Sargon News

The In-Between Stage

2011-03-05T11:22:00.003-06:00

Well, Build Season has officially ended. Those rough six weeks of late nights and broken robots are over... but Sargon Robotics is far from resting. Competition is next weekend and there is a lot to get done.

The minibot and deployment system still need to be fixed and refined. A small team is working on that and steadily making progress. For the competition itself, fliers about the robot (nicknamed the Brave Little Nutcracker this year) are in the works, buttons are being made, and more t-shirts have been ordered. Everyone is preparing themselves to answer questions about the robot while also learning how to scout out other teams and work effectively with peers.

Sargon is ready to move forward to victory next weekend at Competition!

Week Five

2011-02-05T12:18:00.002-06:00

Oh goodness, it's Week 5. We are officially 83.33333% of the way through build season, and Sargon is right on track.

Proggramming and electronics have been pretty busy. In theory, most of the program has been written, and they will test it as soon as possible on the bot. Build is currently in the porcess of mounting the arm and the ladder on the main robot. There is also a new minibot design, thanks to an inspirational Youtube video! Finally, the minibot deployment system has been simplified. There is also an important-looking pole in the hallway that looks like it serves as a practice run for the minibot...

Business team is on the lookout for sponsors and fundraisers. The Laptops for Maniche program is still going, and anyone who thinks they can sell wristbands to benefit children in Haiti should let us know!

Website is slowly getting a couple new pictures of this year's build season. Everything is basically updated, so take a look around and see what you think. Please contact the webmaster at smerobotics@gmail.com if you have any questions, concerns, or ideas.

Week 3

2011-01-22T13:17:00.002-06:00

Today was a prductive build day! Parts are in the process of being ordered. Build team, which has split into several sections (gripper, body, minibot, minibot deployment, lift, electronics, design/CAD, and programming), is currently discussing the parts that need to be ordered and the critical steps that need to be be completed before the robot can be finished.

Final details are being added to the overall design. We hope to have drawings/diagrams/whatever completed by Wednesday, if not earlier; there is a chance that we will not have school on Monday, due to inclement weather. If this happens, then the Monday meeting will be made up on Tuesday after school.

Everyone who does not currently have a Sargon shirt will definitely receive one by competition. they will be (hopefully) distributed next Saturday and we will get that all figured out. Also, everyone who has not given Angela contact information and needs to (as listed in her email) needs to get that to her asap.

As you may notice, the website is steadily being updated with current information. The About page now holds information on all 35ish of our team members. Huzzah!

On a final note, thanks to the parents who are providing/have provided lunch! We appreciate it immensely and wouldn't be able to function without you.

First Week Planning

2011-01-12T16:40:00.003-06:00

Two snow days at the start of build season could have been detrimental to Sargon's progress, but our spirit has kept us rolling straight into the design phase and figuring out the intricacies of this year's competition.

Build and programming team have met and discussed ideas for how to pick up and hold inner tubes, making up for all the lost time these past couple days. Parts are being sifted through and organization is taking hold. Prototyping team (yes, we have one, thanks to some new members) has already begun... prototyping. A forklift may be part of the design, as of today.

Business team is tweaking the business plan. Not much opportunity has presented itself, as of yet, to deeply discuss this plan, but a budget is set and we're ready to be funded this season. Outreach team is doing a fantastic job spreading the Sargon word by raising money to give solar-powered laptops to young children in Maniche, Haiti. Team members are helping to sell wristbands all over the school.

As for the website? It will be updated with this year's information as soon as the webmaster can... log in. The ftp server is being a little difficult, unfortunately... Expect updates this Saturday. There is lots of time to figure that out on Saturday.

"LogoMotion", HERE WE COME!

2011-01-08T18:56:00.005-06:00

In case you didn't catch it:

In short: IT'S ON!

Our day started off like any other kick-off day: with a traditional waffle breakfast. Present were our forty current team members, mentors, and coaches – not to mention a gaggle of fifth year members who just couldn't stand to leave (don't worry: their colleges will find a way to get them back (eventually)).

Much like our fellow robotics guru will.i.am, we could not wait to start the new season. And then the video played; all was silent... Because we'd all been temporarily deafened from cheering. Though it would be hard to tell based on the amount of arguing, we were absolutely jubilant to have a new challenge to work on.

The rest of the day involved splitting into groups to discuss the details of the rules and potential strategies to employ; expect a follow-up soon discussing those results.

Sargon & Football: A Match Made in Heaven

2010-10-22T16:18:00.003-05:00

Tonight at the SMW vs. SME football game, Sargon robotics is scheduled to be recognized. After the first quarter our team will be receiving a generous donation on behalf of Hy-Vee, Connect a Million Minds, and (of course) Shawnee Mission East. Sargon sends out a special thanks to Dr. Krawitz for giving us this opportunity of recognition!

We continue to work diligently training our new members. In fact, this is the first year in Sargon history that we have more first year members than veterans. The build team works away on design challenges, electronics team wires up the Brave Little Can-Opener, programming team gets their first taste of lab view, and of course our business department is doing all they can to keep us floating. Sargon will do everything it can to make sure our whole team is up to speed.

A New Year

2010-10-02T11:55:00.004-05:00

As a new school year begins, Sargon is recruiting new members and getting back in business! Last Monday, September 27th, the introductory meeting for prospective new members took place. Turnout was enormous--about 20 new students showed up, eager to learn about robotics and engineering. The addition of so many new members will double Sargon's current size!

The agenda moving forward is to train all our new members in building, programming, electronics, and business. Team leaders have interactive lessons planned to get everyone involved and excited for build season.

Sargon is also currently planning a Pumpkin Chuckin' workshop day in October, where (hopefully) every Shawnee Mission robotics team will meet at North Stadium one Saturday and build catapults to launch pumpkins. Plans are still in the works, but we expect a good amount of enthusiasm and team bonding. Any new developments involving the workshop will be posted in these updates.

Recent Accomplishments

2010-04-14T15:02:00.002-05:00

Build season is long over, but Sargon is far from inactive.

The air cannon is finally getting finished up. Technical issues have occurred (namely valves breaking), but as of this week they are all getting under control and build team is free to start working again. Niko C. took responsibility for the directing of the entire project and is doing a great job at keeping the whole team updated on its progress.

Business team is making minor adjustments to the generic business letter to send to sponsors... in order to try to get sponsors. All of Sargon agrees that the time has come to really focus on finances. Everyone not working on the robot (this includes programming, PR, and electrical) is contributing to the Sponsor Get! project. Surprisingly enough, many team members have connections into businesses that could contribute to our efforts. Any and all sponsors are welcome! We love the help!

The time... is coming. The time to elect division leaders for next year's season. A few key members are graduating next year, so it's important that we stay together and keep the organization strong by appointing new leaders. Team members can email nominations to the current president, and voting will occur at the picnic.

Ah, yes! The end of year picnic! It is currently scheduled for Saturday, May 22 at Harmon Park. Plan to eat lots of great food and hang out to celebrate the successful conclusion of another year of robotics. Yay!

Spring Break of Epic Proportions

2010-03-18T22:33:00.001-05:00

We had a heavily productive Spring Break. Five days in a row, the council met to plan the future. Expect to have a lot of catching up after break.

Blogger Settings

2010-03-18T22:32:00.001-05:00

Blogger is set to show the last 3 posts, and there's something below that I need to push down, so I'm putting this here.

Archives Import

2010-03-18T22:23:00.000-05:00

Here are the old posts from our website:

2/23/10

Well, everyone, build season is "officially" over. Let's take a moment to give a huge sigh of relief. Well, actually, no sighs yet. Even though the robot is now untouchable, there are tons of things left to do before competition.

But first, everyone at Sargon Robotics wants to thank those who have helped us out so much these past six weeks. Mentors, you have all been incredibly gracious with your time input and support, and for teaching all us unlearned high school students a thing or two about engineering. Parents, you have all been wonderful with providing food for lunch and for afternoon snacks; there has never been a day when our food cabinet hasn't been filled with something. And then to our faculty advisors, Mr. Gay and Mr. Stephenson, thank you for putting up with us and giving guidance the whole journey. We couldn't have done it without you all.

Now, as for what has actually gotten done: everyone decided last night that the pull-up arm was not going to happen in time, so the idea was finally scrapped. It was not, however, a complete failure, for the arm team learned a ton about designing and building and about each other. The robot still kicks, and it kicks nice.

Before competition there's still plenty to do with making decorations and awesome PR stuff to put on the outside of the yet unnamed 'bot (some suggestions are the Brave Little Shin Breaker, Meat Tenderizer, Can Opener, etc.), as well as make some spirit gear and design the pit. Standards, banners, signs, maybe even light-up logos are all in the works. New buttons were ordered yesterday afternoon, as well; no longer will Sargon be giving out those green ones with the Mesopotamian head in the background. And we've also decided on the official hexcode color to dub "Sargon Blue": 2193cf.

Here's to a season well done, and a fantastic competition!

2/20/10

At this point, everyone at Sargon is frantically trying to get this robot working. Everything is quite far behind schedule and a few roadblocks haven't helped. For instance, somehow the victors got fried this week, the entire robot had to be rewired. Oh man.

The most important thing at this point is to just make it kick a ball, and hopefully the pull-up arm will get attached and some minor tweaks can be made. In any case... it's going to be a very busy next couple of days until shipping.

2/08/10

Well, it's official. We're behind schedule. Everyone's been putting in some extra time here and there; the programmers had an all-nighter at Russell's house to work on Electronics, and Build is definitely staying after school for a few hours every day this week to work. We're not really in an "OH NOOO" spot right now, but it'd definitely be nice to get some stuff done. Perhaps Sargon just works better under pressure.

Bumpers are getting finished today, hurrah! The placement of the motor is being worked out and the kicker is about 90% done. There has been concern about trying to take on too much, but Build team is confidant that we can get a nice kicker, a whirligig ball controller, and a pull-up arm. We'll see how that works out in the coming weeks.

The programming/electronics team also has lots to do! Autonomous mode is being figured out by Mr. Andrew M., and I also hear that the camera needs to be calibrated. Sounds like a plan, guys.

Business team has gotten the Electronics Recycling Drive underway. Collection bins are up in a few places around the school and fliers are posted on every bulletin board. Hopefully our fellow East students can give us some help there. Laurel has also been making posters to advertise the Regional Competition to encourage people around the school to come watch. In the past year, the general awareness of the Robotics team has risen around our school. Everyone at least know that we exist now. And that's good, yes?

Little touch-ups are being slowly placed around the website. There is an Affiliates section in the Resources page that may be filling up soon as an attempt to increase communication with fellow teams. If anyone reading this is interested in become an affiliate of Sargon, don't be afraid to email the webmaster. You will get a response. Also, you know those fancy visages that are on the About page? The ones that show all the team members? Those are being made in "badges" (actually buttons) for all the members to wear with pride for things like competitions.

1/30/10

Ohmygoodness, it is now halfway through Build Season! Dundundunnn! We've come a long way in that time. In the beginning we were still trying to figure out what part of the field to specialize in, and now we have something that resembles a robot with all the plans laid out. We're really getting there, team. This is gonna happen! Yeah!

First off, the Good Jorb of this past week goes to Andrew M., who came in after school every day and took the time to look through all the preexisting code. Secondly, as an announcement to everyone on the team: please wear safety goggles EVERYWHERE, except maybe not the CAD room.

Build team has been making some serious progress; the kicker is being nicely developed, the whirligig device is being prototyped, and the bumpers are under construction. Unfortunately, our bumper fabric came in the wrong color. Oh darn. Build team is also starting to kick it up a notch and meet every day after school this week for a few hours.

In terms of Programming, there is some collaboration with Electronics team to get the electronics mounted. The camera is also neatly put together and autonomous mode has been written. Way to go, programmers!

Other news! Laurel and the Business team are organizing a recycled electronics drive, mostly collecting iPods, laptops, and cell phones. Who knows if fellow East students will have lots of stuff for us? Hopefully it will work out well. John M. has also been nicely brushing up the Good Jorb staff, which people who win Good Jorbs can hang stuff on to commemorate. It shall be done soon!

Finally, the website has been tweaked here and there and a few pages are getting small updates. There is now a link to the FIRST website on the bottom bar, but the little logo in the upper-right corner is also a link. It's not really noticeable up there, is it?

1/25/10

Now it's been two weeks since the beginning of Build Season! Huzzah! We've accomplished a lot in that time in all of our teams.

First off, we finally started our "Good Jorb System," which is essentially a way to reward team members and motivate them for the future. It works like this: The person who's done a great job contributing to the team in some way for that past week gets the opportunity to add some sort of trinket to our new team relic, the "Good Jorb Staff." The staff is a wooden rendition of our logo (a ziggurat surrounded by a cog-shaped sun) mounted on a wood pole.

So anyway, moving along. Build team finalized the design for the ball-kicking mechanism and tossed around some ideas for a pulling-up arm. We all agree that those guaranteed two points would be nice in the competition. The bumpers, electronics mounting, and special "whirligig" device are also in the planning stages.

Programming has the gyroscope basically figured out. They've been busy sorting through some of the provided code and modifying it, as well as fixing up the camera and making sure all connections are working. And apparently our robot is now proficient at doing wheelies.

Laurel and the public relations team have been organizing an Open House night to take place on Wednesday from 5pm-6pm, in which kids from a bunch of elementary schools are invited to come to East and hear a little bit about the Robotics team. It should be a very exciting night.

Lastly! The website now has a fancy bar at the bottom of the page. It displays links to our Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter pages, and showcases the wonderful sponsors in all their loveliness. If you wish to get rid of the bar, feel free to press the X button in the corner, but you'll have to refresh the page to get it back. All these links are also on other pages of the website.

1/16/10

Alright, Build Season has begun! Last Saturday we all gathered around the projector screen in the CAD room to watch the introduction of the new challenge, Breakaway. Then we quickly got to work on strategy and building prototype pieces of the field (i.e. the bumps). Already we've had some late nights this past week; some programmers stayed at school until 8:30 pm on Thursday.

Now we have a basic chassis completed and have prioritized what we want our robot to do. Plenty of research on kicking devices has been conducted. Programming is working on the camera and lasers while Build is testing out the bumps.

In other news, this website now completely filled with content! Huzzah! Check out the visages on the About page, or the snazzy embedded video on the Media page. We also have a brand-new Youtube account, which we'll be posting videos on. Apologies go to all those trying to view the videos from the SMSD server; Youtube is definitely blocked for you guys. Darn.

Our new team t-shirts arrived last week, so now all of our members can walk around showing their awesome Sargon pride.

Also, all of us on the team really like this xkcd comic: Click here. No, we don't own xkcd. We just like their comics.

12/14/09

Unfortunately... we missed our deadline of Dec. 3rd for finishing the t-shirt cannon. But it's DEFINITELY getting done by Build Season, which means it's also getting done by next Tuesday, which is the last day of finals. It's gonna be fantastic.

The website is getting updated, slowly but surely. Our deepest and humblest apologies for taking so long on it; it's our goal to finish it before Build Season starts, also. It will get done!

Tonight is the Parent's Meeting for the wonderful adults of the members of Sargon. They have the opportunity to be HUGE helps to our members by bringing us lunch and such on Saturdays during Build Season. Looking forward to seeing you there, parents!

11/23/09

Well, as you can see, the website is under major reconstruction. Hopefully we'll get it sorted out enough by build season, but we'll just see what happens.

In other news, we're in major crunch time to finish the t-shirt cannon in time for Dec, 3rd, the next pep assembly. Build team needs to design the frame, gather all the parts, begin construction and basically finish everything else. Programming still needs to finish the basic code and spend a day or two calibrating and working on the controls. The electronics board is finished and pretty, huzzah!

Unfortunately, because of Thanksgiving break, we're losing a lot of time to work, but by next week we should come back rejuvenated and ready to get this thing done.

Picture Test

2010-03-18T17:52:00.001-05:00

This is a picture test, to see if it supports pictures.

Testing Blogger Compatability

2010-03-18T17:20:00.000-05:00

I am currently investigating if Blogger is a good place for hosting Sargon updates. If it is, it would make things much easier.