Inspiring The Next Generation Of Scientists And Engineers


We have been taking a slight break from the meetings for the holiday season, and then again for the first week in January, as Julia, Becky and Mr. Thompson were out of the state. We are going to have our first meeting this year this Tuesday. 

We had planned on attending a competition in Northern Virginia, but due to inclement weather, the tournament was cancelled, and we have to wait until Jan. 23rd for the next one. We have a lot that we are trying to get done before then, and we only have 3-4 meetings in which we can work on the robot.

We have quite a few upgrades we are trying to implement, including coding, autonomous, hardware, scoring factors, chassis design, and even control systems. We have been having some problems with drive motors dying during a match, so we are currently working on building a system that will firstly, not break, and secondly, if it does break, we can still control it. This is turning out to be harder than we had originally thought, as our drive system is composed of four wheels, at 45 degrees to the chassis, giving us omni-directionality. If one of these motors dies, our entire control system is dead, and we are going to look into rewriting the code so we can still drive some even if a motor dies. 

We have also begun thinking about the World Competition. For the Vex Challenge, the International level competition is down in Dallas, Texas. We are beginning to think about what it will take, whether it is feasible, how we would get there, how the robot will get there, and who would go. We are hoping to qualify at the Jan. 23rd competition, and if we do, we will begin fundraising efforts immediately.

We are still rolling ahead at full speed, with a slight break for the holidays to refresh us. We have a lot we are trying to get done, and not enough time to do it in.

JM