It’s the quiet part of the season for North America, I know some of you are building robots and some of you are watching interdimensional TV with your friend Morty. But I know on average roboteers are active in 4 other things that they spend a lot of time and and have a passion for. So quick peek to see what you are up to. Here is mine.
New wood shop has about 3 hours to go before it’s finished (*). Epoxy floor is cured, tint people came to put the film on the giant glass doors to help control the temps, portable AC has been shipped.
Electronics for the new balloon projects have arrived, I’ll be able to do APRS broadcasts for the next flights. Thanks ARRL for the grant money,
Boating is still fun, finished both the podcast on weather and the final touches on the fall guide. Not as much float time, but had some nice days messing around.
Hummingbirds are at a peak, I see about 4 different birds every hour come to the feeder. Sadly I also watch the wasps touch down.
I watched a drone demo at the EP summit, I got to fly and mine is to be delivered on Friday. I’ve been assured that my considerable lack of eye-hand-eye lack of coordination will not be a factor. We’ll see.
Got kits together for Lego Zoom ™ with grand kids / grand friends for the winter season.
So that’s my summer, what cool/interesting/mundane things are you up to?
Now off to the Citadel of marshall’s to watch his bio-pic.
(* And all the mentors laughed at the ‘three hours’ note. Where your season robot is done an hour after your last match, same with workshops)
Been working at rec camp while still continuing to build robots. Got a 3d printer. Been working on learning arduino boards and how to code it. Been looking into designs on how to build myself a wireless remote controlled robot. And finally, our swerve modules arrived so we’ve been doing that
Been installing a new shortblock in my 2004 sti after the last motor decided to have the usual cylinder 4 ringland failure. Between some leaking gaskets, ringland, clogged pcv, leaky valve stem seals, and a bad front main seal at one point the motor was using a quart of oil nearly every 50 miles.
I’ve been learning onshape over the past week or so and have found out why everyone loves it so much. Coming from Solidworks its been a breeze to learn.
On 1768 we’ve been prepping to assemble our offseason swerve drive for the programming team to use.
Dude, I think you are in some kind of reverse CIA witness protection program where you are on the road so much and with a predictable schedule (First events) but have a variable role that an assassin really can’t get a clean shot at you. Koko in plain site, catch if you can.
I am building a Voron 2.4 R2 350 for the team.
Playing with hydroponics (started about 3 weeks ago) and have some cucumbers and lettuce going.
Finally got my outdoor kitchen done so making more BBQ that I was a few weeks ago.
My summer’s been mostly work since I’ve got an internship at Caterpillar, but I’ve still been up to some stuff -
Boating activities. Getting closer every time to finally hitting a backflip on the wakeboard, and just recently hit competition speed for the slalom ski course (36 mph). Also barefooting with a human rope, if you want to get a picture of what that looks like just google it lol.
Dirt biking. This summer’s been pretty terrible in Illinois for dirt biking since it keeps raining, but I finally got myself onto our little trail course a week ago, which has some pretty extreme hill climbs. And promptly got stuck in a bit of a ravine… oops.
Missions trip. Went to Slovakia for a week and a half and worked at an English camp. Good times all around.
Finishing up my internship. Turns out corporate America is not the same as FRC. Scouting background helped with my data analytics role though!
Getting my team into fighting shape! We’re trying to turn a lot of things around this year, what with new mentors, new CAD program, an omio, etc.
Offseasons. Was on the mic for CRI, field reset at IRI, will be back on the mic at Chezy (and just got confirmed for mic at Rocket City, and possibly Arkansas!)
The gym. Summer roommate is a gym nut and I’m his only ride, so I’ve been going for 2hr 4x/wk all summer. I’ve got a bodyweight goal and a lifting goal. Trying to join the 1000lb club (1000lb across bench, deadlift, and squat). Started the summer at 550/1000, ending the summer a bit above 765/1000, and feeling great.
Wrote a web-based attendance and badge system for 166. This actually started in January when I wrote about half of it during the week before kickoff, then worked with some students to make it pretty, and made it support all our needs. Inspired by a similar post here today, I’ll do a write up on it tonight.
Mentoring. Trying to come up with ways to improve training and student retention.
Updating Chop Shop Lib (our team’s year-agnostic library) with what we know about upcoming wpilib changes… Which would be easier if the vendor deps had a release I could find that works with the beta.
Board game development. I entered a small design in a contest, but have a few major projects going - including one that focuses on teaching mental health/mindfulness techniques, and one that’s a robotics team-inspired competitive card game.
The gym. I’m a long way from the 1000 club that Bryce mentioned, but I’m slowly taking steps. A large part of it is that I need to do a better job preparing meals.
Participating in various board game leagues. I’m not particularly great at the games in question, but it’s not a tournament so much as a friendly group that plays every week.
I saw an update fro Mary Baker about starting the morning at the robotics competition with a parrot. I thought she was talking about WVROX because Cybertooth was there but alas Andy and Mary were in Brazil living it up. I did not have the vacation time to go to Brazil.
Back in my day I did my common app for UCs over Thanksgiving break, and my general Common App over Winter break. I wouldn’t say that was fun, per se, and having an additional week for each of them sure would’ve been less stressful/more leisurely, but spending an additional month on each of them would have been miserable and probably not resulted in better applications, let alone an additional 3 months on each of them. I know you probably meant it as a joke/exaggeration, but I’ve been genuinely shocked the past few years at how much time and effort my students spend on their college apps.
In all seriousness, I recommend setting hard limits around how much time you’re going to put in, both in hours per day and tasks per month. Writing a 9th draft of your essay or setting aside “all day” and spending half of it procrastinating, really can eat up your life for basically no marginal returns.
