Engineering Inspiration Award
- When we started robotics in 2017 and joined FRC, people thought we were crazy for even attempting something like FRC. We were discouraged by our admin from even considering the idea. But, we went ahead anyways with little or no support. Slowly we are winning their approval and encouragement.
- No longer are our efforts frowned up or trivialized. We are now a team that people stop and watch and seek out to become a part of. People are offering to assist us any one they can.
- We have been successful enough we are now able to offer a programming course. We hope that in the near future, we can expand to offer actual robotics courses.
Engineering Inspiration Award: (Future Vision - Looking Forward)
- Extent and inventiveness of the team’s efforts to recruit students to engineering with particular emphasis on the most recent year’s efforts. Measurable success of those efforts.
- Extent and effectiveness of the team’s community outreach efforts with particular emphasis on the most recent year’s efforts. Measurable success of those efforts.
- A commitment to science and technology education among the team, school, and community.
- Achievement of the FIRST mission and ability to communicate that at the competition and away from it.
- Efforts are ongoing, not strictly concentrated on the build and competition season.
- As we do not rely on drafting programs such as AutoCAD, Solid Works, or several of the other CADD variants to design our robot, or have access to fancy machines or techniques such as CNC machines and plasma cutters to fabricate our robot, we brought it back to the basics and focused more heavily on the fundamentals. We had to rely on 'old-fashioned' techniques to build our robot with a detailed plan in mind. We are proud of what we have accomplished with equipment and techniques that other view as "old school".
- As building things from scratch takes more time, we did not have the luxury to rebuild things over and over, so planning is essential. Complicating things more, we do not have the financial resources to start over. We had to get things close to right the first time or close enough that we could make small modifications to improve our design and performance.
- We were so proud of what we accomplished as a team during build season and how much we learned, that how well we are performing in competition is just the icing on the cake.
- Because of the limitations we have in regards to time, material, and financial resources, we had to plan and design our device and strategies fully prior to starting construction of the robot. We had to have a good foundation on which to build as we knew we did not have the luxury of starting over or making significant changes once the machine was buil
About Our Initial Design Process:
- Our design phase lasted about three days fuelled by pen and paper, basing our thought processes on imagery and good old problem solving. Coming up with designs and systems to overcome each game challenge as they came and achieve the functions we wished for was the foundation of our team’s thought process.
- Once we had an idea, we had to tailor it to fit both our budget, our limited shop resources, and our knowledge base.
To the Shop - Design and Fabrication Process:
- Rather than using computer drafting software, we draw our ideas out on scrap paper, sketch them onto the shop floor with chalk, or write on the white borard.
- We did our calculations, double and triple checked, and built.
- Our design was made to be versatile, aiming to be able to score in every way possible. Our robot was broken down into different parts, the mast, the chassis and the bucket. Each part was designed and fabricated with every con and concern in mind. The integration of each system in regards to one another was done with input from each member, regardless of skill level.
- Our work ethic pushed us to put a high priority on taking any idea and finding a mechanical way to utilize and fabricate it no matter how ridiculous it seemed.
- In order to keep the robot light, we continually drilled holes into the bucket, therefore dubbing our robot “Swiss Cheese”.