In week 7 we continued programming Typhoon’s main mechanisms. While the programmers worked, the rest of the team prepared for the weekend’s scrimmage, which we hosted for local teams. Our programming subteam got to use a full field for the whole weekend, while five of the other teams in the area got a chance to test their robots. We were even able to run multiple full matches together! Next week, we’ll be preparing for the real deal, Silicon Valley Regional in Santa Clara, March 1st through 3rd.

     For the last week, we’ve all been hard at work during our break from school to finish up our work on Typhoon. Since last weekend, Typhoon can complete all aspects of the game, including intaking and shooting game pieces and climbing. We’ve also taken measures to improve the robot, replacing our original intake and amp-scoring mechanisms with updated versions. Next week, our programmers will continue to refine and tune the mechanisms while the rest of the team prepares to host a scrimmage with local teams in the student union, to take place on Feb 24.

     During week 4 we finished up Bravo Bot (Hurricane) and handed it off to the programmers. We made some changes for our Charlie Bot (Typhoon), and we finished the CAD. Drive team also started drive practice in the Student Union where we will eventually have a full field for practice! This week we have been working tirelessly on Typhoon, almost fully building and wiring the robot. Drive practice continues to go strong as we narrow down the candidates for driver. Our programmers worked on Hurricane all week and are ready to tackle Typhoon over our school break.

     There has been great progress on the robot this week! We had a few bumps in the road with parts arriving late, but our members have remained determined to complete mechanical work. Friday, we began wiring the robot, and today we plan on completing electrical before passing the robot off to programming. And, of course, our CAD team remains diligent in making vital changes for our final robot – Typhoon!

     This week, we completed machining individual parts for our robot, Hurricane, and started assembling her subsystems. These components include a design to intake game pieces, two different mechanisms to shoot out the game pieces into separate targets, and a mechanism to climb and hang from a chain. Next week, we plan to finish the assembly of Hurricane, and hand it off to our programmers to code.

     The goal of our first week of build season was to prototype and CAD mechanisms to pick up notes, shoot them, and climb. We prototyped multiple variations of each idea to see whether they would be viable on the robot, and then voted on which designs we thought would perform best. Our CAD team outdid themselves, producing CAD for the robot including our drive train, intake, shooter, amp placement system, and climber. We're looking forward to machining our pieces and putting our beta robot, "Hurricane", together next week.

     This year’s build season, Crescendo, started off with a blast revealing a new game, new challenges, and new robot opportunities, and we are eager to step up to the challenge! This fall, we gained 11 new members, bringing our total to over 30 teammates, all of whom are excited to get the build season started.
    With a new game comes new rules, designs, and ideas, so our first task was to become familiar with the rules. In short, our robot must pick up discs, throw those discs into two different goals, and be able to climb on a hanging chain. Once we understood the game, we came up with designs, strategies, and concepts to help us create the most optimal robot to achieve these tasks.
    After kickoff day, we will have 7 ½ weeks before heading off to the Silicon Valley Regional to face off against some of the world’s best teams. Make sure to come back next week for the BreakerBots Week 1 Recap.