#commitment

RPM is facing a week and a half of long days and lots of them!! 8 days left, and every single one of them will include a meeting. However, who's gonna be here? All of us of course!! Why? Because we get quite a rush from competing in Recycle RUSH... (tehe.) In all seriousness, though, we are very committed to completing the robot and the awards. We are getting close, with several awards being submitted as early as tomorrow. The builders are making progress with the robot as well. Appendages, drive trains, electrical, programming... All groups that are hard at work!! Just a reminder, the team will be meeting 6:30 to 9 Monday through Friday, 9 to at least 3 on Saturday, and some members will also be coming in on Sunday. Busy, busy, busy but we can do it because we are RPM!!

Prototype movement!!

Our prototype is working!! Moving totes and recycle bins, and even stacking them up. Also, our drivers are doing well with learning new controls. A frenzy of writing is also occurring. Deadlines are fast approaching. Several of our awards are due as early as the 12th. Stop build is the 17th, and many more rewards are due the 19th. Deadlines are great motivation, but also stressful. Our team is busy, busy, busy!! Meeting 6 days a week, for several hours, we are striving for perfection!! We are reving it up!!

90 FOLLOWERS!!!

We are up to 90 followers on Twitter!!!! WOOT!! Also, we are making significant progress with everything. This is a darn good thing, considering there are only 19 days left in the season. That's crazy; none of us really know what happened to the first 3 weeks. However, electrical assembly on the final product, and an award has been submitted. Also, another award is nearly ready for submission! We are significantly ahead of where we need to be! Looking forward to the competition! #OMGrobots!!

Frames!!

We're proud to announce that our frame has been sent out for welding. Thank you to McShane Welding for doing this for us!! Several of our members are working hard on drawing the frame in a program called Solidworks. For those of you who are not familiar with this, it is a program for computer-aided drafting, or three dimensional drawing. This is very helpful, and we are very thankful for our members who go through this challenge!! 

Also, thanks for all your help with our social media!! Our Twitter is blowing up, with 67 followers already!! Facebook has another 10 page likes, with a total of 109 likes!! RPM is very excited about all of these followers, as we are one step closer to winning the Media Innovation and Technology award!!

Social Media

One of RPM's major focuses this season is the Media Innovation and Technology award. This award is based on the team's usage of social media to make others aware of us, in addition to how the team uses the most effective means of communication. Although the team will be doing the majority of the work, this is not an adventure we can embark on by ourselves. WE need your help!! "How could I possibly help?" you might be wondering. First, like us on Facebook at Fairview High School FIRST Robotics Team 156: RPM. Then, go to Twitter and follow us at FRC156. Then, go to Google+ and add R.P. Mayhem to your circles. Once this is completed, go to Instagram and follow us at team156rpm. Then, go to youtube and follow our channel. Finally, follow this blog! But you should have already done that... seen as how you are reading this post. Thanks for you help in this matter!

Award submission and Maze completion!

RPM is excited to announce that we have completed an award submission almost a month ahead of time!! WOOT!! We have also completed a project we began during the preseason. What is this project, you might be asking? Well, we built a maze through which a ball will be guided. It is controlled by X-Box controllers, and we are excited to announce that one of our members completed guided the ball through in 2 minutes yesterday evening!! This will be used for outreach events to give younger students the opportunity to experience robotics in a low-key setting. Along with the completion of these things, we are busy working on the website, (check it out. RPM156.com. It's pretty cool.) as well as the business plan and the safety manual.  Also, we are making great progress on our prototype of the robot!! Check back for more information on these events!!!

Finals week

Finals are upon us here at Fairview High School. All of us are busy studying and preparing, and yet RPM hasn't been stopped. One of our new members recently came up with names for the subgroups of our team. The "downstairs team" (i.e the builders) is now referred to as the visions, and the "upstairs team" (i.e the writers, designers, editors,) are now the visionaries. This provides the team with a sense of unity and connectivity. The visions are working on prototyping and have made significant progress in the past few days, despite an evacuation due to the fire alarm going off on the 13th!! The visionaries are continuing to work on award submissions, editing manuals, designing the website, and connecting with social media. Hey, all you Twitter fans! RPM is on Twitter now!! Our username is FRCRPM! And Instagram fans!! We're on Instagram, too!! Follow us! team156rpm!!! Check back for more information and updates!!!