Just before competitions get underway in FIRST’s own version of “March Madness,” FRC Team 1816 “The Green Machine” and Edina FTC Team 3763 “Piece of Cake” hosted an open house, showcasing our progress since Kickoff in January to mentors, parents, Minnesota state representatives, and sponsors. This allowed us to give our guests a visual walk-through of our design process, workshops, and see the robot! It was a true unveiling since, until the open house, much of our robot had yet to be put together. This season has been different from previous ones as this year we designed our entire robot, Zero, on SolidWorks CAD software before manufacturing and machining anything.
Using CAD to this extent enabled us to accurately calculate the robot’s center of gravity, with the idea that pinpointing this center would help the robot overcome the tendency to tip over while in motion. While there were fewer fabricated prototypes to display, we used our laptops and CAD files to display all of the work that went into our computer-aided prototypes and mechanisms.
The Open House also is a practice run ahead of our competitions, which begin March 3rd at the Lake Superior Regional, Duluth, MN. Both team veterans and rookie members practiced presenting the finer points of the robot and about our team to the guests attending. We were pleased to welcome one of the newest representatives of our founding sponsor, Medtronic, as well as state Representative Heather Edelson (DFL, Edina), and two ambassadors representing both the U.S. Air Force Academy and the U. S. Space Force! It was an exciting experience having come this far in the season and being able to share our progress.
During this event we also tested out programming code for an auto-balance sequence that would enable the robot to balance on the Charging Station at the end of each match. It was equal parts exciting and terrifying, and it also showed us how much work remains before we hit the competition field at Duluth. Follow our progress by checking information on this hotlink via the FIRST website! – by Nora B.