I think we all could use some positivity today. So, what good things happened to you this week? What did you accomplish?
This week I felt comfortable enough to share my experiences with a coworker I saw going down a less than optimal path I’d done a few years back to try to help them avoid the same mistakes I made.
The post-rookie team I just started working with was able to put together a prototype of a ball shooter mechanism and get a few test shots with it powered with a drill. It was the first time they were able to successfully shoot a ball and it ended up just short of the edge of the upper goal. They are now working to attach a CIM motor directly to the shaft to get a higher rpm to try to get the ball to go higher.
What, no video? Prototypes are always awesome to see 
I forgot to attach the picture. I will try to remember to make a video when they test it with the direct drive motor tomorrow.
It’s 1:30am and I’m currently sitting at a bonfire with friends and life is mostly good. We’re camping this weekend. Something I haven’t done since I was in Boy Scouts back in 2016. I missed this dearly.
It’s 7:38 PM and I’m not in Alaska
My team has been trying to get out swerve drive together for almost a month now and this week we finally got it driving around, so that felt pretty good.
I was invited to present at an upcoming conference.
The not good part, of course, is the urge to return to this forum – even at 1:30am when spending time with friends. I’m guilty, too.
We made some more progress yesterday. We found the ball shooter could get enough height for the high goal but could also get the ball [aught in the overhead piping in our shop area so we moved out the the field.
WE were able to show that the rough prototype shooter could put the ball in the high goal from the edge of the Tarmac or from right against the fender.
The group working on the intake prototype found a combination of wheels that seemed to work.
At the end of the afternoon, they were looking at how they could arrange a ball shooter and intake on an old robot chassis so they can start working out the details for a real ball shooter and real intake.
Waking up to Friday’s news was rough but has pushed me to do a lot of research to learn what I can do in response, particularly with returning to Indiana at the end of the summer for another year of schooling. It was also nice to see peers speak up and out about the current state of affairs. While the road ahead is long and tough, it gives me some hope to see people taking action.
I spent a good part of last Saturday and this Saturday adventuring around the South Bay (of Los Angeles, sorry @Rachel_Lim ). So far I’ve visited an art supply warehouse, an organic farmers market, two local boba/coffee shop crosses, a small French bakery, and the local summer festival. Besides how pesky parking seems to be, the area is growing on me and it feels good finding and supporting mom-and-pop shops and other small businesses.
I did some reflecting earlier today since I’m 4 weeks into my internship. While I came in the first day feeling wildly unqualified and major imposter syndrome around my peers, interns and full-time, the last 4 weeks have been some of the most fun I’ve had with learning in a while. What started as an alum from my team (3128) who coincidentally works in my SCRUM showing me different odds and ends with the hardware we work with has pushed me to be more comfortable around my team and feel like I can ask questions freely, without fear of judgment. The cherry on top was getting a “your code looks great” over Slack from my manager, in response to code I wrote, broke, and then rewrote but still felt was somewhat inadequate. Even beyond my team, the intern group and everyone else at the company have been nothing short of amazing to work with and kind, both in and out of work. Hopefully, the next 6 weeks will be as exciting as the last 4 have been.
Went to an off season event over the weekend and now we have a good idea on who will be our next driver. Rotated all the kids through driving that wanted a chance.
Worked queueing for Northshore Knockout this weekend, great event! 11 teams, 16 robots, lots of fun! I also presented “Making the most of the KoP Chassis,” and worked a bit with 8118; I’ll likely start mentoring them.
@ExploitSage came down with 3468 and served as informal CSA. Great to see him! (And pass along some mail.)
@PereBear was head ref (the only person present who’d reffed Rapid React), as well as the A/C tech! He didn’t fix the root cause of one unit freezing up and the other not cooling, but he got the air temperature down to something decent. In true FRC style, he blames the programmer - he thinks air handler one is controlling compressor two and vice versa.
I landed in Israel for a month of exploration a week ago on Thursday. It’s been such a crazy and fun experience and I completely forgot about CD which was really nice. (I have photos of other things in Israel but in my opinion this is one of the coolest things I’ve seen so far)
Finished week long camp at wpi, learned a lot, had a great time and a great look into college life.
Plus we started a t-shirt cannon, along with other things. However still haven’t gotten our swerve modules 
Did our 2nd offseason already this year and we hit our 2 best matches of the year at ~50 points each, including the first two traversals of the year.
Not the highest scoring robot in the world, but I’m pretty proud of it based on where the team was just 7 months ago. In November, we scored a singular power cell at an offseason. Now we can do ~15-18 high goals a match with a traversal.
2713 stocks 
Had a student who wanted to design and cut out new fan blades for his ceiling fan. He hadn’t used OnShape or the CNC machine before, so he learned how to use both and was able to complete his project in about 2 hours. It turned out to be a great first CNC project for him. He sent me a picture later of the blades installed.
#TSIMFD
I just took down an old fan to change the wiring, and have some old PC sheets floating around…
