Six weeks is up! I am proud to announce that team 156's robot for this season is complete! We officially bagged our robot on February 18th at 11:15! Great job team! =D

Tomorrow is our last day to finish our robot! The pressure is on team 156!

3 days!!

Our robot has to be bagged up by 12 midnight on Tuesday, February 18th. We are under a lot of pressure to get the robot completed. Along with getting everything built, students are also preparing for an audition and a test. In order to drive the robot, work the appendage, or act as the human player during the competition, students must demonstrate their skills and abilities. A paper test is given to test understanding of rules and requirements for the game, and students must demonstrate their skills by driving the robot. Whichever student does the best in each category will be rewarded with the title of driver, appendage operator, or human player.

While all of this is happening downstairs, upstairs we are continuing to work hard as well. Our business plan was submitted for judging recently. We are also working towards submitting for the Media and Technology Innovation award. This award focuses on how our team uses technology to branch out and make ourselves known. As part of this, we have recently published our  new and improved website, Rpm156.com, created a Facebook page, Fairview High School FIRST Robotics Team 156: RPM,  and created this blog. We are also considering creating a You T
ube channel. In order to prepare for our competition, we are also working hard on preparing our mascot, our team uniform, our Chairman's speech, and our Chairman's video.

Great progress has been made in all parts of our team. Keep it up, Team 156: RPM!!!

FIVE MORE DAYS AND COUNTING!!!

HELLO!

First off.....yesterday... was a REALLY busy day! After finding out that the business plan was set up in a different format than last year, all of the upstairs people rushed to complete the business plan on time!

Thanks to all of the hard work of our members, the business plan is finally submitted!

Downstairs: The throwing mechanism is now all placed onto the robot. We just need some tweaking and soon the robot will be decorated to look fabulous! 

Here are some images as to what has been going on here at Team 156: RPM

Build season is almost over! Our team cannot believe how far we have come in the past 5 weeks. We are excited and pumped to go to the Greater Pittsburgh Regional  at the end of March. See you there!

Sickness hasn't stopped RPM!

Flu season hasn't stopped RPM this season! Still meeting 6 days a week, with even longer meetings than usual on Saturdays, we are propelling forward. We are 8 days out from Stop Build, and we are crunching to get everything done. However, great progress was made today, as our shooter mechanism is almost complete. Upstairs, our business plan is almost complete. We are also continuing to progress on mascot ideas and uniform ideas for our competition. Finally, we are preparing photo collages to show what we have participated in in the past. With our due dates and competitions fast approaching, we are working hard!

Sparks Fly

Sparks flew at RPM's meeting today! Our frame came in a few days ago and they are fervently working to complete our robot. Today we were cutting aluminum and assembling the basic structure. With only 9 days remaining to complete the robot, our meetings getting longer and potentially more frequent, but that has not bothered us!Upstairs, great progress was made today when we submitted the Chairman's summaries and essay. The Mighty Mrs. Bacik is pleased with us, as we got the essay done 4 days in advance! Woo hoo! Crunch time is upon us for the builders, so see you next time!

Website!

So much has happened since we last post.......few days back? I think? Maybe?

Well, for starters....

yes, he IS adorable!

Now back to our program:

Downstairs, the builders finally chose a final design for the shooter. Since we are still waiting for our frame to come in, the builders are being productive by prototyping possible ways to pick up the ball.
Our programmers have also been busy as they work to design a basic program for the robot until it is fully built.


Upstairs (way upstairs), the website is being finally revised and hopefully published this week. Yep, that's right--the website has been completely remade once again! And this time, it looks very VERY snazzy and easy to use.
The Chairman's Essay is completed, with only a few minor grammatical errors to fix. The final copy will be reread and corrected and hopefully be ready to submit soon.
The CAD design is all set, up to a point. the basic frame is made (the model design was shipped out a couple days ago to be made) and all the components currently are on, besides the shooter and the pick up mechanism.
The safety manual is also complete, with only a few tweaks to make it look pretty.


We will continue to keep you up-to-date, so for now, stare deeply and ponder at the wonderful image below:
now aint he adorable!