10/18/23 and 11/1/23
This update is for the meetings on October 18th and today (November 1st).
All of the team signup forms were submitted and our team is 43 strong including both students and mentors! The split between the four subteams is:
- 9 Business/Marketing
- 8 Electronics/Pneumatics
- 18 Mechanics
- 8 Programming
All of the subteams have been meeting together and preparing for the season.
Business/Marketing
Just today the Marketing subteam did the sponsor walkabout. They went about checking in on sponsors and trying to find potential ones. They were successful! Multiple businesses have said they will consider sponsoring and some of our existing sponsors would like to extend their sponsorship! 
Programming
With a new batch of programmers this year, the Programming has been hard at work teaching Java and the FRC libraries to the new members. Programming this year is revamping the swerve code too. This year is our second year on swerve drive. Least year the swerve drive code was all custom, but this season Programming is migrating to YAGSL so we have a maintained package with more advanced features.
Electronics/Pneumatics
Electronics has also been introducing the new members to what Electronics does. The last two meetings were devoted to learning about the different motor types (Brushed and Brushless), learning how wiring works, and organizing the Electronics tool drawer.
Mechanics
As this year mechanics and design is combined, the time during the meetings have been split between tool training and design training. These last two meetings mechanics got in groups to make drill bit organizers (more on those later) with the bandsaw and drill-press. Next meeting mechanics will take the certification test.
In past seasons, the team has suffered from misplacing simple tools (drill bits, hex keys, etc). We have three drill bit sets, yet there is only about one of each commonly used size between the three. This adds a lot to the time required to manufacture parts. Every time a 10-32 hole needs to be drilled a bit has to be hunted for. Over the summer our Design mentor Chris came up with this ingenious organization system.
Each type of drill bit (10-32 pre-tap, 8-32 close fit, 1/4-20 free fit, etc) is assigned a color, as are the tools for each bolt type (head hex key, wrench for nuts). The tools are taped with the color and the drill bits are painted in the flutes. This organization system lets us put all of the tools we use for 99% of operations into one easy-to-access place. When a bit or tool is taken from the trays the color-coding tells the user where to put it back to cut down on losing bits and tools.
The aluminum tubes on the left were made by mechanics for the training. Each one has the three common drill bits (pre-tap, close fit, free fit) for 8-32, 10-32, and 1/4-20. These blocks go in the shop so you don’t need to go digging in the drill bit sets whenever you need to cut a simple bolt hole.
These sheets were also printed out, explaining what each bit is for and when and where we use them.
That should be everything we did during those two meetings. Time to go do homework. 
- Joseph
.