Need contact with South Texas FRC teams
 

Howdy to all,

My recent emails to the FRC teams in and around Laredo, Texas bounced back. There is a demo / scrimmage event in San Antonio, Texas on July 19th and I'd like to invite all the local / surrounding area teams. PM or email me if you have contact information for those teams or the rookies in Sinton, TX.

thanks,


APS

Re: Need contact with South Texas FRC teams
 

Hi Andrew,

This is Richard McClellan from the ausTIN CANs...a scrimmage sounds like a great idea! I'll talk to my team and see if we can schedule this in, and I'll get back to you as soon as I know more.

Re: Need contact with South Texas FRC teams
 

I would also like to hear from the Cyberwolves 647. So far, 457, 499, 418, 2158 are on the list of probable demonstration robots for the annual summer conference of the Career and Technology Association of Texas in San Antonio on July 19th. I also need to get in touch with the third local team 653 Noside.

Any help with contacting these teams would be greatly appretiated. Jane Young has been real helpful putting me in contact with the AusTINcans and as well as helping commit her team 418 Purple Haze.

Should be a fun day with a lot of career Tech teachers roaming the hallways as well as school district CTE directors.

APS

Questions from Jane Y.
 

will you provide tubes?
I was in our robot shop on Wednesday and found about six still in good shape. Hopefully South San has some tubes and if everybody can bring a couple we should be set. Our demonstration / scrimmage is set for 8:05 AM so it looks like we will only get maybe one game in unless we do a quick back to back / replay. The rest of the day will be spent talking with teachers and adminstraters in the Lobby / registration area of the convention.

will you have spare parts?
What parts might a team need... we have spares of most of the kit of part items, plus plenty of roller chain, ...

will you have tools you can share?
We will load up our tool box with the standard set of wrenches, cordless drill, screw drivers and pliers. We will have that stored in the secure storage room onsite and teams can work on the honor system of checking out tools and returning them from that location:)

I've submitted a rough count for lunch which will be typical lunch food for HS students (Pizza and Sodas):D

I'll paste the notes that I sent to team contacts regarding site logistics to this thread.

Thursday's agenda
 

8:00am start time for roaming
8:05am mock games
8:10am intro and recognize students
8:15am Let’s hear from Jim to see if he can do 10 min talk on robotics
8:25am cue videos
8:30am thank students, continue with morning assembly

This is flexible.

Texas Ballroom on 2nd floor is where morning session takes place.
Booth / Table space is on the South end of foyer, same floor, we have space allocated for your set up. We are asking that students and teams be available to talk with conventioneers until 4pm.

For lunches, it will be pizza and soda if that is okay. Healthy!

Robin

Picking sides for the game
 

418 Good Offense with a ramp
457 Ramp bot no offense
499 marginal offense no ramp
2158 Good Offense with two ramps

That is my own personal observations from Houston and Atlanta. So an Austin vs. San Antonio pairing doesn't leave much for balanced scoring... Somebody suggest a pairing that has both an SA team & Austin team on each side.

Conference Information
 

Here is a link to the conference agenda.
Texas Career Education Conference

Re: Need contact with South Texas FRC teams
 

2158 is in need of a spare Keyang window motor to power our arm. Our motors performed well without any issues at Lone Star or Atlanta, but after a few demos back in Austin afterwards, the gear inside one of our motors has stripped (it's plastic). It works half of the time with one motor, but sometimes it will get stuck on one side of our robot and won't fold back up.

I can't remember off the top of my head which motor is bad (lefthand or righthand), but I can find out. My question is, are there any teams that will be there that could bring a spare window motor? We would be willing to trade for something or pay for it, the problem is that they are not available commercially.

Re: Need contact with South Texas FRC teams
 

I'll bring two of each type to the site. We didn't use a window motor this year. We CAD'd up a plastic insert for the FP motor/transmission that accepted the triangular lead screw nut. It was quite a contraption once the entire mechanism was done using some iGus linear slides inside of a a 4 inch PVC tube all connected to ansi 35 roller chain and and IFI mechanism sprocket on the arm.

I plan on arriving by 7:30 AM Thursday. What is your ETA and will you be able to switch out the motor?

Re: Need contact with South Texas FRC teams
 

Andrew,
Can you send me the initial email you sent out to the teams? I'm getting a little confused but I'm sure it's just me.

I just sent you an email asking as well.
Please send it to goneape as well as edu.

Thanks,
Jane

Re: Need contact with South Texas FRC teams
 

It's looking like a planned arrival time for 7:30 for 418 and we'll have 6 people from the team, Andrew.

If this changes, we'll let you know. 2158 is staying in touch with us.
Thank you for coordinating this event, it's a great opportunity.
Jane

San Antonio Express-News story on conference
 

Educators heading to S.A. for meetings

Web Posted: 07/13/2007 10:20 PM CDT

Jenny LaCoste-Caputo
Express-News
About 1,200 educators will be in downtown San Antonio next week for two conferences, one focusing on leadership for principals and another catering to career and technical education counselors and administrators.
The Principals' Partnership program will host 700 school principals from across the nation at the San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter for its annual Summer Leadership Institute.

The conference, which runs Monday through Thursday, will focus on closing the achievement gap between white and minority students, and topics such as school violence, gang problems and race relations.

<snip>

The Texas Career Education conference begins Tuesday at the Crowne Plaza Riverwalk. About 500 counselors, administrators and teachers from the middle school, high school, and postsecondary levels are expected to attend.

The conference will focus on the convergence of education and the workforce and how best to prepare students to fill the jobs of the 21st Century.

Robin Painovich, executive director of the Career & Technology Association of Texas, said career and technical education is positioned to address issues like the technical worker shortage and the number of students enrolling in postsecondary programs leading to high-skill, high-wage occupations.

"These classes aren't what they used to be. They're in fields such as health science, bio-tech and engineering and are drawing AP (advanced placement) and honor students," Painovich said. "They engage students in way that's different from academics because they can see how academics are applied."


jcaputo@express-news.net

Mapquest for Crowne Plaza
 

Here is a hyperlink to the Crowne Plaza hotel on 111 E. Pecan, San Antonio.
MapQuest
:D

Re: Need contact with South Texas FRC teams
 

If my count is correct, 2158 will have around 11 people attending, with a planned arrival of 7:30 AM Thursday also.

We are working on solution for our broken motor....418 is graciously helping us out and may have a motor that will work. However, it would be great if you could still bring the extra motors you have just in case.

Re: Need contact with South Texas FRC teams
 

I just left the hotel ballroom 45 minutes ago. I have what I beleive to be both of this year's window motors in a crate at the booth. You can have which ever one you need even if you plan to change it out at a later day.

Just spoke with a mentor from 647 Cyberwolves. They will be arriving around 8:30 and be part of the day long roaming demonstrations in the hallways.:D

Re: Need contact with South Texas FRC teams
 

Oh yay! So glad to hear that!
All the best to the teams, Andrew!

Jane

Re: Need contact with South Texas FRC teams
 

Hi Andrew...just wanted to thank you again for those motors, we definitely appreciated them! Also, thanks for organizing this event...I would imagine those teachers got a lot out of our demonstration since we were able to have a full size rack plus 4 robots in attendance. It was definitely worth the trip!

Thanks to all,
 

I want to thank all the teams for coming to the event and putting on a good show. I have to give a big thanks to Dustin Ford, one of the teacher mentors from the Toltechs, who is responsible for reconstructing our wooden rack in the hotel on Wednesday evening and then deconstructing in 24 hours later. It was his truck and trailer plus some of our students who did the bulk of the work on that end. A big thanks goes out to the Cyberwolves who pitched in after lunch to help with some of the deconstruction as well.

Game play was nothing less than expected. I think we showed them what a FIRST game is like. (A gracious full contact sport as evidenced by having the front row table being pushed back at least a foot during the game.) I don't have any pictures of match play as I was acting as emcee.

Here is my contact information for the Career & Technology Association of Texas.
Robin Painovich
Executive Director
Career & Technology Association of Texas
4404 W. William Cannon
Suite P Box 210
Austin, Texas 78749

Office 512-288-8666
Fax 512-288-9998

This was their conference and invited us to demonstrate and than as means of thanking the teams made donations to the four who demonstrated during the game play. I only wish I had been able to confirm to them earlier that the Cyberwolves were going to attend and then they likely would have recieved a donation as well. This was a complete surprise to me and the decision may have been made once they heard the students from the Toltechs and Purple Haze give impromtu talks after the game. The student comments really resonated with what the CTAT organization is promoting.

I've posted a few pictures that I took on CD media and here are the links.
The rack as seen at 7:45 AM before the scrimmage. And some lunch time photos in the hotel lobby where the robots where on active demo and the students answered questions directly from conference attendees.

I too felt that the demonstration was well worth the effort and then hit the sack about 8:00 PM last night after a very busy week:ahh: