It seems like every other sentence uttered by an 1816 team member this week started or contained the phrase “when we’re in St. Louis.” We are all counting down the minutes until we leave Wednesday for the FIRST Robotics World Championships in St. Louis, MO.
Could it be almost a month since we last competed at the Minnesota North Star regional? It feels longer than that since we last competed with our 2011 robot ZEEBO. By the end of North Star, The Green Machine reached our goal of having a robot that could accomplish everything we had drawn up during those very first brainstorming sessions in January. The autonomous code is written; the claw works well; the drive train is at full-capacity, and the minibot not only works but proved itself amazingly quick to the top of the tower.
We’ve been meeting in the workshop to plan out ways to make the robot better for Championships. While ZEEBO robot is enjoying a pleasant, climate-controlled stay in a warehouse somewhere in the vicinity of the Edward Jones Dome, we’ve worked on new parts and assembly methods to bring with us. Lots of back-up parts were assembled just in case of…mid-match turbulence. We’ve developed methods to move weight towards the front of the robot to make it more stable and created a new deployment method for the minibot, intended to make it even faster. It is our goal to have our robot running at its performance apex to compete among the world’s best robots at Championships.
The Green Machine thanks its sponsors and we hope to make you proud! Thank you Medtronic, Dow Water Solutions, Tornier, Graco, Ecolab, Larsen Design, 3M Co., Stratasys, Banners to Go, and Edina Public Schools! You enable us to keep doing what we do throughout the FIRST Robotics competition season and year-round. Without you, we would not be able to be the team that we are.
Watch us live via NASA Webcast; we are playing in the Galileo division! We’ll update via Twitter — and Facebook, too. FIRST has posted a lot of information about championships, join the fun by clicking here.