[kmcclary]

We're in a tough spot. As an understaffed rookie team without a major sponsor, and this being our very first competition, we've been having a hard time getting everything done.

We spent a lot of time simply getting organized, and raising enough money just to get the parts together for this one contest. We still don't have enough students to progress at the rate we really needed to, and the Robotics Club that was supposed to send us help failed to send anyone. I managed to rustle up some Boy Scouts to help last weekend, but we're just simply understaffed.

After several attempts, we've FINALLY gotten our drivetrain running correctly, but we've just hit a robot killer problem with our lift system we may not be able to solve in time with the talent on hand.

When we integrated the system, the torque is too high on certain parts. Things that should slide simply jam instead. It is a systemic problem, that may even require a quick redesign of the slide to include rollers of some kind.

We've tried several ways to work around it, but have been unsuccessful so far, and we're short on time. We'll be working far into the night tonight on this one or we won't have a machine working on Saturday.

We have to solve this toughie, but even so, we still have a LOT of small jobs to do and simply not enough hands to do them.

If there is ANYONE in the Ann Arbor area that is done with their machine and can possibly come out tonight to Huron High School to give us a hand to help us solve this problem and help with some subassemblies, we'd really appreciate it.

If you can come out to help, please don't post here, but rather call me ASAP at ACTI at 734-332-1000, or the school's shop at 734-994-2098 after about 2 PM today for directions to Huron High.

Thanks!

- Keith McClary, Rookie Team 830, Huron High School