Happy build season!
The six week FRC Power Up build season has officially begun, and we are hard at work.
On Saturday, January 6th, we all met at CMU to watch the 2018 game reveal. This year’s game is FIRST Power Up, inspired by retro video games. A rookie team we are mentoring, FRC 7274, Brashear Bulls Robotics, joined us at our kickoff meeting which was held at Carnegie Mellon University.
After we learned what the challenge would be this year, we brainstormed what specific challenges we would prioritize, what skills we would see most at competition, and what would be most efficient for us. We divided into groups and planned what paths we would take on the field, and the point values that could be accomplished. During the kickoff brainstorming process we followed the “Six Thinking Hats” methods and this year, thanks to Makayla and Anna J., we actually had hats to wear.
During the kickoff meeting, Makayla said, “It was really nice to brainstorm robot ideas after the video with some of the Brashear team and to hear everyone’s ideas.” The day after kickoff, January 7th, we held our design meeting with most of our seniors, the design team, and other interested girls. We had Chipotle for lunch!
Throughout the following week, we began working on the robot! So far, the design team has been prototyping the CAD for the collector, the programming team began writing the drive code and worked on our autonomous plan, and the mechanical team began assembling the chassis. AK, the chassis design leader said, “We nailed down design very quickly and were able to immediately nail down a chassis CAD. By the end of week one, we were over halfway through prototyping, we are working on our final CADs for both manipulators.” Aeryn, a new FRC member of the design team, said, “It is a really great experience contributing to the team and being a part of such a big thing.”
We are hard at work, and excited to enter week 2 of build season and we are also looking forward to having our FTC members shadow us now that their competition season has ended.