The Green Machine Blog

Well, technically it’s not quite summer vacation yet (except for the seniors)… But it’s close enough. The Green Machine is definitely going to be quite busy this summer, and it’s going to be awesome!

We’ve decided to go through with the “going green” theme, since our name after all is the GREEN Machine, and we love our trees. :) So basically that means that we’re going to help raise awareness about the environment by doing environment-related work. The team is very excited about this, and we’re looking forward to it.

This summer we plan to build a robot so the build teams can get some good practicing in. We’re going to use mecanum drive, which’ll be a really fun challenge for the chassis and programming teams. Also, because of the going green theme, we’re thinking about building a manipulator that will pick up garbage and put it into a garbage can mounted on the robot, which will be extremely spiffy and fun to show off at presentations and such.

This summer we’re also going to present our robot at the MOA (which will be like a mock competition) and state fair. There’s also been talk about co-hosting a mini-regional, which will be nice for new members on the team so they can see what competitions are like.

We also have a new subteam called team-building. This is basically going to be team bonding, and will include activities like Feed My Starving Children, car washes, picnics, seeing Wall-E, etc, which will be a great way to get to know the rest of the team better.

So we’re obviously going to be very busy this summer, and it’ll be tons of fun spending more time with the team! Have a good summer, everyone!

Anna

So I’ve been obsessively watching the webcast for the past two days, and I find it amazing that the announcer dude can come up with different jokes for almost every match.

I caught the first two matches yesterday. The first one was supposed to be during first hour, which for me is econ. We had an econ test that day, but the teacher noticed I was wearing my robot pants and team shirt and asked about it and stuff (and and and). He actually turned on the webcast with no sound for the entire hour! During a test! About halfway through the hour the projector randomly turned the sound on, and half the class jumped when 1970s disco music or whatever was being blasted through the projector. People who I never thought would be interested in our team asked me all sorts of questions, which was fun.

During second hour, our first match came on. I have French Cinema during second hour. She actually let me pause Les Parapluies des Charbourg to watch the match! I discovered that even being fluent in French doesn’t provide me with enough specific vocabulary to use in explaining the game or the alliance picking process or whatever. It was really convenient to be able to tell my French teacher that one of her students was going to be driving, since both Matt and Rem are in her AP V class. I also found out during this class that Mrs. Purdy is my friend’s online bio teacher, whoda thunk?

Our next match was in the middle of band. I asked the director if we could watch, and he said there really wasn’t a way to stop band and watch it, since the department was having technical difficulties with the laptop cart. He did say, however, that he would write my friend and I a pass to the library media center to watch the match. We got to the media center, signed in and gave them our pass and stuff, and found a computer. It turned out to be the slowest computer in the ENTIRE PLACE. So someone I knew that was done with their computer said we could use the one she was on, which turned out to be much faster. Once we got the webcast up, an English teacher (that I’ve never had but have been told not to mess with) came in with her class and said that she had the space reserved and everyone needed to log off immediately. We had enough time to determine what match number was up, and noticed that we had about two minutes until 1816 was up. So we headed back to band. We tried two computers in the practice rooms, but they both had issues with the district’s network. We went into the band office, and talked to the other director’s sub. We explained to her that the match was being streamed live and that we needed to get on immediately, but she didn’t quite get it. She did say that someone during third hour (I’m assuming either Evanby or Tom) tried to get on. We quickly got the webcast pulled up right as the scores were put up for the previous match. We watched 1816 play, and it was the match where we were two points behind but then the other alliance got two breaking-the-plane penalties. So epic.

I miss you all, I wish I was there so incredibly bad, and now I have to work on finances. Sigh.

~Stef

The write post page says “Howdy, Stef!”… Interesting.

Also, Evanby, the site keeps telling me “A new version of WordPress is available! Please notify the site administrator.” Consider yourself notified, I guess…

So yesterday the team left for Atlanta. I mean Hotlanta, as everyone calls it. Except me. I’m holding down the fort, wishing to death that I was there, missing the entire team (remember how they’re all my best friends? yeah, this is hard.), and for the rest of this week I will be forcing teachers to let us watch the webcast. Last year during Atlanta some teachers didn’t get why we had to watch it then, couldn’t we watch it later? NO. IT’S LIVE. LIKE TV. THANK YOU. But it’s still fun to watch my class get totally into something whose rules they barely understand. It’s like watching me at the state hockey tournament (our boys took 2nd place!!). I’d get really excited and scream and stuff and then ask the people around me what just happened.

Another entertaining thing is to explain to people why we’re going to Atlanta. “I thought you didn’t win!” “We won the Chairman’s Award, it’s better than winning. It’s for the team who best embodies the goals of FIRST.” “… Yeah, robotics is weird. You guys should put a flamethrower on your robot next year. Or a nuclear reactor. That would make it cool.” And then the natural order of the world is back to normal.

Isn’t it great how the only blogger that’s NOT in Atlanta is the one blogging? Sophiepoo and Anna, where are you? (Haha, where’s Waldo?) Yeah yeah, I know you’re probably both in Atlanta. Having the most amazing time trying to have four girls sleep in one king-size bed. Oh, the sacrifices we make for Zerkit…

So here’s basically how today went down… Jeez it was an exciting one.

So we got there this morning, did the opening ceremonies and stuff, and then Mr. Lawrence gave a second (!!!) Volunteer of the Year award for Dr. Oesterle of Medtronic. That was a very epic speech, if I do say so myself.  Then we went back to the pits and distributed our thank-you cards for the judges, safety advisors, and key volunteers. It was so cool to get to talk to some of these judges, they were all so nice!

Then we had our matches. Zerkit was working phenomenally this morning, and we won both of our matches. It was an honor to get to ally with team #525, the Swart-Dogs, who were undefeated! Yeah it was basically sweet. We ended up in fourth place and prepped Greg to pick our alliance. He donned one of the driver hats and went onto the field. Team #93 (NEW Apple Corps) was picked by team #525, so we moved up to being the third seated alliance. We picked team #2169, KING TeC from Prior Lake (some good friends of ours, it was nice to finally be competing with them instead of against!), and team #2401, the Patriots from North Dakota. (Fun fact: the Patriot’s robot was named Waldo III, and someone on our team has the last name of Waldo, so the Patriot’s “Where’s Waldo?” t-shirts were probably the funniest thing since the quotes thread.) So we played our quarterfinal matches, won the first and lost the second by only two points. Then, in the third quarterfinal, our compressor had a short and drained our battery about five seconds into the hybrid period. Needless to say, we lost that match. It was super fun to compete anyways, and then we had ample time to get packed.

Then the real fun began. We did a bunch of our packing, then went up to the stands to watch the awards ceremony. Right beforehand, Mr. Lawrence wanted us to thank all the volunteers and people, and Evanby was taking pictures from in front of the field. Mr. Lawrence mentioned that Evanby was the webmaster for the MN Regional website, and it was awesome fun to get to cheer for all his hard work (it’s about time!!!). I saw Mr. Lawrence on the field high-fiving people with the judges and refs and really wanted to win something just so I could hug him right in front of the camera, him being a super cool guy and all. However, it didn’t seem like we were going to win anything, and we were all getting disappointed. We were going to have to go back to school (again) without being able to top the hockey team. Just kidding.  But anyways, we were listening to the announcer talk about the team that won chairman’s as having been in open houses and hosted a seminar for rookie teams, but they also mentioned “expanding” the FLL program. While we did do a ton of mentoring, I don’t think any new teams were formed. Then the announcer said the team would have you “green with envy,” and the whole team started freaking out! Waldo was sqeaking, and our whole section of the stands was shaking and sitting up really, really straight. Then the announced it was us, team #1816, The Green Machine, and our section of the stands just erupted! We were all screaming at the top of our lungs and hugging every team member and mentor in sight (our team got really close during the Milwaukee regional, so we hug at every opportunity anyways…). We ran down to the field, where Mr. Lawrence and our mentor Ryan Miller, who was reffing, were waiting to hug us. Ryan had blood all over his shirt and nametag and had a boatload of Kleenex stuffed in his nose. Apparently, Mr. Lawrence was so excited that we won that he threw his arms in the air and whacked Ryan in the face! So yeah, then we ran through the judges and refs and high-fived them, and Ms. Lawrence and Dottie the mentor from Wildstang were passing out medals. We ran back up to the stands but couldn’t even bear to sit, we just had to keep screaming and hugging each other! (I love how close our team is!)

For the next half hour after that, we were calling all our parents and team members who were not present, and every time someone answered the phone, the entire team would start screaming into the phone. We also called our princiPAL, Doc Loc, since Mrs. Purdy has his cell number, and left a pretty, uh, interesting message that included all the screaming once again. Dang I’ve never screamed and hugged so much in my life. But it felt amazing!!!

We took a team pic on the field and then finished packing and preparing Zerkit to ship. Every five minutes or so someone would start screaming and then everyone else would start screaming. It was awesome. After packing we decided we needed to have a team dinner, so a bunch of us went to Davanni’s, including Mr. Dirr with his green mustache and Mrs. Purdy with her green hair. More screaming and a ton more hugging ensued. Afterwards we went to a park to swing and hang out and stuff, and took some cute pictures on the slide.

At the beginning of the year, our team was pretty divided into groups of friends, but now we’ve all become one big team. It really shows in the chairman’s award, because being nice, outgoing people is one of our team’s strengths. Anything from waking up really early to be on TV to graciously being interviewed for the local newspaper to having Zarthan lift kid after kid after kid, we’ve been there and done it well. I am really proud to be able to say that every single team member is my best friend. Congratulations, Green Machine!!

<3 Stef

P.S. Sophiepoo, I’m pwning you in the blog war… <3 you sweetie

Just kidding, I’m not gonna write another song. Maybe if I wasn’t so dead tired. Anyways, today’s matches were awesome. Zerkit is operating perfectly, and we won all of our matches except the ones against team 525. For those of you following along on the webcast and wondering what happened, during the first match, one of the forklift fingers (for lack of a better word) wasn’t springing back to the 90 degrees because a knot in the surgical tubing got in the way. In the second match, Zerkit was driven into the wall, and the hinges got so mutilated that the two fingers were hopeless. After that match, we added a couple new hinges, and then Cousin Steve went to Home Depot and got us a couple more packs of hinges.

Other news… This morning, Doc Loc, our school principal, stopped by. He told us he was coming at 10, but came at about 8:45 or so instead. He stayed the entire morning, left when we went to lunch, and then came back again, and brought his wife with him. He is such a cool guy, it was awesome that he came to see what we’ve been up to. Also, I got to meet Paul Gudonis, the president of FIRST, and is was this gigantic amazing honor. He stopped by our pit and chatted with us for a while. I took a picture with all the team grandparents that came to watch today, too.

This morning people from the Star Tribune and the Sun Current interviewed and took pictures of our team. KARE-11 brought their cameras again too. Apparently our team is popular or something, I don’t really know.

The team’s very own Mark Lawrence won the Volunteer of the Year award today. It was an amazing honor for him, and we are extremely proud to call him our mentor! His sister, Susan Lawrence, also involved with the regional planning, presented the award, and was sniffling the entire time. The Green Machine loves Mr. Lawrence!!!!

Robodave discovered something kinda scary in our pit today. We noticed the safety advisors poking around our charging batteries in our pit this morning as we were arriving, and thought that was kinda weird. Later, Robodave noticed that one of our batteries was really warm and also bigger than usual. The lead safety advisor and “Big Al” from Wildstang happened to be walking by, and he asked them to check to see what was wrong. Apparently, the charger was pumping an insane amount of voltage into the battery, and that the battery could potentially have exploded! That explains the battery problems we’ve been having. Robodave then threw away the charger and prepared the battery for proper disposal. Way to go, Robodave!

Tonight we had our big scouting meeting. Being ranked fourth, we came up with a bunch of different lists. I can’t really say much, mostly because I was working on other stuff and because it’s not over yet. We also made cards for all the judges and refs and volunteers and stuff, but don’t tell them…

I think I’m out of things to blog about. And I have a couple more cards to make and some t-shirts to pack for alums and grandparents who want to buy them. Yeah. Goodnight y’all.

~Stef

Practice matches today went quite well, actually! Our robot does a much better job maneuvering with the new pneumatic shifters we installed, and the IR board has been reprogrammed and trained, although we haven’t tested that on the field yet. We did a good job hurdling trackballs, although we still haven’t quite mastered the art of placing them on the overpass yet. We still seem to have battery problems a lot, though. Other than that, it looks like we’ll be able to do pretty well tomorrow. Honestly, there’s not a lot to say about Zerkit himself other than the fact that he was mostly cooperating.

Not a lot of scouting went on today, but from watching the matches it’s easy to see that we’ll have a lot of good competition in the next couple days. There was a pretty good shooter I noticed, and good number of reliable herders as well.

Once again, roborags seem to be very popular, and we saw lots of people from other teams wearing them, which was cool. Yay!

Tomorrow’s definitely going to be exciting, and everyone is really excited for it!

Apologies on the lack of blogage during the last few days… The internet connection I had was a bit sketchy so when I tried to post the internet decided to die on me… So I gave up and saved blogging for when I got home. 

Anywho, very brief review on how Zerkit did: 

Being a programmer, the first thing I must mention is that WE BROKE TWO IR BOARDS. TWO!!! (This is what allows us to use remote control during hybrid mode, by the way). Well, technically we didn’t break them. We already knew that the first one was having issues, but we thought we’d be able to program it, but we realized that there was something majorly wrong with it and therefore we needed a new IR board. And thankfully Eagan lent us one! But then that one got broke too. Which meant no remote control during hybrid mode. And it was quite frustrating because it wasn’t our fault they weren’t working. Fortunately Southwest lent us one too which we’ll use during the Minnesota regional, hopefully. Yay for Eagan and Southwest! –cheer- 

Overall, we did pretty well. We ended up ranked somewhere around 15 with I believe five wins and three losses. We were picked by the seventh seeded alliance, but unfortunately we somehow ended up using broken joysticks so we lost in our first round. Other than that the robot was working great. It was doing a pretty reliable job hurdling and such, and overall we were pretty pleased with how things turned out. 

Minnesota regional is in TWO WEEKS! Woohoo!

Yeah, Sophie, we’ve all been a little busy around here. But guess what everyone!! Twenty four hours from this moment, I believe we will be checked into our hotel in Milwaukee!!! I’m so excited for this trip, I’ve been mentally going through everything green that I own that has to be packed, as well as peer-to-peer awards that have to be glued together and a couple wrinkles ironed out of the mascot costume. My mom had to trim the bangs on the metallic mascot wig, and that was really entertaining, watching her with scissors threatening to cut off my eyebrows if I moved… I believe people will be blogging daily from the competition, so stay tuned! Now I have to go get some sleep. Shoot, I think I left the lid off the Tacky Glue. Better go fix that.

~Stef

Yes, believe it or not, Sophie is blogging again!  I’ve just been a little busy lately with other things.  Shocking I know; Sophie has a life.  Of course that life basically consists of Chairman’s, school, and band, but it’s a life none the less!

But as Stef said, the team did have a scrimmage at Simley High School on Saturday which went very well.  Many thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make the day a success!  The day started out with practice field time and then moved on to time trials.  Our robot was unfortunately the slowest, but in our defense, we had trouble getting traction on the uncarpeted floor.  Hopefully that will improve with carpet…The day ended with some practice matches.  All in all, the day was very helpful in showing us what our robot’s strengthes and weaknesses were and what we needed to work on before ship…today!

Yes, that’s right, ship is TODAY!!!!  All last minute changes have been made and Zerkit is already in its crate and ready to ship today.  We will not see our darling Zerkit until Milwaukee in 3 weeks!!  So excited!!!  Party at Davanni’s tonight from 6-8 to celebrate!!  Woohoo!!!!

In other deadline news, Evanby sumitted our website for the website award, and the Chairman’s deadline is this Thursday.  Yes this Thursday!  Now do you understand why I’ve been busy???

Well now I should really get back to the school work that I’m pretty much not doing so that I can do robotics.  Woops…

Apparently Sophie will never blog or something, so I guess I’ll do it… Today is the scrimmage at Simley High School. A couple days ago our robot had a little crisis with pneumatics that had to go through the battery in order to be at the right angle, but I think we’ve got everything fixed now. Zerkit also fell on its back last night, and then only thing that fell off was a random allen wrench that was inside. Only two more days until the robot ships!!!! Hopefully today at the scrimmage we can figure out what else we messed up, and tomorrow will be spent fixing it. Monday will probably be mostly spent packing the crate. Thanks to the custodians for spending their President’s Day weekend at school so the building can be open for us!!! I will blog again later to let you all know how the scrimmage goes.

~Stef