Welcome to our build thread! This will be our third year with the openalliance and we plan to utilize this to the fullest for 2025!
Here are a few things about us:
• We are located in Jackson, Michigan and are out of the Jackson Area Career Center. In Michigan, Career Centers are the “old school” Career and Tech Education (CTE) Schools, or as some people may know it the vocational school. We are very proud to have the facilities we have there!
• If you take a tour of our home at the Jackson Area Career Center and navigate to Engineering, you will find our work space.
• Since we are out of a career center, we pull students from multiple schools in our county. Although nowadays, thanks to the generous grants from the State of Michigan and the hard work at FIM, many schools do have a team of their own. That just allows us to work together with more teams locally!
• We have a full field (see the link above) to do our drive practice and testing which we open to any teams that want to make it!
• We have multiple machines with which to do work:
Knee mill
Saw stop table saw
DeWalt “chop” saw
Multiple drill presses
Mini-mills
Lathe
Multiple 3D printers
Multiple band saws
Sheet metal / polycarbonate shear and brake
and a Shop Sabre 23 CNC router which is a work horse!
That’s most of the basics of who we are! We will have students and others updating this thread as the season moves along. We hope to get a viewpoint from our students, mentors, and from the community. We hope to share our prototyping process, our build schedule, any details of our designs, manufacturing processes, programming, and anything else we think of or anything anyone else thinks of!
Team 2611 was busy during the months leading up to Kickoff. From brainstorming sessions to team building exercises, students were able to keep their minds well greased and operating with purpose.
Through a variety of projects, the team made sure to keep their skills fresh and ready for the upcoming Reefscape game. One of those projects was to plan for additional ways to let multiple sub-teams get started earlier once the season properly kicked off. After taking to the whiteboards to collect thoughts, it was decided to work on building separate chassis for both the coding sub-team as well as for mechanical prototyping to happen once the season began. This will lead to a new competition ready chassis which would then combine the best of both.
It’s January and that means it’s time for robots! Just to test the waters, here is a splash of what the first pre-competition week looked like for 2611.
Kickoff
Starting a little bit early since it was a Saturday, the Jacktown Vectors assembled to begin the annual sprint that lasts until around March. Gathered students and mentors began the day by wrapping up small tasks and doing some team building. A quick break for lunch fueled the team as the live stream began and the season was underway. Once the stream ended it was all hands on deck to break down Reefscape and start to put together a plan for how to take the plunge into a murky unknown.
Time was spent in small groups as students broke down the various elements of game play. With Reefscape having two game pieces, as well as a specific field element to manage at the end of the game, students were able to separate into three paths: Coral, Algae, and Cage. Student groups rotated through all three paths and then came back together as a large group to present their ideas.
Once the team had begun to grasp some of the major aspects of the game, time was spent working on concepts with quick and easy cardboard. As some of the ideas came together wood was brought in to give these early prototypes some real world application.
While the larger elements of the field have not yet been completed, we were able to put together one of the sides of the reef structure. This will greatly assist in both prototyping as well as with programming once we have mechanisms ready for that.
Going into this year we have more than doubled our number of students who desire to show what it means to be a Vector, not by turning a wrench or programing movements, but by bringing color and flair to all aspects of our team. Some of those student will hopefully be able to highlight the progress our team makes throughout the season.
Wrap Up
It was an exciting first week and this season looks to be a highly technical game. A lot remains to be seen as to how the game will progress moving forward, but regardless as to what may come, 2611 is ready to jump into these uncharted waters!
