(Cuz it’s the Superb Owl?)
Anything going well for folks? Wake up on time this week? Get that mechanism working? What wins do you want to share?
Months ago I was working on a project, ordered motors and they just never showed up… refund took a bit but that got handled. So I went to find a new supplier, well, I found a slightly larger motor and those showed up the other day and are a bit bigger than I thought. This includes the motor controllers too. Need to redesign the leg next.
Feels like a rough week, nothing inherently bad, but not a lot of things that could be wins.
I guess I was able to take my friends out to eat, had a nice evening. Used up a xmas giftcard 
I got my first pride flag!!! And a trans flag necklace!!!
Also got super into a really good book series.
With the help of some fellow students, last year’s team captain, and a mentor at the end to help us get the character count down, I completed my team’s Woodie Flowers submission that I alluded to last week.
It came together really well, and I’m so proud of everything he does for our team.
Time to move on to cleaning up Impact!
The robot is mechanically together, albeit shooter and intake plates are still wooden until we finalize and are happy with everything. Software has started with the robot and we’ve got two different chassis capable of moving, which should really help with drive practice. Which feels great, though competition is only three weeks away… 
I’m just really proud of the team for pushing so hard and feel optimistic about the season to come.
Still been absent from the team this last week. Things are much better than last week so far though. The team drove the swerve base around. They got further on some design decisions that needed to be made and are doing pretty good for how our usual timing is.
They had a chamber of commerce event last night that seemed to go well, and I have some alums helping me while I’m away. Always nice to be able to call on them in a pinch.
Finally my biggest win is I have been slowly and methodically working to convince my Fiance to get an Android Phone. But when she started doing content creation it happened. My years of working with Adobe Premiere and Vegas finally could be handy, except it’s on windows and apple devices don’t just work nice and easy for copying files back and forth with windows. So I was able to reflash an old Moto Z force with all of my Moto Mods and gave it to her for her birthday.
Now she can film, copy to the computer and do editing without filling up her iPhone and it’s easier for both of us to get the videos moved back and forth. Some of the mods are a hasselblad camera, a Polaroid printer, a speaker, a projector and then a 360 camera. Hopefully that will keep her set for awhile. Loved the Moto Mod concept, just didn’t stick around long enough to catch on with everyone else I guess. Would’ve been a great all in one for FRC teams to do presentations on the go and then record quality interviews right after.
This week I got some production samples for something it feels like I started on forever ago. Gotta love suprise packages especially when the thing works the way you thought it would.
I was able to find our old “bad” rings from Ultimate Goal. These ones were in a batch that were incredibly soft and deemed not as good as the harder ones we had in the original batch. Well it turns out the soft ones are a lot better for the minibot this year so I’m glad we didn’t just throw them out.
Also I did some schenanigans by pressing a bored out stealth wheel onto the outrunner of a NEO550. When packaging is tight, things get…fun. Also shoutout to TTB hex output adapter for making this just work.
I saw the image first and wondered how you guys managed to make your robot so small, and then I remembered your the minibot guy.
This year is a lot smaller than other years. Big bot is 24Wx28Lx27H so this one is a decent bit smaller than an FTC robot.
Robot climbed in a scoring way for the first time this week (field element mockup and all). Still need to change the hooks for more ground clearance, but we’re getting there. And the intake is working really well despite being half wood and some cobbled together centering wheels.
I walked from my office to the ferry terminal in Beşiktaş this week, which was pretty fun. It’s been a couple months since I walked a long ways and I miss it. Also, thanks to our mayor who finally started caring about sidewalks(after many mayors who did not), most of the walk from Mecidiyeköy to Beşiktaş (2/3 of the route) was on sidewalks built in the last 4 years, some of them in the last 3 months. That was just nice. Cars can no longer park on the sidewalk, there’s space to walk. After I passed Famas Plaza (which is like 300m from my office) I encountered only one car parked on the sidewalk(a truck at a construction site…), and it was one of the most pleasant walks I’ve had in a very long time. (it was about 7km) I also got seats on Metrobüs both on my morning commute to work and my evening ride home, and usually I can barely fit on the bus let alone find a seat, so that was nice.
two days ago I crossed over the Mecidiyeköy viaduct three times which was fun - I miss that part of town, so the last two days have been nice with me walking or passing through there a lot. Once on the back of a motorcycle - so pretty nice view
i missed two days of school because i was sick, which doesn’t sound like a win but it was a nice break from life
Work project made some big strides forwards this week, now it’s just in the details.
And I seem to have passed a volunteering test.
I’m really getting into this retirement thing. Last night I commented to my wife it had seemed like a Saturday. She said she thought all along we should have 3-day weekends. Today I get another Saturday.
And it’s supposed to be sunny, so when I volunteer at the zoo this morning, the kangaroos should be out. And there should be a good bunch of visitors to see them.
Oh yeah, there was that certification test thing. Passed, but not quite 100% - I missed one question.
I gave away six Limelights (two each 2s, 2+s, and 3s) to teams in need.
Much better than letting them rot into obsolescence in a closet.
My lovely wife insisted we enter into a chocolate cake contest. I took Best Overall.
Here’s the recipe, for anyone who would like to try it for themselves.
I did CNC routering. And it didn’t make too many mistakes.
Note to self: spoil boards are meant to be spoiled.
Appeared in the local news!
We also got to get a feel of the field going down to Livonia Warriors, broke a show bumper and had screws come out of the motors.
Got New swerve modules in, and the robot is getting wired!
