We’re currently working with the incredible robotics team KnightKrawler to make face shields for front line workers. We have access to several 3D printers, some owned by the team, some owned by mentors, which we are using to print the frames for face shields. If you are able and interested we are currently accepting donations to help us pay for the filament at our Donate page. If you need face shields, or just want to check out the amazing KnightKrawler and the work they’re doing, you can do so on their website.
All posts by Phoebe Kirchner
We’re Still Meeting – March, 2020
Even though we’re no longer seeing each other or our robot in person, we’re still a team. We’ve moved our meetings online and have been meeting as a whole team once a week, and it’s been wonderful to see everyone’s faces and hold on to our community when so much else is different. Sub-teams have been having some additional meetings for their work. All of our sub-teams have been using this time for some infrastructural improvements, such as our student handbook, annual calendar, a programming style guide, and training all around. Our Build team has also been working on a few robot-related projects in CAD (Computer-Aided Design), which revolve around changes we would like to make to our robot in the future. One of these is modifying the shooter hood to be adjustable, while others include our climber and intake mechanisms.
2020 Kickoff – Infinite Recharge
The game is out and we are super excited! We gathered at Minnetronix on Saturday to watch the live stream and start our brainstorming. After reading the manual and playing some riveting games of ping pong, we spent some time talking in small groups. We tried to answer some main strategic questions and then created a few potential robot profiles. We managed to get in one game of our RPG (the role playing game/robot paper game that we developed for mock kickoff) before heading home.
We spent Sunday at our home shop. The day was sweetened by some fabulous popcorn in our colors. We played two more rounds of the RPG to get a sense of the game before we started our strategy meeting. About three hours later and after lots of intense discussion, we walked out with a plan for what our robot will be able to do.
You can watch the game animation for Infinite Recharge here!
Mock Kickoff – December 3 & 5, 2019
This Tuesday and Thursday we did Mock Kickoff! The game: Rebound Rumble from 2012. After watching the game animation together, we read the rules, then split up into small groups to discuss scoring and game play. Each group created three possible robot profiles. When we came back on Thursday, each robot was assigned a student driver and we played our new Robot Paper Game, an RPG in which you roll dice to attempt moves and each robot has modifiers for their strengths. After that we sat down as a team to decide what robot we wanted to make. After a long discussion, we all walked out of the room on the same page about our plans for the (hypothetical) season!
If you’re interesting in learning more about the game we used, watch the 2012 game animation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYWscqruBRA
Tie-Dye Day – November 17, 2019
Sunday, November 17th was our annual tie-dye day! Mentors, team members, and family members pitched in for around three hours to tie and dye lots of t-shirts and sweatshirts.
