Robot Updates

April 21, 2009 - Championship Event

The Knights had an excellent time in Atlanta Georgia at the World Championships this year. Placing 34th in our division, we came home proud. It was very exciting to see the many teams from all over the world coming together to share a common interest. Many of our students have expressed a higher level of interest in engineering and technology since the trip and we can't wait to get going on next years game.

GTR Regional
GTR Videos
Wisconsin Regional

February 7, 2009 - Drivers

Congratulations to our drivers Jake Cuglietta and Jesse Connors, as they are our new drive team this year! We held an in-house competition to give students the opportunity to show off their skills in high pressure, skill testing situations, set up by mentors. It was a close competition but in the end Jesse and Jake rose above. Great jobs guys.

This is definitely the first year that our team has been able to get the robot done with weeks to spare, but there's still lots to do. The team has been finalising the robot with sheet metal as well as finding alternative, better ways to build pieces. All in all, it's very low stress, exciting environment now that the robot is finished and working so well. On another note, the robot's name has been finalised - Holly The Wickett Bot, we chose this name because our very supportive principal has retired this past January and we wanted to show our appreciation. And finally, the team has a lunch in presentation with the Rotary Club, where we hope to make an impression with many of our community leaders, business owners, and local professionals. Last year partnership with Rotary resulted in not only financial support but a host of new connections that have continued for this season.

January 31, 2009 - Finished!

Students worked extremely hard this past week to get the robot together and done! It's fabulous. We're so proud of our ability to meet the deadline we've set out for robot completion. It became a long night and required a lot of patience from students and mentors to get the conveyor, hopper, drive motors, electronics board etc. on the robot in perfect working condition. Of course it's never perfect and the following week will require programmer's and build team's constant attention in order to get the robot in the condition we want. However, amazingly enough the robot has worked great, especially the hopper and ball scoring mechanisms. We've been able to score half a dozen balls easily into an approached trailer with great success. Can't wait to see the finished product! See the videos page for live video of our finished robot.

January 24, 2009 - Exam Week, uh oh!

Exams and final projects have stolen some key students from our grasp but this Saturday has landed us right back on track. Progression with the frame and drive system is coming along nicely (pictures should be uploaded soon) while the programming team struggles with the tracking code. Optimism is still in the air, especially since our team has officially signed up for a second regional! Now attending GTR in Mississauga and the Milkwakee Regional in Wisconsin. We're excited and pleasantly pleased with the amount of what we've accomplished in comparison to last year. Keep up the good work team

January 17, 2009 - Design

Week number two, progress is still advancing nicely, so far we have the conveyor working and mounted as well as the main frame for the robot that we're using to support our hopper. The Inventor team has been working constantly solving problems as it seems they are always taking notes and editing design. It's looking good so far and our team-set deadline of Jan. 31st is closing in on us, with exams in the upcoming week.

January 10, 2009 - Prototyping

The week following the kick off was a very successful one. Our team worked together to learn the game and understand the important tasks that needed to be overcome in order to be successful this year. We used our creative and active brains to come up with the idea of setting up our gym with garbage cans (as trailers), boxes (as hoppers), and volleyballs (as the game pieces) and had a little human simulation to learn about the game. The build team continued to work on the frame and drive boxes while the prototype teams prepared and presented the various ideas. In no time at all we had our decisions made and the Inventor team was working on dimensions.

January 3, 2009 - Kickoff

The kick-off this year was exciting as usual, the team got together in our High School auditorium to watch the live feed from NASA. It was great to have all our students together again after the Christmas holidays but that was just the beginning. After the kick off was over and the password was released our team broke for lunch then started the brainstorming process. Teams were split up with the task of finding the top 5 things that we need to do in order to be successful this year. It was an excellent way to learn the game and make decisions as a team as to what our priorities would be.