Another Friday another weekly wins thread. Wins can be simple (went for a walk and saw a cool bird) or amazing (got approval for a new STEM center). Find the good things in your life, share them, and let’s try to celebrate good.
My win is kinda a mixed bag - after some very serious medical issues popping up my other half and I are home from the hospital and, knock on wood, things are improving. Mixed because it happened. Win because it’s getting better.
WFTW: My wife and I are officially out of quarantine from COVID, are no longer contagious, and we have our smell/taste again!
There is also a high probability that we’re immune for a period of time which is a bonus win.
Bought a propane blowtorch yesterday. Gonna light stuff on fire after this rain passes 
But no it’s for driveway and garage crack repair using pli-stix. Should be fun!
Planted new grass just in time for a nice few days of rain, which saves me the hassle of wasting water (we’re in a drought!) for the next few days.
It snowed today. 
Can’t have our FTC team be SnowBots without some snow.
Made it to Friday, again 
Got into the Call of Duty Cold War beta this weekend, just a cool little thing in my opinion…
I made my bed this morning.
Replaced the old galvanized-steel plumbing to our 1/2 bath with copper.
We got Monday off from work as an impromptu paid holiday (we don’t usually get Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples Day off). I guess they’re trying to help us survive that long stretch between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. I slept in, made a nice breakfast, and then went to the beach - it was nice.
Our program has started our 2nd quarter in person (following strict guidelines) on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30-8pm.
Students are doing distance learning during the school day, and dont have classes on Wed (makeup days for those that need help-in person).
Since school now ends an hour early daily also, it allows us to meet earlier and get a lot done, and not go home at an unreasonable time.
Robotics is so much easier to get kids to commit, when we arent competing for their time in sports, Band and other activities. I dont wish that for the kids, but it is nice to take advantage of this situation.
They really wanted to come back also.
We basically are providing training, prototyping projects, prepping to compete in this alternative season, and work on robot v.3 if we decide to compete in Summer 2021 and Fall 2021 off-season events.
I got to volunteer at a robotics event this week!
Ok, it was Vex Skills outdoors in a tent for 90 minutes, but some robots beats no robots, right?
I voted for the first time in my life!
I also bought my first pair of climbing shoes
Got started on a new Project! I’ll be trying to 3d print a whole swerve drive module (non-load bearing of course) and so far I’ve learned a bunch about 3d printing, some stuff i knew, and some stuff new to me!
you can check out the project and its plans at Rerevisit: 3d Printing a swerve drive (SDS MK3 Swerve Module)
Feel free to ask any questions or input any suggestions!
always gotta start the day with something good! That how you know it will be a great day
Started designing our teams(16750) FTC robot,
tell them congrats from 6656!
Accepted my first full-time job today! I can’t wait to start volunteering in a new district once I relocate (and after a vaccine).
I t appears that I finally made a breakthrough on a problem at work that has stalled my project for several weeks now. I found evidence that a buck voltage converter that I modified/improved has been injecting noise into the system and has been interfering with the communications signal that is superimposed on the high voltage DC supply line. The solution may be as simple as tweaking a single resistor or capacitor value. Once I fix that, I can finish off testing of the other design changes and release them to the field.
Somehow I suspected you were a power electronics specialist.
The simple fix you describe reminds me of a famous story about Steinmetz’s invoice to Henry Ford:
Marking the generator with chalk, $1
Knowing where to make the mark, $9999
