carwash tickets throughout the town. This week was very productive, and Programming will be in the near future for the robot.

This week the build team has completed a prototype of the robot. Michael, Hilary, Nick, Pat, Jeff, and Frank have drawn up a schematic for the wiring and are starting to wire the components. Clara and Jeff are working on a bill of materials. Evan is compiling the pieces for the frame, and Erik is working with him as well. Karra, Morgan, Rachel, and Samantha, at Norm’s suggestion, have added a mentor’s hall of fame and past rosters to our webpage. Amy has been writing letters to local officials inviting them to the Rochester Regional. Melissa and Mrs. Lanighan have been working on the Chairman’s Award. Zach, Matt, Steve, Shane, and Phil have been working on the arm for our robot. Rick has been working with the drive team. Overall it has been a very busy week!

After days of brainstorming we have finally chosen a design for our robot! The decision-making process was intense and the designs by Zack and Mr. Neidlinger were excellent but unfortunately fell just short in our “grading” system. Steve S. thought it would be a good idea to decide on a robot name that would be the same every year so we would be recognized at competitions more easily. Today, Saturday, we will come up with our final name and avoid the 3 days that it takes to come up with a name. 4 more weeks’ guys!!

This week our team members have been furiously brainstorming to design this year’s robot.  The chassis is pretty well figured out, but the arm has many options.  Will we go with Zach's forklift or Steve's bobcat, or Mr. Neidlinger's chopsticks?  They all look like they will work.  Each design will be prototyped and presented to the team.  We will then rank the designs according to a weighted ranking system and go with the design that receives the highest score. This week we are also happy to welcome  Jim Stoelting an engineer from Delphi, to our team. Rick C. and the drivers Hilary, Shane, Mike, Nick, Eric, Jeff, Joe and Evan have been over at the Fire Hall practicing driving with last year's chassis. Things are looking good!

And so the season has officially begun! Saturday morning both the Circuit Stompers and the Warlocks got together at Delphi where we had a tour and watched the Kickoff. After we had lunch we separated into our teams and started brainstorming. Of course everyone was going in different directions of what our main focus was going to be. First thing is first though; our chassis team of Fred, RickB., Joe N., Gabrial, Allen and Benhas to get our chassis started. Deciding on that will be a task. Whether we want it big, small, and what kind of steering is always an issue.

Sunday we went over the rules and specifications of the game, robot and the arena. We all should have a good idea of everything we need to know, finally. FIRST never seizes to make the game as confusing as possible. Once we were finished with the rules we broke up into small groups to design what we think the robot should look like. During this brainstorming those of us that aren't as mechanically capable, Karra, Amy, Clara and Rachel, updated our web site with pictures from the Kickoff.

We are all excited to get started on building what we all hope is a great robot. The next 6 weeks will be quick and February will definitely come too soon!

      The Circuit Stompers just finished up a fundraiser at the Lockport Palace Theater, where we showed the movie Fred Claus. The fundraiser was very successful and we had a great outcome!  We are also selling Delta Sonic tickets, which are still available from any of our team members.  Our fundraisers have been very successful this year. Hopefully we will be able to make it to the National Championship in Atlanta this year!

As the 2008 – 2009 season begins, the Circuit Stompers are pleased to welcome Frank Darrow and Phil Sokolofsky, our new mentors. Our new student members are: Erik Taheri, Joe Santini, Clara Schuler, Ben Sullivan, Evan Snyder, Morgan Kilcullen, Samantha Kelly, Phil Dickenson, and Matthew Mussall. Our new Junior Mentors are: Marge Schuler and Rick Bottom.

Though the season is over the Circuit Stompers have not stopped their efforts to help their community.  A group of students traveled to Newfane Elementary to help Dr. Birdd with an assembly about the human body.  Marge and Gabe taught the second graders about how we hear while Dustin taught them how our digestive system works.  Jeff and Pat explained how the body is based on proportions while Karra, Melissa, Jason, and Dan did a great job teaching the kids about vision and nutrition. 

On April 26, 2007, team members traveled to Delphi to give a presentation for “Take Your Kids to Work Day.”  Hilary, Jason, Nick, Zach, Joe and Mrs. L. joined our sister team the Warlocks and the Delphi mentors and for presentation about robotics and a demonstration of our most recent robots.    Team members were also able to take a tour of the facilities and to personally thank model shop employees that assisted the team this year. 

Rick Coleman, a mentor of team 378, was recently awarded the American Legion Outstanding Volunteer Award.  Rick was nominated for this award by team members for his help with the robotics and volunteer fire organizations.  Rick was introduced to those in attendance by Mr. Neidlinger who did an eloquent job outlining our program and Rick’s contributions to the team.   Senator Maziarz, Legislator Syracuse, and Supervisor Horanburg presented Rick with citations for his service to the community.  Congratulations, Rick!

When there are close to sixty robots at one venue it's tough to stand out, but Hercules did just that.  The amazing lifting capabilities designed by Norm and the lifting team consistently raised our alliance partners for a 30, 45, or 60 point bonus to help Hercules stand out in the crowd.  At the end of the qualifying rounds Hercules was ranked 12th.  In the Alliance Selection Rounds, Hercules was chosen by team Temper  Metal #1766.Our alliance partnership was completed with the addition of  the Cobras, #158.  With the combination of Temper Metal's tough defensive bot, Hercules's  lifting, and the Cobra's low hanging, we were looking like a perfect combination.  Together we went all three rounds and even scored in autonomous (way to go Paul)  before losing to  teams 451,66, and 503.  Despite the loss, it was a thrilling ride and we are pleased that former mentor Mike Fiegl could join us at this event.  Although Hercules was shipped home and not to Atlanta like many of us hoped, its award winning capabilities received recognition from other FIRST teams. We are truly honored to be recognized by other FIRST teams in this manner.  Congratulations to all who participated at the Cleveland Regional and best of luck to CIA, the Robocats, and Delphi Elite in Atlanta. 

With the Buckeye Regional one week away we are busy working on last minute details.  Jason and Mrs. L. worked to design  a handout to highlight our robot's amazing lifting abilities. While Steve made a handout to highlight the robot's arm, Hilary made more safety stickers.  The pit crew made a leg of the rack to practice autonomous while in the pits.  We also finally picked a name.  Although there were many suggestions, Hercules was chosen to highlight our robot's strength. Team members were encouraged to keep selling the raffle tickets.  Sell, sell, sell... 

Our first competition for the year was very encouraging.  After making adjustments to our lifters, we hit upon a design that really paired well with other teams.  In fact, our robot received many compliments in the finals for its amazing lifting ability.  Although going into the finals our ranking was low, other teams recognized us as being a valuable alliance partner.  We were chosen for the finals by the ROBO RATS as their first selection.  Our alliance was rounded out with the addition the BOT CATS.  We made an awesome team.  In fierce competition we went three rounds in the quarter finals to defeat the number one alliance team of 2279, 306, and 1990.  The fine bots lead by this amazing rookie team fought hard  and deserved the recognition that they received for a fine rookie year.  Look out for these guys in the future!  In semi-final action we faced  the solid team of Delphi Elite, East Robotics, and the Tigertrons.   Again we fought valiantly going three  rounds before losing to this outstanding alliance.  Overall the event was fantastic.  The weather was much better than WNY, the site was accommodating, and the new friends that we made have us eagerly awaiting our next competition.  We know that we will see many of the same teams in Cleveland and are looking forward to the competition.  Thanks to our alliance partners, the RATS and the CATS.  Good luck at your next competition.  We'll be watching the results to see how you do.

Our robot is shipped, and there is much excitement for the Pittsburgh Regional.  Our team met on Monday and Thursday to finalize plans and to work on fundraising and community relations efforts. The Niagara chocolate candy bar sale is going strong.  Rick, Michael, Hilary, Jason, Dustin, Mrs. L., and Happy all braved the cold temperatures on Friday to sell bars outside Wal-Mart.  We are pleased to have Wal-Mart as a sponsor and appreciate the opportunity to fund raise outside the Lockport store.  The candy bar sale will continue this week end at the Lions Polar Bear Swim. Who knows Dustin, Rick and Dan may even be coaxed into the cold water of Lake Ontario to support the cause. In other news, we are pleased to have two of our students nominated by  Delphi ASME members for the ASME scholarship.  What a great opportunity for our students.  Thanks to Fred, Steve, and Dr. Mohinder Bhatti, a Senior Technical Fellow at Delphi, for their help with the scholarship process. Finally,  the t-shirts came in on Thursday.  Team members who wish to purchase additional shirts should contact Mrs. L. by Friday so the printer has time to complete the order.  Now if we only had a name for our robot...

Week six has been a roller coaster! Melissa, Karra, Margaret, and Hilary have all been working on painting the crate with their own cute touches! Jim and Paul, along with Mike and Nick have been rushing to get all of the controls and programming in and working correctly. With the terrible weather, we have been crunched with time. We are not the only ones though, the Lockport Team number 1507, the "Warlocks", made a stop in to work on their own robot, due to unavailability of their own work space! We loved to have them around to give us some pointers, and share ideas about their robot. Steve, Fred, Norm, Lucas, Steven, and Tom have been working hard on finalizing our lifting mechanisms. Gabrial has been updating each new picture with upbeat captions. Paul S. stopped in on Sunday to lend a hand with the building. Trevor has made contributions to the lifting team. Zach and Shane have been helping out in any way possible. Mr. Neidlinger and Mrs. Lanighan have been great supervisors always keeping everyone on track and keeping our spirits high even when we are not completely successful! Rick Bottom, Pat, and Jeff have been doing last minute touches on the war wagon, which is looking very promising. The build season is coming to a close with little relaxation, but everything is pulling through and we hope to have an awesome season! It shall be interesting to see what the other teams have come up with! See you all at competition!

We're on the final stretch and frantically cramming in as much as possible.  The arm is looking good with a few minor issues which were resolved by Zach, Shane, and Dustin.  Paul Applegate has been doing some hard core coding and working out final kinks.  The bumpers are coming smoothly with a better design and are a definite improvement from last year's product.   The lifters are finally on and are coming along nicely.  We are under weight as of now but look forward to doing some good old fashioned hole drilling.  The PR team has been hard at work along with the sweet dancing by Hilary and Melissa.  The team photographer, Karra has been hard at work with taking pictures through out the build.

After a little backwards progress on the arm side of the robot Paul Applegate, Rick Coleman, Shane, Zach and Dustin are hard at work making things go smoothly. Things are looking up! Even though right now the lifters are put together with duct tape, Norm, Tom and Rick are making improvements and it is looking very promising. The PR team has been hard at work Gabrial and Marge have been rigorously putting on pictures and adding captions for the past years. Rachel and Melissa are setting up our Niagara Chocolate Fundraiser at Wal-Mart and the Polar Bear Swim in the upcoming weekends. Paul Silversmith and Michael have been busy working on the fender. We had a visitor on Sunday, former mentor Mike Fiegl came in from Indiana were he was transferred to this year. We can’t wait to see him again at the Cleveland Regional cheering on our team!

Our arm is done, on the chassis, motorized and its pneumatic components are beginning to be hooked up. The lift construction is nearing completion and is working with the chassis to attach and deploy. Chassis team is working with Jim, Mike, and Pardee (the electronics and controls team) to incorporate the electronics board onto robot. In their spare time, Lucas, Smiles, and Steve have made lots of progress building the rack, and it should be complete when the robot is ready for testing.

Norm and Rick have finalized the lift design and are undergoing construction. The arm team of Dustin, Happy, Shane, and Rick Coleman has been making tons of progress. Our arm is nearing completion. The mainstay of it is built, now it’s time for Paul to work his magic. The chassis is done; the team is streamlining its features to incorporate arm and the lift. The electronics team well on its way. The electronics board is coming together. Jeff has been running around bothering everyone. It’s his job to keep up-to-date on the weight and expense reports. The web team of Marge, Hilary, Gabrial, and Karra has uploaded a ton of content and pictures from previous years, vastly improving the website every day.

 The arm team has probably made the most progress. After testing the various challenges of acquisition and placement of the tubes with a working prototype, they have moved on to fabrication of the final product.

The final version of the chassis is over 80% done, according to its subgroup. Progress continues after a major setback. A change in lift design forced the team to reevaluate spacing because of the team’s decision to allot the lift more room in the confines of the starting box. Despite road bumps, the chassis is nearly complete.

The lift team, under Norm and Bottom’s direction, is prototyping a new approach after setbacks with the last few designs. As I am typing this, the prototype is lifting last year’s robot. Now it’s just made of wood.  If this design is effective, we’ll go with it.   Just wait until the final product. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The P.R. team has been a busy bunch. They’ve mailed out the letters to congressmen, legislators, and representatives. Designs for t-shirts and buttons are finished and ready for the team vote. Promotion items are picked and ordered.

This season has lifted off with wicked speed!  The team has used their massive intellectual powers to come up with the ultimate plan for the 378 robot. Prototyping has begun and is going great.  The robot will have capabilities like no other, including the ability to elevate two other robots and an arm/hand that will be able to pick up and transport the inter tubes. The new team members are gelling very nicely and have brought innovative ideas to the team.  Through trials and tribulations the team has persevered and is going strong.    

As the 2006-2007 season begins to take shape we are pleased to welcome Carrie Kowski, a Delphi engineer, to the Newfane Circuit Stompers.  She will be a great asset to our team this year and hopefully in the years to come.  Our new student members are Brian Bowman, Hilary King, Dan Langendorfer, Melissa Lovewell, Shane Seefelt, Karra Silvis, Steve Verheyn, Jeff Wick, and Lucas Wong.  Carrie and many new students joined in with the fun of the Ra Cha Cha Rochester Regional.

At the end of April, the Stompers travelled south to Atlanta, Georgia for the national championships, or should we say, the international championships!  Team 378 contended in the Curie Division against 18 countries from around the globe.  Although we didn't place very well, our robot put up a valiant fight and every match had us on the edges of our seats.  As always, we had fun and made loads of interesting friends from amazing places and went home feeling not in the least disappointed.

The calendar said Spring Break, but with the Championship only weeks away, who can take a break?  The first order of business was to recognize two of our mentors, Jim Christen and Fred Dempsey,  at the Univera Health/ United Way Volunteer Hero Recognition Breakfast.  Like all our mentors, these guys really give their all to the team, and we were happy to see their efforts recognized.  Congratulations  Jim, Fred, and all the mentors, you are all heroes to us.

Team e-mail shows other recent activity.  The team has its assignment for the Championship.  Although the mentors have been busy analyzing the assignments and scoping out the competition, the students have been talking to the Eight Ball.  It's been right so far, so why not see if it goes three for three?   Let's hope.  Rachel and crew are busy making Panther ears and buttons are in progress.  There is a meeting Monday to iron out the last minute things and pack the trailer.  Look out, Atlanta.  We're coming! 

Mix over seventy teams from three countries, add one Woodie Flowers,  place at the Hershey Center and what do you get?  The biggest ever FIRST Regional.  The Stompers participated at this event and had an amazing run.  Arriving in Toronto on Wednesday evening, the team was eager to set up our pits and re-build Win-Chester.   Although the new slimmer design took the greater part of the day, by Thursday afternoon we were ready to showcase our new compact design.  The new model proved more stable and was able to face competition without the threat of tipping.  The new sturdier design helped us to win all but one match on Friday leaving us in a promising position for Saturday.  On Saturday our team won both matches and was seeded second!  This was the highest seed for our team ever!  We were psyched!!!  At the alliance rounds we chose teams  296  and   912.   We felt that these teams would compliment our boot.  With the help of our partners we won the quarter finals and advanced to the semi-finals.  In a tough fought match one of our partners lost their camera and drive chain.  This would cripple our advancement.  Although we lost in the semi-finals, we were proud to have been in the hunt.  We know that our alliance was top-notch and that our partners were with us for the long haul.  It was an honor to team up with both teams.  At the awards ceremony Win-Chester was recognized for its overall design with the General Motors Quality Award.    Look out, Altlanta, we are charged.

This past weekend we participated in the Finger Lakes Regional.  While the competition was great, perhaps the best part was connecting with our sister team 1507, the Warlocks, and helping the rookie team 1765 from Erie 1 BOCES.  While we were impressed by many teams, we are especially proud of our alliance partners  teams 578 and 467.  Those Bandits sure do amazing things with duct tape.  We can't wait to see our friends from team 188 and 229 in Toronto in a few weeks. Although our alliance partners won't be joining us, we'll be wearing  buttons from 578 and 467 as we go into competition so they'll be with us in spirit.  After Toronto we're off to Atlanta where we will connect with teams 191, 211, 340, 1126, 1450, 1507, 1511, and 1567.  We can't wait!!!!

Three days to competition… We met today to finalize last minute items.  Congratulations to the winners of the raffle. Did your ticket win?  One hundred dollar tickets are held by #69,157,180,170,200,214,236,221,256 and 290.  The $250 ticket winners were #122 and 294.  The $2000 ticket was #247.  Congratulations to the winners and thank you for your support.

The robot is shipped, and we can’t wait for competition.   Our kick-off plans are coming along well: the invitations that Rachel and Gabrial made were mailed out to community members, our co-captains are getting donuts, Ryan is putting a multi-media presentation together to highlight the build, and Jason is working on a video to showcase our robot “Win-Chester.”   Hopefully we will have a good community showing.  We are also working on getting a spectator bus for the Finger Lakes Regional.  Students interested in going on a field trip to support the team and learn more about FIRST should listen to announcements next week. In other matters, look for the t-shirts to be in soon. The design looks great.  Hopefully everything will be spelled right for the “Robitics” competition…..  

Progress continues, but at what looks like a snail's pace.  Jim C., Paul A., Mike L., and the electronic team are working feverishly to direct the installation of dozens of sensors and wires to interconnect all the sub systems.  Miles of wire are bundled to almost every square inch of robot frame. We need to go wireless next year.  John R. and the magazine team are figuring out what air cylinders need to be used and where.  We haven't done a lot with pneumatics in our previous robots and now this year we need 3 air cylinders, two storage tanks, 2 pressure regulators, safety release valve, actuation valves, tubing and an on-board compressor.  Our robot weight is skyrocketing.  We weighed the robot accurately this week and we are still 7.5 pounds over weight. What's a team to do!!  Looks  like Andy will be  re-making some parts lighter.

We shot a couple dozen of balls at the beginning of this week with reasonable success at scoring in the elevated goal (a 30" hole 8 ½ feet above the floor).   Paul, Mike L., Gabrial, Ryan, Tony, and Rick ran the robot through its paces, both up and down the ramp.  They also launched it off the ramp at high speed and nearly did it in.  Another Uh Oh!!!!  The robot wants to tip backward when we go up the ramp.  How do we fix that!!…..We just go up the ramp backwards… .Problem fixed. Tom F. and Norm are working on drive team selection. The competition looks fierce.  Do we have a name for our robot yet?  Have we even narrowed the running field??  Time is running out… only a few days now until we ship.

The shooter team needs to use TWO small CIM motors, so Fred's chassis team will use two small and two large CIMs.  Can we afford the weight to have four drive motors? Why do I ask, cause we now plan to put pneumatics on board which will likely require a 5 pound compressor as well.  Our latest weight chart estimates we will be 6 pounds over the limit. 

Tom S. is heading up the wood fabrication for the bumpers while Margaret, Rachel, Gabrial, and Dustin are working with Mrs. Lanighan to find a tough fabric to cover the pool noodles that Fred picked up at the pool store.  They must have thought him crazy at the pool store when he asked for robot materials (maybe they're right!).  Rick's recommending we use paint can cap for a part on the robot as well.  Mike says we should use a cardboard tube concrete pier form from Home Depot for the magazine tubes. We use what ever we can, wherever we can. Pat W. is working on animation. The storyboard looks great! Ryan, how's the field model coming along?  Tony and Harland are busy with the new war wagon.  Jason F., Nick, and Braidy are creating a Vexbot of our robot.   Can they say "Mini-bot"? Check out the latest pictures available thanks to Trevor and Rachel.  The Delphi skilled trades workers in the Model Shop are doing a great job to support us.  Thanks, guys.

The ideas are bouncing around as furiously as the balls this week.  Our six-shooter turned into a seven shooter.  We decided to maximize the capacity of the rotary magazine and seven balls fit quite nicely into the footprint of the robot frame.  Is it fate or coincidence that this is also our seventh year of competition?  Sounds like a good omen to me!!!!

Uh oh!!! Our first shooter assembly weighed in a lot heavier that we planned for and the support platform is way to flimsy.  The shooter team is working hard to correct both problems. The chassis team has the chassis coming together well, and then just as quickly its coming apart again. They're modifying it now for 6 wheel drive with the center wheels the primary drivers.  Four motors will be used for the drive train, but should it be two small and two large CIMs or four small CIMs?

This week opened with our team taking two steps forward and one step back.  Close scrutiny of our inner robot workings by our expert core of technicians and mechanics discovered a hurdle we decided to avoid. Those darned balls like to get jammed up in the hopper when we try to funnel them into the shooter. To experiment, Zack and Jesse built a cardboard hopper and found after various designs for hopper sides, bottom troughs etc. ,  that is was going to be a continuing problem.  Jim H. quickly put together a 6 ball rotary magazine and found the balls fed into it very nicely from the hopper placed above.   Tuesday we made a full size robot model out of paper cut-outs and relocated all the subsystems to fit around the new horizontal rotary magazine.  Its a good thing we played with those paper dolls as kids (little did we know it would be good training for robotics design).

 Looks like we really must have pneumatics on board now to push the balls into the Shooter.  It's full steam ahead again as we try to determine if we need an air compressor or just the storage tanks.  The compressor will add 5 lbs and we know we are over weight already.

Mike L. and Trevor R. have been helping Jim with the electronic simulator.  They've actually built a scale model of the "shooter" turret and put small functioning motors on it.  Its amazing to see the turret rotate and follow the green light target as it is moved around the room. Look out center goal, we're right on target. The students are nearly ready to send the new Tee shirt design to the printer. How many votes do we need to endure to get the right one!

With a school holiday on Monday providing extra prototyping time, we used the whole day to its greatest potential. We finished making the center goal and ramp to test our robot theories and experimented with a belt device to pick-up balls from the floor. The "ball picker-upper" worked like a charm and we had multiple balls bouncing through our phantom robot. Jezz, it really got exciting when the design team experimented by doubling the RPM of the pickup belt. Hey Norm, was that smoke I saw coming from the conveyor belt or did you get your shoe caught in the device??

By the end of the second week, we were using a radar gun to test the maximum velocity of our "Shooter" mechanism, which was clocked at just under the maximum allowed 26 mph limit so we were right on target. We put about 20 balls through the upper center goal to wrap up the week, and it only took Mike and team about 40 shots tries to do it. Jim and the electronics team made great strides with the camera vision and demonstrated its potential to aim the "Shooter" to the whole team. Hey Joe, remember not to wear a bright green tee shirt to the competition, the next time the camera tracks you there might be multiple missiles in the form of game balls heading towards you at 39 feet per second. Hey Jim, is it true your team is working to be able to shoot the competitions' balls out of the sky?

Wow!  The game is going to be fast and furious.  Sounds like there will be 60 balls in the air in the first ten seconds.  While a core group of 9 students and mentors were at RIT watching, learning, and picking up our Kit of Parts, the remaining 18 team members gathered at the High School and watched the kickoff there. Everyone's mind was spinning with ideas and questions by the end of the presentation. Full size goals were setup at RIT to provide a quick visualization of the skill needed to score.

We spent the next few days reviewing the rules; first by walking through the game using a scale model game board and then second by using the Gym for a full size layout and workout.  Some valuable insight was gained as to the requirements of the robot design as well as the strategy to play the game. By the end of the first week, we had our brainstorming of  multiple concepts complete and had balls flying through the air via our first "Shooter" prototype.  Our "Shooter" concept is working great, now we just need some wheels and motors to move it around.  Watch out for those flying balls Bill, I think they were actually aiming for you!