Australia FIRST: Day 1

Australia Day 1
Lots of highs and lows today.

Just before we were about to go into inspections, we noticed that the scissor lift arms were badly bent.  Duncan started working on how that could be fixed, while Helen and Jack took the robot through inspections.

Hardware inspection turned out to be a challenge.  We had to change the size of the wire between the motor controllers before Larry would pass inspection.  None of the teams had brought extra for that type of wire.  It took a while to work out a solution, but Larry finally made through the inspection, and the arms on the scissor lift were repaired.

After all the wiring changes, we got to software inspection and Samantha (the communication module) didn’t have power.  Once that got fixed, we finally got to a practice match.  It wasn’t perfect, but at least all the mechanisms had power and worked.

On the bright side, our judging interview went well, Helen enjoyed the FIRST Ladies tea, and the pit looks good (see pic above).

Everyone has been very helpful, and we’re all looking to a barbecue party tonight.