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This week was eventful for us. After the kickoff ceremony, we checked the various parts in our crates. We started the build season by going over the game description and rules. We also discussed some of the possible designs for our robot. The following day, we assembled the kit-bot using the parts that were in our crates. We followed the manual for the most part but made a few changes. These changes included using 6-inch wheels instead of the big 8-inch ones provided this year and extending the drive chain to 31 inches. Afterwards, we mounted the electrical board and battery on top. In an attempt to balance the weight of the battery and make the robot attain a weight similar to that of a finished robot, we secured a 50 lb metal block to the top of the kit-bot.

In the meantime, we began machining components for crab drive that we were researching pre-season. All of us had a chance to operate both the lathe and the mill under the supervision of our mentors. Many of our new members got to see our mini CNC in action. We also constructed our wooden bump. After a lot of work, we manufactured all the components for the crab drive by the end of the week and were ready to assemble them.

During the first week of the build season, we went over the components of this year's game, reviewed the basics of LabVIEW, and wired the main electrical components of the control system.

Over the first two days of the first week, we went over the benchtop manual and checked the electrical components that were included in the kit of parts. As we were instructed to do, we applied the first mandatory software update for LabVIEW 8.6 and the Classmate PC that will be used as our driver station for this year.

The team got acquainted with the new driver station, the Classmate, which displays the dashboard to monitor robot responses in real-time from the cRIO, like the output of the potentiometer, camera vision and such. Upon the examination of this year's default code, we have discovered that WPI made a few changes and added some new VIs (virtual instruments) for FRC 2010. We discovered that default project has a circular target acquisition VI integrated into it.

Later, the team rewired the control system and mounted it onto the kit chassis. The new members to our team were also given analog and digital sensors, such as solenoids, encoders, and potentiometers, to work with.

We also went over the robot design with Mr. Ing and the new members were introduced to aspects of the pneumatics system by Ms. Owens. The veteran members continued to work on the crab drive programming. We also worked on a new LabVIEW project to test which drive system was better for driving the kit chassis. We first tested the arcade drive and then tested the tank drive to experience how an actual FRC robot project works.

This was our second to the last week to complete the animation. Our internal deadline is the same day as Valentine’s Day as well as Chinese New Year (the real deadline is the day after). It encourages us to work harder because as soon as we submit our work, we will be showered with chocolate kisses and red envelopes. Michelle started compiling the scene; two different materials were flipped to the inside of a sphere to simulate the sky and ocean. She imported the island with the palm trees, chair, table, and the umbrella. Michelle had to reapply materials because the objects lose their properties once they are being exported. Even though Sean applied materials to the train on his computer, Michelle has to reapply them again once it gets to her computer. Yueshi has been wondering if there is any way to preserve the materials when they are exported and is going to do research on that soon.

Yueshi learned how to use part of the particle system to create a blown away effect of the word “Credits”, and it took around three hours to render. In contrast, Michelle experimented with the fairy dust effect using the particle system. The product started with the word “Animators” and then each of our names rolled by individually.

One of our concerns was that our laptops will not be able to handle when everything is imported. With just the sky/ocean, the resort center and the props listed above, the laptop began slowing down a lot and froze once. Therefore, we decided to split the scene in two when animating. When we show the track/train, the whole resort-center-island will not be part of the scene. In fact, it will be deleted. That way, the computer will have an easier time animating. The island will only be shown in the end when it is needed. We thought that by doing this it would be more efficient and time saving as a result. As a result, we think it will be more efficient and time saving. We intend to start on the animation soon to assure that we will have enough time to render the whole 30 second animation.

This week, the PR team began gathering information in composing the first draft for the 2010 Woodie Flowers Award and Chairman’s Award essays. We have now completed the first draft for each essay and will give them to other people to read and edit.

The essays were not the only things we focused on.

We also made our own handmade thank you cards for the teachers who helped us at the Kickoff. We made the cards out of construction paper and foam and came up with our own messages, which gave them that nice, personal touch.

For the website, we edited the team history, the VEX Clean Sweep and FIRST Breakaway game descriptions, and the fundraising section. In addition, we took pictures to document the progress of the team.

As for the robot, we started to look for bumper designs. So far, we have found a font and design to use. Now we are waiting for the bumpers to be made so that we may begin the stenciling.

We also looked for "goodies" for the competitions. These "goodies" are used to promote our team name. This way, other teams will have something to remember us by. In a way, it is like sharing our team spirit.

On the side, we are also preparing for two upcoming demos: the Mini Math Meet and McKinley High School Assembly. We have only just started the scripts for what we plan to say there, but we'll finish them by week two.

Next week, we plan to continue with the essay-writing process and also write the storyboard for the Chairman's Award video. The scripts for the demos will also be worked on, along with any other important tasks we are given.

This week, we gathered VEX robotics competitions pictures that were stored on Picasa and Facebook. We organized them by date and by the six different VEX teams. After organizing all the pictures, we picked the best pictures to post on our VEX robotics page. Next, we resized and renamed all the pictures and then posted them on our website. We also took a group photo of all 6 VEX robots. We plan to use it to make our VEX page more efficient for others to view the information about each robot.