#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!!!

0 degrees!

It is currently 0 degrees and there is a foot of snow on the ground here in Fairview, PA. Did it stop RPM? No! No, not at all!! We are busy, busy, busy. Downstairs, several students are working on finishing a maze that we began during our preseason. It features a control system that allows the maze to be tipped in all four directions, in order to guide a ball through the maze. It will be controlled by joysticks for now, but we are intending on programming it to use x-box controllers. Upon completion, this will be used to improve our outreach and to get younger generations interested! Other students are working on prototyping potential designs for 2015's game, Recycle Rush! Upstairs, everyone is involved in a frenzy of writing, editing, and organizing. Whether it be essays for awards, rewriting our safety manual, rewriting our business plan, organizing our jump drives, computer drawings, or preparing travel permission slips, everyone has their own tasks to complete and everyone is working hard to complete them!!

2015 has arrived...

... And with it, a new update from Team 156: RPM! We are off to a great start this season as we begin the long process of preparing for competition. The last few days have been a frenzy of brainstorming, discussing, considering pros and cons, and voting. All this for what, you might ask? Why for Recycle RUSH, of course!! Recycle RUSH, this year's robotics game, features totes, recycling bins, and pool noodles. Points can be received by stacking the totes on a scoring platform. Also, the recycling bins can then be placed on top of the stacked totes in order to receive an even larger quantity of points. Finally, the pool noodles, representing litter, can be placed into a specific location on the board, called the landfill. However, in order to receive a larger sum of points, teams must be considerate of the environment and place the litter in the recycling bins. Although very differnt than what we are used to, RPM is very excited to compete in this game! Preparations are beginning as the team builds prototypes for two potential designs. We are all about measuring, assembling, testing, scraping, rebuilding, tweaking, and changing in these few weeks!! Along with this, we have begun drafting essays, rebuilding our website, which can be found at rpm156.org, preparing forms, and reviewing safety manuals!! The next 6 weeks will be busy, busy, busy for RPM, but we are ready!!!!

Down to the final two!

Team 156 RPM has two meetings left before competition! We are hard at work making the final touches and finishing up details to make sure everything is ready to go. We are finishing up the Chairman's video preparing our Chairman's binder, and passing out T-shirts today. Downstairs, they are finishing up painting the bumpers and building spare parts. Tomorrow, we will be meeting to pack up our truck. Some students will be leaving after school on Wednesday, and the rest of the team Thursday morning. The next time this is updated, we will be at the Greater Pittsburgh Regional Competition! See you there!

AHHHH!

            Robotics is getting intense, like camping... Upstairs, we are finishing the Chairmen's video and the Presentation. Downstairs, we are hard at work with taking apart the work bench, taking in the final layouts for the robot. We will be heading out next Thursday morning for California, Pennsylvania. Don't forget we only have a couple of meetings left. Next Tuesday is our mandatory meeting to load the truck for the competition. Let's go out there and get some metal. Rev it up, rev it up, RPM!!! WHOA!!!

We have begun to work on the physical preparations to leave for competition. Gathering tools together, updating and preparing safety materials, preparing our tool box, and many other such things have kept RPM busy! Upstairs, we continue to work hard on completing our Chairman's video submission and presentation, both of which must be done before the competition. Busy, busy, busy!! A parent was generous enough to come in and take pictures of our whole team recently. A team picture will be posted tomorrow. Make sure to come back and see it!

2 more weeks!!!

With only just over 2 weeks left until our competition, we continue to work hard to prepare! We have begun scouting out teams from the first few competitions to give us an idea for who we want to ally with when we compete. We have also begun to watch videos and read articles about successes and failures, as well as loopholes that hadn't been considered. Finally, today we completed our photo collages that will act as visual representation of our chairman's information. Team 156 RPM is preparing to the best that we can do!!

Submissions

With our robot bagged and tagged, it may seem like there is nothing left for us to do. However, that is far from the truth. Downstairs, our build team is working hard on making spare components, cleaning up and organizing, and practicing driving with our demo bot. Upstairs, believe it or not, we are still working on awards. By working outside of our meetings, we have recently managed to complete a submission for an award that has never been offered before, the Media and Technology Innovation Award. Yay!! On Saturday, we were able to take a team picture and record all the components of our Chairman's video. This video is made to act as visual proof of the statements we made in our essay. Our visual people are working hard to splice the different sections together. Although not as much, RPM 156 is still busy, busy, busy!!!!

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!