In case you didn’t know, I went to St. Louis for the FIRST world championships. It was great. Unfortunately I left before everything finished because my flight left before everything ended.

The “Build Season,” when we construct the actual robot, has started. Four teams have been assigned components to complete, with one team integrating the components together, as well as building the basic chassis. Many teams are already jumping onto completing their tasks, and are making good progress to completing our robot.

Something this will accomplish that is very critical is being able to build two robots, and have LOTS of driver practice. Driver practice is critical for success, and the last year, we got next to ZERO driver practice in.

Of course, I can’t reveal details, as it’s top secret, and if other teams were to get in on it, I’d be in real bad trouble, but I can tell you that this reorganization of the club will certainly make our robot a serious contender in the competition.

This isn’t going to be the last time I post about our club, but it’s the first this year.

This year, we brought all three of our remaining robots, Catalyst, Bearenstein, and Odyssey.

Unfortunately, during the parade, due to the fact that Odyssey uses four CIMs to drive itself, we did not complete the parade route with a running robot, as we used our two batteries we had along with us.

However, after the parade, we did see many people visit our booth, and we were able to demonstrate the robot there. We allowed anyone who wished to drive Odyssey. They were allowed to drive around our booth, as well as over the “bump” that I’ve described.

Also, this year introduces a new parade meme. During our club’s first year, there was rain at the Maple Valley Days parade, so we were unable to run that year’s robot, Epic. Instead, one member, I believe Andrew Kerr, dressed up in a cardboard robot suit. By the end of the parade, the suit was falling apart and an 8 year old kid shouted “That’s not a robot!” This year, another kid was heard saying “Why are they carrying a triangle?” in reference to the bump, which is definitely NOT a triangle. It is a trapezoidal prism.

Unfortunately, half way through Sunday, our left side bogey wheels were unable to articulate, and they have yet to be repaired.

Thanks to everyone who came out to see our booth, we’ll be back next year!

So far, we’ve been running the mill with just spraying with WD-40 as a coolant, but once we get actual coolant running across the tool, we can cut even faster than with just WD-40.

The hard part of making a drain to recycle the coolant is mostly complete, Mr. Prelesnik, a fabrication mentor put in a drain hole, through the shower vinyl that covers the table the mill rests on.

We are working on making improvements to our robot, that hopefully will give us a better performance on the field.

We got a loaner trailer for our stuff, while our own trailer is finished being made and decorated. We were packing it last night, and we must finish that today.

I’ll post from Portland.