May 17
Robotics
This past week saw our team banquet on Sunday night with some of our alumni showing up. It was a great time for all. At the same time, our two team members from Kansas City Christian graduated, Scott Bokach (Calvin College, Mechanical Engineering) and Alex Guinn (KU, Mechanical Engineering). On Wednesday, we had the seniors present their final projects. While some were not completed, all had great presentations and were very close to completion. This weekend we have many seniors graduating from our team headed to various places, we wish them the best of luck:
Blue Valley:
Becky Winegarner (K-State, Architecture)
Blue Valley North:
Alex Tranin (Arizona State, Engineering)
Bailey Heinonen (USC, Film)
Calvin Tran (Missouri S&T, Mechanical Engineering)
Deepa Kote (Illinois, Engineering and Materials Science)
Ellie Holcom (K-State, Nutrition and Kinesilogy)
Jiaying Wei (Franklin W. Olin Collge of Engineering, Undecided)
Liz Gaa (Missouri S&T, Aerospace Engineering)
Madeline Smith (Truman State, Spanish)
Rachel Strohkorb (Davidson, World Domination)
Tommy Lippoli (KU, Electrical Engineering and Physics)
Blue Valley Northwest:
Ashton Love (K-State, Engineering)
Karan Mehran (K-State, Electrical Engineering)
Kevin Carr (K-State, Computer Science and Physics)
Nick Reiter (K-State, Sports Medicine)
Zach Sliefert (K-State)
Blue Valley West:
Austin Cosner (KU, Computer Engineering)
Philip Wood (KU, Mechanical Engineering)
Blue Valley Southwest:
Chris Cowan (Arkansas, International Studies and Global Business)
Luke Zahner (K-State, Chemical Engineering)
Kaitlyn Hoover (K-State)
May 3
Robotics
This week in Robotics we went to Ryerson Metals on Wednesday. We were all extremely interested in what they did and in all of their machinery. The rest of this week, we have all been working on our senior design projects, with the hexapod almost complete, the Boardunio moving along, robots getting extremely close to driving, and the long board project stalled (the class member doing it is in DC this week). And that's been robotics this week.
April 26
Digital Electronics
This week, in Digital Electronics, we worked with state machines. After being introduced to them, our main project was to design a state machine to control a toll bridge. State machines hold their value until their input is changed. A common example includes traffic lights. After we finish this, we will begin learning about Arduino.
Robotics
This week in Robotics is FIRST World Championship. Some members of the team are going to Championships in St. Louis including Mr. Ritter, who is up for the International Woodie Flowers Award, since he won the Razorback Woodie Flowers Award.
In other news, the hexapod has been cut out of metal and is close to finishing up. The Boardunio's are making great progress getting cut out. The Longboard's parts are on their way.
During the week, we have had a few different experiences than most weeks. On Wednesday, we visited ASI with the CIM and the Civil Engineering classes. On Thursday, we had a few students from Overland Trail Middle School who job shadowed. And that's been the week in Robotics.
April 19
Digital Electronics
This week we have been all get caught up to date on 3.3 with counters. Our last counter was one that counted form 0-99 after a button was pushed. Now we are moving on to state machines that combine all of what we have learned this year. Our first state machine project will be a toll booth. After we have completed state machines we will work on our own individual projects.
Robotics
This week in Robotics we have been starting our final projects. These include making Boarduinos (Arduino controllers that we make that work with breadboards), motorizing a Longboard, fixing up our FRC robots, swerve drive, learning more of the CIM shop machines, and a hexapod.
The Boarduino are being made as a cost effective way to replace Arduino controllers and as a great tool for Digital Electronics next year.
The motorized longboard is driven by high tech brushless motors and speed controllers often found on to-scale hobby planes, the top speed will be around 20 mph and have a range of about 5 miles.
We are working on fixing up Trigger, Epona, and Pegasus. Trigger is ready for testing once the program is ready. We have been putting the electronics back on Epona, but using a Ardunio instead of a CREO controller. Pegasus will be next to be fixed up for Cowtown Throwdown, once Epona is ready for showcasing.
Swerve drive is a continuation of a first semester project of reverse engineering a swerve drive (a drive system using normal wheels that are able to turn 360 degrees independently of one another) module that we bought so that we can make our own that we won't have to pay for.
One member of the class has been working on fixing up a couple machines in the CIM shop and getting them back online.
The hexapod is being built as a project for a fun thing to bring to college. A hexapod is a robot that looks similar to a spider, except it has six legs.
April 12
Robotics
Last weekend, we attended the Razorback Regional in Arkansas. We started off with Mr. Ritter winning the Woody Flowers Award (the highest award for a mentor) presented to him by the man himself, Dr. Woody Flowers, a professor from MIT. Mr. Ritter's reaction before they announced who won while they read the essay was "This guy sounds pretty cool. I'd like to meet him." We are all very excited for him for winning the award. That night back at the hotel, the team started playing 3 on 3 basketball. The mentors then joined in with team vs. mentor 3 on 3 basketball for an hour. The next day, we were chosen by the second alliance to partner up with Team 1939, The Kuh-nig-its of Barstow, and Team 16, the Baxter Bomb Squad out of Mountain Home, Arkansas. Although we didn't win, we had a great time with them. We then sat down for the Awards Ceremony, but didn't sit for long. We ended up winning the Team Spirit Award and stayed on the field to cheer on all of the other teams that won awards. Thanks to everyone who supported us throughout the year. If you want to see videos or pictures from the regionals, check out our Facebook page.
Some members of the team are planning on volunteering at the World Championships in St. Louis, MO, since we didn't qualify. With our season now over, some of us are working on our three FRC robots and one FTC robot to get them ready for NASCAR and other off season events. Other members of the class are working on their own projects, including a motorized longboard and a hexapod. More details to come on those projects.
March 30
Robotics
The Robotics team had a great time at the KC Regional. The FTC team showcased their robot and FRC competed with theirs. Pegasus was able to score some frisbees and hang for 10 points on the pyramid. The FRC robot didn't make it to elimination rounds, however the team did win the Gracious Professionalism Award. Thanks to everyone who came out to Hale Arena. We are currently working on some improvements to the robot for the Razorback Regional next week. Remember to follow our activities at regionals including Kansas City next week, like our page on Facebook (CAPS Metal Mustang Robotics - FRC 2410), follow us on twitter at @Team2410, watch a webcast of our regionals, or best of all, come to Arkansas with us!
March 8
Digital Electronics
This week we have finished our 2.3 project “Date of Birth", and started on the next section regarding specific combinational logic (i.e., Multiplexers, XOR, XNOR, Hexadecimal number system and two’s complement arithmetic.) With this next section we will learn the different ways binary numbers can be simplified and understand on how multiplexers work. Finally, we will then work on our FPGA or field programmable gate array and completely side step bread boarding.
Robotics
Well, it's been a while since the last update and a lot has been done since then. The robot got a name (Pegasus), was assembled, ran, bagged and tagged. The robot was able to make it's Frisbee shots and load the discs by itself from the feeding station. The climbing mechanism didn't come out to be working, since the robot ended up being a few pounds over our goal. We will have a 10 point climbing/hanging mechanism done soon in time for KC Regional, and hope to have a 30 pointer done by Razorback. We ended up having 3 bad cRIOs (the controller), but we were able to get one back to working by holding down the reset button on it (amazing, I know). The other two are being replaced by National Instruments, who is overnighting two new ones free of charge. None of us know what to do with this so called "free time" (especially the snow days) now that build season is over.
We would like to thank everyone who helped out with Mr. & Mrs. Ritter's surprise Valentine's Day dinner, which we planned for them since they had so little time together during the build season. They really appreciated it. We would also like to thank everyone who helped out with this year's robot, we couldn't have done it without you. Without your help, whether it was bring up pizza, helping mentor us, or just asking questions, the robot would not be what it is without you.
To follow our activities at regionals including Kansas City next week, like our page on Facebook (CAPS Metal Mustang Robotics - FRC 2410), follow us on twitter at @Team2410, watch a webcast of our regionals, or best of all, come to our regionals!
February 8
Digital Electronics
This week in Digital electronics we have been continuing the Project Lead The Way class projects. We have been learning Boolean algebra and K-mapping, to help make more efficient circuits. As well as we are now working on learning and being able to use Nand and Nor gates in our circuits. We are also beginning getting ready for our next project, which is using Nand and Nor gates, and the Logic converter to create a design for a fireplace control system. Matt Gier
Robotics
This week in robotics, we have finally began cutting and assembling the robot. The electrical team finished all the electrical work for the shooter, pneumatics, and most of the kit bot. They also brought the FTC kids up to speed on how to operate multisim diagrams.
Mr. Reynolds recruited a couple of people to help him with the Bill of Materials. They’re trying to stay up-to-date with the robot as we build it, so that we don’t get to the end of build season and realize we don’t know what we made our robot out of.
Build team was working on CADing and machining again.
Programming has been debugging and finishing up the code for everything that has been built. And that's the week in robotics.
February 1
Digital Electronics
This week in Digital Electronics we worked on a breadboard project. We wired a four-switches to an LED and whenever three or more switches were on the LED turns on. This was the first breadboard project we did. We learned a lot about logic gates and trouble shooting. After we finished up our project we began working on binary to decimal conversion. The binary system uses two digits to write any number. The decimal system uses ten different numbers.
Robotics
This week in Robotics, we have been putting the final touches on our CAD design and should be building by Saturday. The FTC team will be heading to competition on Sunday at UMKC at starting around noon in the Swinney Gym. The FRC team has started prototyping and building the feeder/shooting mechanism for the Frisbees. Austin has finished and published the beta version of his scouting app on Tuesday, which you can find here. The app has around 90 downloads, including ones in Israel, Chile, and Canada. If you download it, please report any and all bugs back. And that's the week in Robotics.
Januray 25
Digital Electronics
This week in Digital Electronics marked the beginning of a new unit. We were previously working in unit one on the basics of DE, learning about the building blocks. Now that we’re into unit two we’ve began applying what we’ve learned about digital signals and applying it to Boolean expressions. Through this knowledge we’ve began creating a majority vote machine, essentially a simplified version of what is used at polling booths. In order to create this machine we first created a logic table and drafted out the circuit in our engineer’s notebooks. After that, we created the circuit in the program Multisim in order to test to see if the logic and circuitry would work in the real world.Once the simulation showed the circuit works, we began breadboarding our voting machine so far to mixed results.
Robotics
This week in Robotics class we have been working on finishing up our CAD design. We have been working diligently trying to solve all of the problems with the climbing mechanism in CAD before we build it. The FTC team has been working on debugging the final parts of their robot and making everything work correctly. Austin has almost gotten his scouting app finished and should be ready for beta testing by Saturday. We have also been working on designing and prototyping many different ways to shoot the Frisbees. And that's what's been going on in robotics class this week.
Januray 18
Digital Electronics
Digital Electronics students have been finishing up learning the basics on circuit theory and moved on to breadboarding this week. After which we learned about the different type of electric signals including analog though this is digital electronics it is important to recognize that the world around us runs on analog signals. And finally we have moved on to logic systems including combinational logic and sequential logic. 555 timers were also discussed and used to create alternating signals.
Robotics
Here in Robotics class we have been working on designing all week. The FTC team is continuing their work on the arm and resigning the claw. They recently got a new member, Tanner, and he’s been a lot of help.
Surprise, surprise, Build team was CADing again.
The Electrical team was in the shop today, working on drilling in the Talon and building the electrical board. Once they finish this, the programmers will be able to test their code whether or not they have a robot to test with. A couple of members formed a little side group and continued working on pneumatics with a few mentors.
We got a bunch done in PR today. Rachel finished the Pokémon card templates, and made the first few cards. Madeline worked on the safety booklet, drawing pictures and creating the template (including the rules) on Photoshop.
Today, Lexi was working footage for the Chairmen’s video. She (hopefully) got some good footage, but people kept interrupting her interviews and walking behind the footage (me! Oops).
We also got our t-shirt samples in. The FTC shirts came too. They look pretty cool.
Everybody was a little moody today, but tomorrow’s Friday and we aren’t scheduled to have a meeting. I order everyone to go home and get some sleep!! I am declaring tomorrow National Robotics Naptime Day. Seriously, I don’t want to deal with sleepy teenagers on Saturday!
P.S. Good news! Our button supplies came in, so pretty soon we’re going to be cranking out buttons!
January 14
Digital Electronics
Digital Electrons students have been learning to solder this week along with several other activities. We have learned resister color code, series circuits, parallel circuits, Ohms law, and Kirchoff’s law all in one week! Digital multimeters were discussed and used to measure resisters.
Robotics
Our FRC kick off was last Sat. and the rules for this year’s game, ULTIMATE ASCENT, were released. It is a game played with Frisbees and has a final challenge of ascending a ten foot high pyramid . What a challenge! We have been selecting our game strategy, brainstorming and working out possible solutions in Inventor software.