April Blog

Oh god all mighty these pancakes 

http://issuu.com/ipolyroboticsteam/docs/final_product_lineup

The menu lineup of the robotics new venture into the I-Fest Scene. As I-Fest closely approaches, I along with the robotics team have begun our plans to fund raise for next years robotics team. Most of the team is comprised of seniors so we will be leaving but we have recruited a steady following of loyal techies that hope to stand by and work with

 

The robotics team has also had problems recently with our previous mentor Joey Uken who started the team. In a Steve Jobesque fashion, we have decided to oust him from the club for being lazy and generally uncaring about this team. We have since associated with the school and now were hoping to stride forward without him. 

We are in a down time without any need to build a robot but we plan to build together a field for ifest.

February Extra Blog

An update on FTC Team 7258 Inland Empire Broncos Robotics

We’re officially school associated now and we’re considered a club at the school. This is good for us because that means we can finally be raising money legally at school by having fundraisers and everything. Our first meeting will be on Friday February 21^st at 1pm in the Joint Use Room. It’s been a long uphill struggle for Miguel and he finally got his way with the administration. We are officially part of the school and were now Ipoly’s very own robotics team. Hopefully now that its school sanctioned we can get more members to join the club and we’ll have members for next year after the seniors leave. We’re also going to be doing a robot showcase on March 1^st and 2^nd with the FRC competition. So that means we got to get our robot back in shape and ready for this organization. I’m not sure if the parts have been bought yet or if our sponsors have come through but for now, we’re going to be hopeful that maybe our parts will be coming in.

Saturday February 22, 2014 I went to volunteer for FIRST Robotics. I’m volunteering for an FTC event  for my independent component. Here are some of the photos that i took while i was working there and interacting with the staff and the participants of the event. 

January Extra Blog Post

So in january, we have been invited to showcase our robot in a FIRST Robotics Competition. Our robot was chosen by Richard Sisk to represent his team in a younger robotics division. I also had an interview with Richard recently that helped me a lot with my EQ because of his insight into the FIRST program and his ideals as a mentor. His team was deep in the build season and he barely had time to be interviewed but it was evident that the team was busy and bustling and ready to go.
The interview proved to be very useful and supplied me with a lot of the information that i will be able to use for my answer.

Our competition season is over now so we cant compete anymore really. Although we have been trying to apply to another competition up in sacramento, our hopes of really going there are slim to none due to cost issues. At this point, we dont really know where to go with our robot. We have started applying for grants for money so that we may buy more parts next year. We also got invited to showcase our robot as a new rookie team. I hope to continue to volunteer with FIRST and i will be attending an event on february 2nd which i will write about in the february blog. 

Not much else is happening but here are some photos of the team working together and planning. I took these photos at a recent meeting and most of it consisted of planning for the future. For now, we just look forward and hope for the best.

These photos were taken before the competition day on the 11th. I wasn't able to go and take photos of the competition because i went on the hike trip but i was there with the team helping them prepare. They didn't do too well from what i heard though. So much for all their preparation.

FTC first competition~

As part of my mentorship with the Inland Empire Broncos Robotics club, we as a club participated in our first FTC competition on December 14^th. It had been a long night for Carlos, Regina, Miguel (sort of), and me. We had all spent the night awake and struggling to complete all the requirements necessary for competing in the competition such as the Robot, and our all-encompassing notebook, and putting together a presentation.  We all stayed up on skype and such to keep track of what each other was doing but at around 1:30, Miguel said he was going to take a little nap and that he’d be back in a bit and he was never heard from again. Regina stayed up with us through the night and worked very hard on completing the notebook. I had spent most of my day at a concert with Krystal that ended around 12:30. Then I took her home and drove to Carlos’s house. I got there at one and from that point we worked on our robot in between coffee breaks and snack runs. Our robot was finished at 4:17 AM the next day.

We had about two hours to kill before we had to leave the house and go to the competition so we showered and made breakfast which took up basically our whole morning. We arrived at the competition area around 7:30 which was the recommended time to come. Slowly the rest of our team started to show up and even our mentor decided to get out of bed and join us. We stayed outside of the Pit area and waited before they allowed us in. Many of the teams came in full uniform with vans and busses full of students and gear and us iPoly kids looked raggedy with our 3 boxes and our hastily constructed robot

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Inside the pit area, we all had to wear goggles and many of the teams began mingling with ours and talking and asking questions about our robot and ourselves. Carlos, regina, Miguel and I sat in the chairs, listless hoping nobody would attempt to talk to us. But they did.

We tested our robot in the arena and we did alright.

Much of the beginning consisted of inspections of our hardware and our software as well as judging of our team cohesion and robotic ability. Then after lunch, we moved onto the actual competition where we began to see who really knew what they were doing. We did alright considering that was our first competition. Many of the thrills and ups and downs of the game were crazy and exciting but in the end, we came out 11^th place out of 21 contenders; not too shabby.

We all decided to leave the competition a bit early and we got berated on that but we had won an award and the only one there to pick it up was Miguel and he was not too happy about it. We won the award for best presentation, no surprise there. All in all, it was a good learning experience and lots of fun for the whole club.

FIRST Lego League Volunteering

For the month of November, as part of my mentorship and my senior project i volunteered with the FIRST Lego League for one of their regional qualifiers; a competition to determine who was going to be going to Lego land to compete. I was part of the setup team helping set up the actual competition arena and the next day I was a stage queue runner for two teams. I became sort of a team coach and organizer. I took care of the teams and made sure they were at the place they were supposed to be at the right times. I also encouraged them as well as making sure they were having a good time. It was an all around good experience for me to get into that sort of competition setting where i would be able to learn more about the competition i would be competing in.

These are photos of the night before when we were setting up the arenas and the pit area to receive the teams when they came the next day.

Us, the volunteers being briefed before the teams came and all things became hectic.

The arrival of the teams as they all searched for a place to set down their stuff.

Here is marina, watching the arenas as the kids set up.

Team Robotworks Y

The Bulldogs

These are the teams that i was in charge of the day of the competition.

The end of the day awards ceremony as well. This is the part where all the teams received awards for excellence in certain fields or in competitive spirit.