we need to get more people on the new site and get it starting and move the chat and questions over there..
and most important… we need everyone to check site every single day, if possible. just to stay updated to whats going on and maybe answer some of our questions.
thanks =)
we can get on the bake/boil/bbq stuff if we have enough people doing it, honestly i dont think groceries stores will donate though, because we haven't received any sponsorship from grocery stores at all
those companies seem great! esp. because they fall within the field we're working within, however the two from the co-op jobs are in cambridge, and we're having trouble getting the letter out in kitchener,
so i'll make out the letters and print them tomorrow, and then give them to mr. brown, if you happen to pass by or go somewhere in cambridge you could maybe grab the letter and give it to them? thanks for the input!
FOUND! -> Art purchased last 7 yellow pool noodles from Ashton Pools
-Bake/boil/bbq sale during lunch. Get a grocery store to donate stuff (or buy cheap stuff) and sell it over lunch.
-Miovision: they do automated traffic counting, I did a computer-vision contest for them once: http://www.miovision.com/company/contact.php. You could play up the vision portion of the competition.
I looked through the university co-op job system and got a few local companies in related fields:
-ATS Automation: http://www.atsautomation.com/profile/worldwide/worldwide.asp. Automated tooling or something like that.
-In-house solutions: http://www.inhousesolutions.com/company/contact.php. They're all about CAD/CAM stuff.
If these are useful leads, I can get tons more. Brad could get more as well.
Mr.Brown said today he was having difficulty finding pool noodles, so if you have any please donate, or if you see any please buy them and you will be re-embersed by the team's funds… please keep your eyes open for any!
We have a basic template for sponsors so if you have any companies that you think we should ask to sponsor us, just post here or suggest it to any business team member… it'll be better to get the letters printed and ready then leave the preparations until right before we give it to the company,
so far we have -> sent letters to: OCE, Ministry of Education, RIM, CBET, David Carter, Accounting Firms (Descartes, Sandvine, MKS Inc., ComDev, and Dalsa), Pizza Pizza, Monacos, Delta, AquaServe, Princess Auto, RONA, Canadian Tire, Net Sentinel, Sayal Electronics, Best Buy, Future Shop, Scotia Bank, CIBC, Subway, Shopper's Drug Mart, and Sheet Metal Supermarket.
(Please let me know if i am missing any)
and Mr.Brown has -> letters ready for: The Sony Store (must go to head office in Toronto), M&M's Meatshop (Cambridge), BMO, Boston Pizza, Bingamens, TD Bank, Superstore, Home Depot, Fastenal, and Walmart.
(so if you have time and transportation you could be getting us sponsorship!)
also, we had a iPod raffle, which was relatively successful, but now we need to keep going.. any more ideas are appreciated, we can earn more money, gather more interest in FRC, and promote K-W's technology and engineering all in one.
Diana Pham, only business so far, but going into electrical work.. i only have accounting and computer engineering courses experience, but am open to try to help with anything really.
The grade 8 night we're hosting could be a bit of a testing ground for topics of interest, because we're basically advertising Eastwood's computer engineering and woodworking.. We could start with an assembly for Eastwood and then go to the local high schools, but i think we should perhaps do those promotions once we have a bit more functions on our robot we can show off..
the idea of getting graduates in the technology industry would be really interesting and i'm sure school's would certainly love it (encouraging post secondary, trades, the future)… we could have a couple of people (3-5?) discussing a bit about their job and interests..
for engineering week I like the concept, but how would it work? would be go to local elementary schools and hold a impromptu contest there? or were you thinking just hold it at school and spread the word to neighboring schools? i'm not sure about the latter because we would probably have to have an event like fair? i dunno, just usually the lunch time events are only the Eastwood students..
Ideas for what to put on the t-shirt and style, colours, etc. Put your ideas here. We need colour scheme, logo placements, etc.
To expound on engineering week, you could probably get some representatives down from the universities. Advertise that they'll be there, and you'll probably get all the ambitious university-bound kids out to demonstrate their know-how. You could also play some FRC propaganda mixed with footage from Brad and I's past teams in the background of the competition.
I want to point out that as of today, there are only THREE rookie teams that will be at Waterloo. That's a 1 in 3 chance at getting an entry to Atlanta. Those are odds we're not likely to see as a team for a long, long time. Based on my own rookie-year experience, I would not be surprised if at least one of those teams was not aware there IS a rookie all-star award. I'm tired of being cold, I really want to take a trip.
Random ideas for outreach that I've got:
-Recruiting at nearby highschools - either grabbing their students for our own purposes, starting FTC teams, or passing FRC literature around
-Lectures about engineering topics: I'm sure myself, Brad, or Terry could rustle up some engineering folks to give a talk about something near and dear to them. Bonus points if we can get someone to talk about something cool. I've got a grad student friend on the UW Formula SAE team that can be very entertaining while talking about racing engines and suspension, but that may be because I really like racing.
-Totally random: "engineering week" at the school - Every day at lunch, hold quick competitions of stuff like Popsicle-stick bridge building, cardboard chairs, mousetrap racers and other quick-to-build contests. Invite little kids from surrounding schools. Have prizes at the end to spur interest.
Sunday January 25th
(build)
Drilled bearing mounts
Completed more of the upper portion of the robot.
Drove the robot with additional weight on it.
Monday (no meeting)
I picked up 3 pneumatic cylinders and the gearbox we'll be using for the collector today, on loan from St. Catharines. Some moreparts coming from them next weekend.
Terry is going to get the bearing mounts machined, hopefully for tomorrow.
Programming team's progress went like this:
Saturday: Broke laptop, did some TCS testing.
Sunday: Fixed laptop, re-wrote most of the useful code we lost.
CAR WASH ! :P
great job ! cant wait till exams are done and come back to rebotics =/
Saturday January 24th
Build:
More of the upper frame put together. Got pieces cut from Metal Supermarkets.
Finished trailer hitch.
Set up plastic flooring in gym.
Drove robot with trailer attached on the flooring.
The camera tracking was successful on Saturday.
Monday night for programmers was:
-Drove on regolith for first time
-Burned out motor
-Worked with encoders to get acceleration numbers out of them
-Got simple camera mount made
Tuesday was:
-Got accelerometer soldered, 'mounted'
-Worked with accelerometer, created noise-reducing strategies
-Graphed accelerometer values versus encoder values, debugged
As of Tuesday night, we had the accelerometer and the encoders reporting approximately the same acceleration values when we did a slow robot start. This is required for traction control. I don't know what the guys did on wednesday, but on Thursday we'll be making an effort to actually implement some simple traction control.
Mohammad Qasem; base driver or operator.
Mon. January 19
(design)
- Met with members of UWRT
- Discussed and finalized plan for the robot
(business)
- List of material sent to Metal Supermarkets
- New sponsorship from CBET (thanks to Matt, Fazlin, Alex, Christian and Jordan)
- 5 batteries, 7 chargers, 3 victors, 3 spikes and 2 Fischer Price motors on loan to us
- 2 toughboxes, 2 2.5" CIMS, some pneumatics and possibly another gearbox getting loaned to us this coming weekend
- Terry got 8 Orbit Balls, 3 more coming this week (total of 13)
(programming)
- Not sure if it was Monday or Tuesday - got the camera actively tracking the target
- properly mounted the camera to have better tracking capabilities
Rookie All-Star Award
Celebrates the rookie team exemplifying a young but strong partnership effort, as well as
implementing the mission of FIRST to inspire students to learn more about science and
technology.
We need a dedicated spokesperson (or people) who will speak to the judges at competition. As we get working on this, we should definitely talk to Terry, as he has been a judge for several years and get some good insight from him.
A few of the most important things:
- INSPIRE people into science and engineering
- RECOGNITION - make people aware of what we're doing and try to get more people involved
Some good ideas for us to include in speaking to the judges:
- Met with FLL team at Suddaby Public School, plans to mentor them in the future.
- Possibly get the school to bring students to the event on Friday to see some action, make sure the judges know that the team brought out a lot of students to see the event.
Please use this thread to discuss the award submission and other things we can do to inspire people and get recognition of the imporance of science and technology. For those who haven't heard or seen it, check out Barack Obama's speech where he talks about the imporatnce of all of us bringing science to the forefront of our efforts to improve our world.
