Girls of Steel has had a successful two weeks of build season so far, but going into this third week there was a lot to continue doing! Something that the team needed to keep in mind this week was how quickly build season is moving on. The first few weeks always feel like there is so much time left, but we have quickly realized that there is, in fact, still limited time to complete everything. For this reason, Girls of Steel is trying to keep moving as efficiently as possible.  Also, our FTC teams started shadowing us this week.

The electronics team specifically has realized the pressure that time is putting on the team, as they had a lot of time sensitive work to get done. And they pulled through! They cut the vertical E-board, after sizing it to fit the robot design perfectly. They also started stuffing the E-board with the necessary components that will be used to make the robot run. Throughout these tasks, the electronics team had to stay in communication with the rest of the team, especially design and mechanical, to make sure that everything they are adding to the robot fits with the attachments that are going on. 

To make these attachments, the mechanical and design team were also hard at work. The design team refined the computer aided design (CAD) for the lift and release on the hanger subsystem. This means the design for how to robot is going to lift itself up on the bar that is in the center of the field. For the hanger subsystem, the design team also had to start the CAD for the winch system, which is the way that the robot is going to push up an arm to lift itself, without falling or breaking easily.

For the shooter and control panel subsystems the design team continued to refine and create new CAD to assist the mechanical team. The mechanical team is almost finished with all the final prototypes! They continued to work on the finishing touches and testing so that soon they can all be put together onto the first robot of the season!

And finally, the programming team. The programming team has test driven the mecanum chassis bot with this season’s drive code, and this week, went back through again to make sure that it was working right. They also continued to work on the Limelight code, which is one of the most extensive projects they have this season. They also added to the autonomous code command folder so that the robot will have autonomous code that can get the team as many points as possible in competition. A few girls also added some shooter subsystems and commands so that the robot would be able to shoot the power cells, and that code will work with the limelight when it is done to aim properly. 

This week, work on the bumpers has continued, and the wood and noodles for the frame are assembled. We are also working on having reversible bumpers and CNCing new t-brackets so that they are easy to attach and remove from the robot.

This summer and fall, we worked to modify a piece of restaurant shelving – a bakery rack – as an upgrade to our pit setup. Once the frame was reinforced, we moved on to creating a tool rack that will mount on the side, which we will hopefully complete for our first competition.  We are finishing this during build season.

All of this work will carry into week four of build season, and the team will continue to work extremely hard to make sure that, as fast as build season moves, Girls of Steel accomplishes all of the goals that we have planned to achieve.