Welcome to the Surf City Vikings’ Offseason Build Blog… thing, or whatever this is.
Originally there was no intent of doing an offseason blog. Our team was just going to do regular old training stuff and I didn’t think that would be very helpful to others. But then I looked back at what we’ve done, and what we’re working on, and realized that it would be best to share.
In this first post I’ll do a little wrap up of past events, and share what we’re going to work on until kickoff.
Science Nite at Golden West College
Every year we attend this STEM outreach event at our local community college. The FRC participation is organized by Team 3309, the Friarbots, and is always fun, and exhausting. The event is mostly for kids aged 6-12, and the FRC demos are just a small part, but we always have a line of eager robot drivers.
Robotics Shop
At the beginning of this school year we were allowed to move into our new work space. It’s big. I shared photos of what the space used to look like in our 2024 Build Blog. After a couple of months of work, and a lot of indecision, we’ve got it just about ready to work in. I’m still waiting on a lot of tables and tools ordered through CTE… and will probably keep waiting for a while.
Pano shot oddities…
Materials Selection
Always keep an eye on your inventory! We were replacing a driven shaft on our 2024 robot in preparation for competing at Beach Blitz. We found a hex shaft that was less-rounded than ThunderHex, and decided to use it. Little did we know it was an old version of REV Ultrahex shaft. You know, the old shafts that were NOT 6061 aluminum. 
Powerful motors and soft aluminum do not mix.
Rockwell Automation Fair
This past week, our team was invited to participate in a demo of FIRST Robotics at the Rockwell Automation Fair in Anaheim. It was a long day of matches (mostly 1-on-1) and talking to attendees. Most of the attendees were blown away by what high school kids can do given the right environment and mentorship.
One of our students also set a single robot high score…
By manually triggering the amp, amplifying, then waving his hand in the speaker sensor. I’ve always told the students, there’s no limit to what you can do if you’re willing to break a few rules*.
We also asked Spot to attempt to score a note…
Mock Kickoff Game: REF-ESCAPE
I developed a best-guess version of what REEFSCAPE might look like based off of the teaser and discussion here on CD. I called it REF-ESCAPE and posted the “manual” and field CAD. Since we don’t know what the game is going to be, we usually would practice building and testing mechanisms with whatever random old game we had game pieces from. But with the seemingly obvious hints in the teaser, I figured we might as well try using pipes and things that fit into pipes.
In two meetings of trying things out, students have already come up with a simple pipe-picker-upper using materials we had on hand. No fancy CAD here, just on-paper drawing and slapping stuff together.
We don’t have video, but we also tested using our 2024 robot’s intake to collect tennis balls off the floor and it worked great. While some students are going to continue testing prototypes, others are beginning to CAD up potential mechanisms with motors, chains, etc.
We’ll post more on our REF-ESCAPE progress over the next few weeks. We’ll also post CAD and code links once they’re ready for prime-time.
*this statement was used after I did a round trip drive from Ventura to Huntington Beach, and back, in just under 3 hours… starting at 4:30am. Yeah, some speed laws were broken. I do not encourage lawlessness, in general.