On March 6, FIX IT hosted a workshop called “How to Create a Virtual Pit” for FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) robotics teams. It was designed to help FTC teams with making a Virtual Pit, and potentially helping them with judging interviews. For this workshop, we invited two FTC teams from Washington, Team 3805 Atomic Robotics, and Team 417 S.K.I.D., to help with the presentation.
We covered what is a Virtual Pit, and how to plan for one. Half way through our presentation, Atomic Robotics and S.K.I.D. presented their Virtual Pits to give an example of a Virtual Pit. Then we moved on to topics like how to make the most out of visiting pits, the importance of asking questions, how to cope with technical difficulties, and additional tips.
In March – May of 2020, FIX IT was part of the Vancouver Island COVID Printing Group who 3D printed face shields and ear protectors for medical facilities and front line workers.
It was a opportunity for our team members to use the skills they had developed by being on a robotics team, and do something to help make the lives of front line workers a little bit easier. We could use our CAD skills to create a new design for ear savers that would work better for people with straight hair, and then use our printing skills to create the ear savers.
In place of their popular annual awards for the Technology Industry, VIATEC held a celebration of the people and organizations in Greater Victoria that have made exceptional contributions to our community during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our COVID 3D Printing group was recognized as COVID Heroes!
This is a narrated presentation. On the top right corners of some slides, there is a speaker icon; that indicates that the slide has been narrated, and you may listen to our presenters walking you through the slide. Please turn on your audio for the best experience.
There are two presentations: the first is the “Robot Design Process” presentation, and the second is the “Robot Design Implementation.” Please view the presentations for the best experience.
Robot Design Process
Robot Design Implementation
Thank you for reading “Robot Design Process and Implementation,” we hoped that we have helped you. If you have any more questions or comments please feel free to let us know through our Google Form:
This was last updated on the 10th of September. 2020.
Thank you for reading “Comparing FTC Kits,” we hoped that we have helped you. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to let us know through our Google Form:
This was last updated on the 4th of September. 2020.
This post is only applicable to the FIRST Tech Challenge.
Check out the list of challenges to help get those creative thoughts flowing. Using items you can find around the house, students are encouraged to create something brand new that solves one of today’s big issues.
Here are the basics of the contest:
How to Get Started: 6 steps to becoming our next STEM Leader of the Future
Challenge Topics: Thought-starters to help you identify a problem and think about a creative solution.
FAQs: Find answers to our most commonly asked questions
Project Submission Tips: Wondering what it takes to make a great project submission that is clever, original, and inventive? Here’s some tips to help get started.
Prizes will be awarded to the top entries in the following grade groups: Grades 1–3, Grades 4–6, Grades 7–9, and Grades 10–12.
Deadline to enter the contest is October 30, 2020.
Our team spends a lot of time working on robots, but in the summer, we like to try some different types of projects too.
As a fun, design challenge we decided we wanted to do a paper airplane competition, with a twist – we would also have to build separate launching devices to launch the planes instead of throwing them. We ended up using 3 different forms of potential energy. Our first team used elastic potential energy pulled back into a Tetrix based launch to launch their plane. Our second team used air pressure by making a closed-air system which launched a plane by pushing down on a soda bottle. Our final team used chemical potential energy from the reaction of Coca Cola™ and baking soda to launch a rocket-shaped plane.
We had a lot of fun planning our strategies for the competition and painstakingly assembling our planes and the launcher. Our elastic plane launcher ended up taking the prize for the most accurate, landing in the nearest target hoop twice, and in the farthest hoop once. The plane that launched with air pressure wasn’t too accurate, but it managed to land in the near hoop once (unfortunately the soda bottle broke immediately after the first accurate launch). When you shoot for a moonshot you take a lot of risks and unfortunately the third plane was unable to launch, though we were treated to a pretty snazzy show of explosions.
At the end of the day, we had fun, learned lots, cooperated and had a pretty cool air show!
Over the years, FIX IT enjoys helping teams from all around the world. We hope to continue this work with our new project: FIX IT Tips and Tricks.
FIX IT Tips and Tricks ( https://fixit3491.com/ftc-resources/fix-it-tips-and-tricks/ ) is our new resource library filled with information to help robotics teams from all around the world for any questions they may have. Although the website does not currently have a lot of Tips and Tricks, we will be updating the website frequently to upload and add more Tips and Tricks.
The next 3 posts will be:
How to write an Engineering Notebook Entry
Robot Design Process
What to expect in the FIRST community
We will also be open to answering questions anyone might have through our Google Form:
Thank you and we look forward to creating more resources and helping as many teams as we can.
An Engineering Notebook Entry is the page or pages written every workday which is put in a section of your Engineering Notebook to keep track of the season.
Why is Engineering Notebook Entries important?
To keep track of what has been done
If a team member misses a meeting, they could check the Engineering Notebook and know what they have missed and where to keep going.
Judges review a team’s notebook when considering awards.
Engineering Notebook Tips
Make sure every team member documents what they did at every meeting. You don’t want one single person being in charge of entries, and making sure the team is consistent in documentation helps in the long run. Judges like to see different team members writing entries.
Check in and make sure the entries are done in a timely manner. Some teams have rules where you can’t touch the robot until the previous entry is done.
Document competitions – You can learn a lot at competitions and documenting things you learn can help you reflect and improve your robot.
Document the points your robot earned, what went well and what didn’t, as well as what other teams did well
Format
There is no right or wrong way to format your Entries, and all teams will format their Engineering Notebook Entries a little bit differently. Entries. However, date and members names are required for every entry.
How FIX IT 3491 does Engineering Notebook Entries
Over the years, FIX IT has changed the way we format our Entries, currently ( 2019 – 2020, ) we format it as:
Heading
Title (Work day, programming, competition, etc)
Who was there?
What kind of meeting was it?
What date and time was the meeting held?
Reflection
A short but relevant reflection on tasks that has been completed throughout the meeting. Our reflections could be anything from a very detailed and thought out reflection, to a small funny comment about the task at hand.
Entry
You are not only saying what happened at the meeting. FIX IT likes to follow a formula similar to this one, for every task.
Description of the task
Changes made and why changes are made
Pictures of the Mechanism ( both in real life, and in CAD ).
Try to include all sketches and pictures of the robot when new mechanisms come on the robot. Notes and calculations should be also put in the notebook!
What kind of difficulties did you face and how did you solve them?
What did you learn?
What was the final result? What’s next?
To do List – List of tasks for what’s next
What is the agenda today and what are our goals? These often come from the next steps from the previous meeting.
What decisions did your team make?
How did your team make those decisions?
Why did you make that choice?
What was the impact?
What is the next step?
Being able to reflect on the future at the beginning and the end of the meeting allows us to always be moving in a forwards direction and learning as we go through our robot design process.
Additionally
In the past, it was a requirement to have each team member sign each Engineering Notebook Entry, although that is no longer required, some teams still have each team member sign to acknowledge that every member has read every Entry.
Special features
Some teams also like to add a personal flair to their Engineering Notebook Entries, like adding a fun fact in each entry. FIRST Tech Challenge team “PrestidigiTaters 9761” adds a new potato dish/ snack in each Entry.
It can give the judges something special to remember you by. If you can think of something special that links to your team branding, even better!
Thank you for reading “How to Write an Engineering Notebook Entry,” we hoped that we have helped you. If you have any more questions or comments please feel free to let us know through our Google Form:
This was last updated on the 9th of August. 2020.
For anything more recent, make sure to check the current Game Manual Part One and Engineering Notebook Guidelines which can be found here.
This post is only applicable to the FIRST Tech Challenge.
It was great seeing all the teams at the Washington State Championships. Technova’s autonomous program was amazing, even if it had a few difficulties. We liked Perpetual Velocity’s fun team introductions, Bearded Pineapples had a great slideshow with CAD and of course, Safety Steve.
We like this year’s game since Alliances really have to work together to score the most points. Lots of teams were working with their Alliance Partners on the practice fields which was fun to watch.
Our robot had good matches (successful autonomous, stacking and end game points) and challenges (dragging a tape measure around the field during tele-op).
14179 Sushi Squad (2nd Alliance Captain) choose 12611 TechNova and FIX IT for their alliance partners. Unfortunately, we lost out in the semi-finals.
FIX IT was very excited to win the Inspire Award and qualify for the Houston Championships!
