[Jon Stratis]

And even if you don't have anything you can do for your robot, there's still plenty you can do for your team!

We only have 1 thing on our "to-do" list when we get to Duluth - change out a plastic sprocket for a new steel one on our bridge manipulator. We had two of the plastic ones in our "sprocket bin", and they gave us the gear reduction we were looking for... then one split in half on us Sunday. We put the other one on for additional testing, and have a good steel one on order.

So, for the next two weeks until Duluth, we get to focus on some other items. We just got a new trailer, and we're working on having it wrapped with our team and sponsor info. We also have to figure out exactly how everything is going to fit in it without rolling around too much. We've finally gotten rid of our old pit banner holder (two cement buckets and some PVC pipe), and are working on an entirely new system - a 4-foot tall rolling cart that splits in half to provide storage in the corners (including mounts for wire spools, drawers for electrical equipment, vertical storage for long stock, and mounts for our bolt drawer set) and a place to mount the banner framework (old tent poles cut to a proper length). Hopefully we'll have it completely finished and painted before Duluth... then we can post pictures!

Our students are also working on setting up our scouting database and preparing for the Chairman's presentation. Drivers are coming in and practicing with last year's robot (at least they can chase balls around and balance).

And if nothing else... remember, this is the time of year where you can get excited and pumped up for competition!

PS. And if you were wondering... this might be the shortest "to-do" list we've ever gone to competition with! It helps that we set an internal target date of finishing construction of two weeks ago... even though we were a week late delivering it to Programming, we still had plenty of time to fix everything that wasn't working right over the weekend!