Preparing in the Summer
Our summer preparations began before the summer did. We started working on our high school robotics journey towards the end of our 8th grade year after Kelsey and Harper completed the VEX IQ State Championships. When the Robotics teacher sent out an email inviting everyone to join the high school robotics team, Sarah and Amelia, the other two members of the team, saw their opportunity to try something their friends had fun with and decided to join. Our trips to the robotics room, accompanied by snacks bought from the school's snack bar, the Panther Pit, were originally where our mentors, James Gillespie and Mary Jarrett, were teaching us how to not break things but soon turned into valuable work time where we learned how to design and build a VEX robot. The building, while seemingly easy, was very complicated to learn because, along with switching from the IS (Intermediate School) to the high school, we were switching from plastic "pop-in's" to metal pieces which need to be cut, drilled, and screwed together. In the beginning, we were researching different robot base configurations and strategies that effect how we perform in the game. (To learn about the Vex 2016-17 game click here) The main strategy we decided on was to be a primarily catapulting robot that also has the ability to lift itself up for the high-hang objective. At the beginning, Mr. Gillespie told us that a requirement he would be placing on our robots was that they were able to complete the high-hang challenge. After we had a base that would, in the future, be able to fulfill our design-ambitions, we started to work on the catapult. We debated about how to best use the catapult arm to complete the task of shooting stars and doing the high-hang for a while. Then, with the inspiration of a video, we decided to modify our strategy. We decided to switch from a catapult to more of a high-dumping system. We have arms that are in a 6-bar system, and you can see a video showing what that is below. This way we can start in the space we are allowed and then when the game begins we can expand for more distance. Now we are working on attaching the scoop to the arms. We will have a motor between the scoop and arms so that after the arms raise the scoop, the scoop can tip down and the stars will fall into the other teams' zone. As the beginning of the school year gets closer and closer, we feel as though we've made some steady progress and are slowly learning the In's and Out's of Vex and high school. We are very excited and well on our way to being competition ready!
