Task: Discuss the upcoming FTC Season

This meet we discussed topics concerning the upcoming FTC season. Our sister team, Imperial Robotics, was also over getting their robot working with the new motor controllers. We went over basics that we should do to be a better team this season. We went around deciding tasks each member would be in charge of, whether it was logistics, organization, or our business plan. We also discussed how we should promote our team. Evan especially was enthusiastic about reaching out and taking charge of our business plan.

Reflections

We realized that to be an accomplished team we each need to know we should be doing. With the game being released next Saturday, we will have to be precise in what we do and how we do thing this season.

Task: Get in the habit of organizing daily

We have never had a great track record of having an organized workspace, so each member was greeted with the new rule as we entered.
Hopefully this will save us a lot of time in the future because everyone will contribute a little to the effort.

Reflections

Once we figured out what we were going to organize the effort went faster than expected. A bowl of assorted pieces was out on the table, and it was half empty in less than 20 minutes.
The hex keys are lined up on the work table magnet and hopefully they'll be put back in place as soon as someone is done. We probably started with 3 or 4 wrenches last year, and we only have one at this point. The USB cord drawer has been organized with gallon sized bags for each type, micro, mini, and standard, where it was originally a rat's nest of tangled wires. The giant metal file is still lost, but hopefully it will show up as we clean through the meets.

Task: Watching videos to get ideas for our robot

Dylan, Ethan, and I decided to watch videos to see what other teams were doing to build and improve their robots during the Circle Meeting outside. We wanted to see if any of the designs were successful so we could learn from them. The videos included Robot in Three Days, RiTD Explained, and Trojan Robotics .

Reflections

Every video we watched was ahead of us; we have a long way to go in building our robot. It can climb up the ramp a bit, but we really need to make an arm mechanism, figure out how to grab the balls and cube, and increase traction on the mountain. In addition, we have to program more. We're probably a few weeks behind Trojan Robotics in the video we watched.

Task: Teach Travis Team how to Use Previous Team's Code

After retiring from FLL at Travis, we decided to share our code library with the other team from the school. We set up a meet with Clay, one of the main programmers of the team, so we could teach him how to use our core functions; the next step is for him to teach the other members of his team how to use the code.

Reflections:

I spent a couple of hours to teach Clay how to use our most essential code segments; he now knows how to use a proportional line follower, maintain a heading using the gyro, how to make accurate turns using the gyro and how to calibrate the robot so that the robot knows how many wheel rotations it takes to move the robot one centimeter.

Task: Help the William B. Travis FLL Team

Starting September 10th and lasting through today, I went to our old middle school, William B. Travis, to help their newer FLL team with robot design and programming. There were also some one on one sessions during practice to teach their main programmer, who used to be on the older FLL team until it disbanded, how to use the code library that we had previously written. I also went to a scrimmage with them to help them come up with new design ideas and strategies for the game.

Reflections

September 3 Practice:
  First meet; set up the field and build the field elements; talk about the project
September 10 Practice:
 Project talk; we talked about earlier projects and came up with ideas- people who came up with ideas were assigned to research further
September 17 Practice:
 Talked about programming; I introduced them to our PID code that we wrote for EV3. More project brainstorming. Research done was reported back.
September 24 Practice:
 Demo of gyro sensor; how to install and how to program. Talked about core values and team logo.
October 1 Practice:
 Focused on strategy and robot build; designing a launching jig for the robot and taught arrays in EV3.
October 8 Practice:
 Build team refined chassis and attachments; beginning of game programming in earnest. Taught line following.
October 15 Practice:
 Wrote a list of our main goals that we wanted to have done by the upcoming scrimmage; talked about game choreography.
October 22 Practice:
 Refined robot game program & design; settled on project idea (recyclable pizza box)
October 24 1-on-1 & After-school Prep:
 Helped Clay, a 7th grader who was on our old FLL team until it disbanded, prepare for the TA role in the beginner after-school robotics club that we established when we first founded our team. I created kits for the basic robots and taught him the basics of what to talk about. I also taught him how to use the core functions Alisa and I wrote for FLL (calibration, line following, maintaining a heading, gyro turns, etc.)so that he could share the knowledge with his team.
October 29 Practice:
 Last preparations before the scrimmage that weekend. Refined the game program and launching jog for the robot.
October 31 Scrimmage:
 Helped the team get an idea of what the actual competition would be like; we practised game choreography and handling the robot.
November 5 Practice:
 Wrote and practised the script and song for the project and refined some design flaws discovered at the scrimmage.
November 12 Practice:
 Refined the design and project; designed and built a new launching jig that could be easily tuned using worm gears to launch at a different angle.
November 19 Practice:
 Talked about strategy and tuned the game program; practised the project
November 26 Practice:
 Third to last practice - Significant amount of time practising the project and tuning the game program.
December 3 Practice:
 Last practise - Final preparations before the competition; tuning and logistics.

Task: Think about our robot's design both for now and for the future

Today, I decided to list our different options when it comes to design and on how much effort they would take on a numerical scale from 0 to 7. 0 means no effort would be needed at all (none of our options are currently here), and 7 means that the option is almost not practical based on the work we'd need to put in, but would be a huge benefit on our robot. It's a direct proportion of benefit to effort.

Reflections

On average, the different options require a medium amount of effort on the scale based on different positions on the robot. The different images put on the scale helps us to determine which of our possible courses of finishing our robot will be most beneficial both in mechanical value and in amount of time it will take for us to finish the task. As we discuss which of our future possible courses will be our final design, this graphic gives a great planning tool to determine which course will help us and which path we will choose to stick to.

Task: Practice with other teams and see

This past Friday, the team tried to get the robot working in a small scrimmage with seven or so other teams. At the scrimmage, we managed to get our cow-catcher working, even though we nearly burned out our servo. During the process of finding the right positioning and testing it while driving we managed to tear up quite a few rubber inserts on our treads. Even though the scrim was scheduled to start at 6, no one ended up competing in a single match. Along with us, there were only two other teams that were even driving their robots, Imperial Robotics and Technical Difficulties. But when we were testing driving we saw that our robot needed a little help getting up the ramp, if it could at all. We also tried to get our autonomous going, but it went nowhere. Compared to other teams we might not be that far behind, but we feel that we should be much farther. And even though we didn't compete, we were at least able see how the robot drove and handled.

Reflections

We now feel like we need to gain a new sense of urgency. With our first qualifier only about three or so weeks away we are running short of time. We also feel that if we plan on being a top contender we need to be on a whole other level. Our robot itself isn't in the worst of conditions but we need to be upgrading and testing, both our physical robot and our code: autonomous and tele-op. We also need to focus on our final design of the robot, incorporating them into our code as we approach our qualifier date. We were able to learn a lot about possible pathways to take in terms of our code in tele op and autonomous and we plan to implement these ideas onto our robot in the coming practices.

Task: Make blog more accessible and simpler to write for

In a rough order, here are the things I've worked on in the blog over the past month or so:

• Add a readable nav-bar and fix header text color
• Add About page structure for new members to fill in
• Resize a bunch of images to fit the 600 px width, and a couple that were too tall
• Create tag-specific post pages
• Make these tag pages Case-Insensitive so posters could tag "Design" or "design"
• Add Div wrappers around newly created pages so the margins work
• Add a Date limit on the printable version of the blog so only this season's posts print

Reflections

The first draft of the tag page came from Christian Specht's great guide. This created a bulleted list of all posts in that tag, which I edited to show the post content in the same way the main page does. The drawback with this method is that it is Case-Sensitive, and a new folder and index page must be made for the individual tags you want to access. The code from the above guide is
{% for post in site.tags[page.tag] %}
while to make the search Case-Insensitive I needed
{% for post in site.posts %}
{% assign tagArray = "" | split: "/" %}
{% for item in post.tags %}
{% assign tagDowncased = item | downcase %}
{% assign tagArray = tagArray | push: tagDowncased %}
{% endfor %}
{% if tagArray contains page.tag %}
2nd version from this stackoverflow question

When we print our blog out to give to judges, we use a different version of the main index page that doesn't truncate the post. Last year we didn't have to worry about printing old posts, but now we needed a way to stop when a certain date was reached. This may seem like a trivial thing, just add an if statement in the already existing loop, but liquid isn't the most cooperative of languages. I couldn't find someone with the exact question as my own, but this question about matching years was similar enough to give me a place to start. I used the Shopify website's date filter guide and this extremely helpful Shopify Cheat Sheet to get the date as "YYYYMMDD" This returned the date as a String, which was converted to an integer by adding 0.
Final version:
{% for post in site.posts %}
{% capture comparableDate %} {{ post.date | date: "%Y%m%d" }} {% endcapture %}
{% assign comparableDate = comparableDate | plus: 0 %}
{% if comparableDate >= 20150424 %}

The blog back-end probably won't be touched during normal practice times anymore as competition deadlines are threateningly close.

Starting out

Just as in previous years, Iron Reign set off about half an hour late. We REALLY need to get everything not directly on the robot printed, boxed up, and loaded the night before - at the latest. Now that we have 11 members, we needed another person to help carpool, and Jayesh’s dad was thankfully willing to help. (note from omar: we definitely did not get lost on the way there)

When we arrived at the competition we set up shop behind Imperial Robotics, our sister team, and plugged in our battery box in the power strip in the back. It was frustratingly far away, but at least it kept all our stuff in one spot without having to use multiple outlets.

Scouting

This was the first year that we as a team really took scouting seriously. Taking advice from FTC Robotics Tips, Tricks, Strategies, and Secrets, we created an Excel spreadsheet with rows for each team and columns for strengths and weaknesses in TeleOp and automonous. This allowed us to effectively gauge the strengths and weaknesses of other teams, whether opponents or partners. When we first arrived Dylan, Alisa, and Evan walked around and " interviewed " teams in the pits, distributing our fliers and taking notes. The scouts split into two groups to make the process more efficient, and effectively turned it into a game, seeing who could cover the most ground. By taking notes on previous matches, we were able to predict the outcome of our first match and the reasoning behind it.

Mechanical and Software progress

Due to a dead servo that we detected just before our first match, we spent most of our pit repair and testing time focused on our cliff climbing mechanism. Because of a lack of testing the night before, we failed to notice that our aiming servo for our tape measure wasn’t working, and probably hadn’t been for a day or two. Unfortunately we only had one extra servo with us, one that had a different internal range than the other. Our initial angle in our programming was fine, but the next preset value was off. We spent most of our available time tuning and fixing this problem, as it was, and still is, our main focus in tele-op point wise.

We didn’t really attempt even the most basic autonomous. Earlier we have had issues with the robot driving backwards when testing, even after switching signs multiple times. Because we weren’t sure how the robot would react, or if it would at all, we decided to play it safe. The field debris can pose a real danger to our tank tread system, since neither our cow-catcher nor side shields were on. We used a long tetrix piece as a front guard, but we didn’t really trust it enough for autonomous since it bent badly even when pushing only a couple of blocks.

Match Overviews

Match 1

Match 2

Match 3

Match 4

Match 5

Before/During Finals Alliance Selection

SemiFinal Match 1

Final Match 1

Final Match 2

Finals Match 3

Award Ceremony

At this point we had just lost the finals and most of the team was just downright depressed. We did receive an award for second place alliance but that didn’t mean we would advance to regionals. We also won the PTC Design award (kudos to Max and Tycho for doing basically everything). Thankfully, our two alliance partners were high enough in points that they advanced to the regionals despite us losing.

Task: Work on our presentation to the judges

Our main weakness in previous years had been our presentation. This year, we plan to change that. When our team was solely FLL, we practiced our presentations beforehand, so, we're applying that to this year. We've done 2-3 presentations so far and it seems it really helps us. As well, we're making a powerpoint presentation to assist us, giving us information we might forget and providing a visual aid. We also have a basic outline we're following.

Reflections

We still need to practice our presentation, as we all aren't great actors like Evan and Jayesh. As well, the making of the powerpoint presentation showed me just how much we need to focus on documenting our work and outreach activities.I hope, by tournament time, that our presentation will be ready.

Task: Analyze our successes and failures in the previous competition

After a rocky start and finish to our first qualifier yesterday we took today to have fun as a team and look at how we could improve for our next chance.

Reflections

Most of our -Need To Do's- are related to becoming more confident with the various tasks that we'll be doing in the pits and during competition. Since we found out about our dead servo 1-2 days after it died, it's obvious we need to have a more rigorous and regular testing program before matches.

We need to have a pre-flight test program or a short demo that allows the driver, or any member of the team optimally, to test all functions of the robot after the day ends and before the tournament starts. It would be ideal to have a short version of this program to test before each match in the Queue. This would allow us to check if everything is working early on so we have a chance to fix it, or be able to strategize with our alliance if something unexpectedly breaks.

Our pit crew needs to practice repairs. We had a LOT of trouble trying to fix our robot in the various errors we encountered during the competition. During testing, we broke a couple of our tread pieces and luckily we were able to borrow some treads from another team. However, it took nearly an entire match for us to replace a broken servo for our climber, and gettig it re-aligned took eve longer with the robot. We need to bring backups of our major parts in case of a failure like that again

During yesterday's competition we didn't do any autonomous because of our back plate and the lack of testing on the existing code. We feel that we would have had a real shot at the higher awards if we had something in place, even if untested and basic. The Innovate team of judges seemed really impressed by our color-blob detection and robot in general really, but we didn't have a program to tie together our tests. This was a major deciding factor. Our autonomous is always our weak spot in matches, and can play a huge role in setting teams apart

So as I've made changes to the blog I've realized that not everyone understands the little rules or guidelines I've made, but never quite explained. Following is a mock post, the content is a guide on what to put in each section.

Frontmatter:

Task: a restatement of the title, or a more specific description of what you worked on

Why is this task necessary, what were the previous iterations, and why did we move away from that? How do you think the new iteration will work? How did you start

Reflections

This should be the largest section. How did it work out? What steps did you go through, and what did you find while working. Did you hit any snags or find out anything interesting?

Extra Notes!

Task: To review our last tournament

Beginnings

Due to the team taking a bus with Imperial Robotics, we arrived to the competition a little late. However, due to an organizer running late, the competition itself was delayed, so we weren't significantly affected. Like last time, we had trouble finding a power outlet that we could set up our battery box near, but it turned out there were a couple nearby. We were once again set up right next to Imperial, so we helped each other out while getting ready for the announcement of the match schedule.

Judging Session

The judges seemed to have been quite impressed at our presentation, and asked us quite a few questions about our engineering process, something we made sure to highlight. Unbeknownst to us, this would later win us the qualifier's Think award.

Scouting

We kept using our scouting strategies this tournament, and kept multiple spreadsheets.

Dylan and Alisa walked around interviewing teams and watching their matches to log strengths and weaknesses. The spreadsheets they created helped us think about strategies for matches and to decide who to look for possible alliance partners during the finals. Due to multiple mistakes, we ended up 32nd place out of 32! Our failures consisted mostly of connection issues with the phone and mechanical power distribution issues with our cliffhanger servo. Getting our robot working at the end of our regular matches, we impressed many visiting teams with our climbing efficiency. Using a video of our robot's capabilities, Dylan and Alisa convinced the first seed team to select us for their alliance.

Games

Even before the games, we were nearly disqualified twice due to our robot barely fitting in the sizing box and our beater bars being called an "entanglement hazard."
First Game: We got stuck on blocks our very first match. Then, when we got to the mountain, we didn't have enough time to try to make it to the top. Our servo got caught on something and was somewhat damaged.
Second Game: Our robot lost connection as soon as we started driving.
Third Game: Our servos continually twitched, so we tried to do a power cycle, but the judges had never asked if we were ready or not and dumped the debris, so we couldn't touch the robot by that time.
Fourth Game: We got there late and the judges did not allow us to touch our controller.
Fifth Game: We got teamed up with Imperial. We actually won that one by climbing the mountain while Imperial cleared the debris.
In the alliance matches, we were partnered with The Fighting Pickles and Synergy. Semi-final Game 1: We got to the mid zone and our alliance parter got to the cliff. Synergy also placed a bunch of blocks in the mountain mid goal.
Semi Final Game 2: We were switched out for the Pickles this game. Synergy got into the high zone and the Pickles hung off the mountain, giving us a blowout win. So overall, we got 3 wins in the tournament. In our final matches, we experienced much the same result, except for our robot getting into the high zone in our game. Pickles and Synergy wrapped up game 2, giving us first place alliance.

Awards Ceremony

We got the Think award for our engineering process slides, a third place Inspire award for our outreach, mostly for this slide

Task: Discuss future goals and fixes needed to succeed at regionals and beyond

In the week following the competition, a Google document was made to discuss sections of building the team can improve on before the regional tournament. There was an outline made where every team member applied to certain sections that they felt needed to be improved upon. The different sections included robot chassis, the presentation, and game strategy. Members voted on item to be improved upon first, considering the benefits or risks of implementation in play, similar to the team's overall idea system. There was emphasis put on the autonomous of the robot and fixing our block intake and deposit system.

Reflections

Iron Reign's engineering process lets the team collectively decide on which tasks to prioritize. A collective document gives us the ability to save time in discussion during a practice and refine our ideas. Our plan currently is to have a better autonomous by dumping the climbers, pushing the button, and attempting to scale the mountain. For the robot, we are planning to focus improving our block intake and dumping system so we can get more points than just climbing the mountain. The team now has laid out list of tasks to focus on to prepare for the regional tournament at UTA.

Nolan Tournament

Post-mortem

We have 1 weekend to get it right!

Iron Reign

INTRO

While we had a great tournament, we had major fails on the robot itself and still have a lot of room for presentation improvements. We have 2 weekends to fix everything and it does not seem like enough time.  Since a majority of us were too tired to meet on Sunday (completely understandable), we need to do some of our post-mortem analysis online.  So every team member must contribute to this document or at least read it.  Be sure to check-in by adding your name to the bottom section. This is additive - you may not delete anything written by other team members.

PROCEDURE

1. Read the entire document
2. Add notes or add rows when you see anything missing from the review
3. Add your initials in the VOTE column if you want to be part of the solution to the particular problem
4. Sign-in at the bottom to show that you at least read the document

ROBOT - Chassis

ROBOT - CliffHanger

ROBOT - BEATER BAR

ROBOT - DRIVER SUPPORT (reduce demands on driver)

ROBOT - AUTONOMOUS

ROBOT - Missing Features

PRESENTATION

Tournament Prep & Protocols

Check In

Task: Go through presentation with Mr. Gilkes

Our mentor Mr. Gilkes was kind enough to listen to us do a rough presentation run-through at practice. We hadn't looked at the presentation since the competition 2 weeks ago, and it was pretty obvious we were under-practiced. We swiped through the slides before starting to get our bearings.

Reflections

We started by making sure everyone knew their cues, and had a short flip through before a mock presentation. Throughout the presentation Mr. Gilkes gave us advice on specific aspects of our presentation, such as adding detail on the PID slide, making sure we use the words "integral" and "derivative" to get the judge's attention, maintaining eye-contact throughout, and making sure to point to the robot when discussing parts.

While the specifics were extremely helpful, this exercise showed us that we were extremely out of practice. Many of us left out the most important parts of our slides, like Tycho and the important uses of modelling the robot, Jayesh and how the professional engineers at our Gyro talk gave us tips on IMU's in our price range, etc. It was our presentation that won us the Think award last competition, and it's important we keep our delivery as accurate and on-point as possible.

Task: Review the events that occurred at the FTC Regional Championship

Link to postmortem document

Iron Reign had a fairly successful run at our regional tourament, much more so compared to last year. Despite reaching the semi-finals, we were unable to advance past the competition to super-regionals. We had many strengths of ours shown through the day, but also committed errors that inevitably caused our loss at the end. At the judges meeting, we did a decent job of eplaining our value as a team to the judges but committed a huge error in not showing demonstrations on our robot and videos over its functions. This made our presentation have less of an impact in that the points we were making had no empirical vale because there were no real world examples to what we were saying that the judges could see. We were pretty successful in the robot game, holding the first position in the rankings for the majority of the tournament. Going into our third match, a weird error caused our robot to not transfer power from the battery to the robot system and disqualified us from the game. In our last match the error persisted and didn't allow us to climb the mountain, which was our main source of points and we ended up outside of the top four teams. In the selection of alliance partners, we were wanted by the first and second place alliances for second pick but were picked up by the fourth place alliance first pick. Through our match with the first place alliance, we lost by a small margin and our other partner with our alliance captain were blown out in the second match, taking us out of the tournament.

Reflections

We had much more success in our regional tournament this year compared to last year, but our luck wasn't with us this year as a few small errors prevented us from moving on to super-regionals. We now look forward to the UIL tournament and will continue holding practices to prepare for that competition in the summer. Some errors we must look at are in ensuring the prevention of random errors in the robot for the game and tightening up our presentation to both convey our team value and provide real-world example to the judges to help connect the two aspects of the team. This will give us a much better chance to succeed in both the robot game, both scoring blocks and climbing the ramp, and help show the judges how are team works and has overall strength compared to other teams. Learning from our mistakes at regionals, we will grow and look to have great success at UIL.

Task: Show both adults and children benefits of robotics and past work of the team

Iron Reign was invited to present at the annual Fort Worth Maker Fest at the city's Museum of Science. We spent the day showing off our competition bots and other robots that we have created over the years. People were especially interested in our innovation with climbing the mountain and using simple every day objects like tape measures to carry our huge and heavy robot up several feet. We were approached by multiple adults with robotics experience, even one of our previous judges, and were told of how they were impressed with our level of expertise. We also fascinated multiple children with the robotics, with their enthusiasm in trying out the bot in a few mini games and seeing our other robots, such as the balancing robot, hopefully opened their eyes up to possibly pursuing STEM careers in their futures.

Reflections

Our opportunity at the Maker Fest to present to multiple generations of passers-by helped us appreciate the level of robotics knowledge and technique that we have acquired over the years, both as individuals and as a group. To be praised by both professionals in the field and see the level of interest we imparted to multiple children, we recognized that what we have done and will continue doing has meaning, not just for us, but for our community. We had some fun adventures at the museum, including an intense discussion of the DC and Marvel Universes with a few of our booth neighbours and balancing Kibosh on a hover board while attempting to steer(future content incoming).

Task: Try to drive the hoverboard with the competition bot

In the middle of Saturday's event we decided it would be a GREAT idea to put the competiton robot on the hoverboard and try to drive it around. Theoretically if we got it centered correctly it could only drive forward and backwards. We could extend the cliff hanger to move our center of gravity forwards, and then retract to bring it back.

Reflections

We were able to make the board speed up by tilting the cliff-hanger out and extending it, but we couldn't control it enough to completely stop it or keep it steady. We believe that the robot frame isn't completely rigid and is torquing at the center, making the robot unbalanced left/right. Since it's only slightly off balance we can't really adjust it by hand. It seems doomed to drive in circles forever. We tried to turn the robot to a correct alignment by driving with the main treads a little, but the change in center of gravity was too dramatic. The robot quickly veered into Evan, who was sitting nearby.

Task: Continue presenting at iMake

Day 1 was a huge success, and we carried that over into the Sunday presentations too. There were a lot of common questions we noticed from Saturday, including levels of robotics competitions and the LEGO EV3 system, and we were able to answer these with more clarity after hearing them so often. A few papers were set up on our table outlining the various FIRST competition levels. These helped us easily reference the multiple acronyms FIRST uses for everything, which can be confusing to anyone who hasn't known and competed under them since they were 11 years old.

Reflections

Like Saturday, we interacted with what felt like a constant stream of people. Many were families with kids in elementary and middle school with varying experience in robotics. Some kids had competed in FLL or knew those who had, while others hadn't heard of the systems before. The balancing bot "Gyro Boy" was a good attention grabber when the main FTC bot wasn't doing anything, and it was helpful to compare the two, how Gyro Boy used graphical programming and was completely autonomous, while the main bot used a text language but was controlled by a driver. This almost immediately prompted the kids to ask if they could drive, and Omar showed them the ropes. Younger kids were only shown the drive controls, while the older ones could be taught some of the more interesting tape measure commands. Since the hand was still taped onto the cliff hook many took the opportunity to wave to their siblings and gave high fives to anyone near. However, the robot seemed to be disconnecting more often than it had Saturday, and was hidden to the side so it wouldn't be asked about.

When we brought out Argos, the color following robot, it seemed like every other volunteer took a minute or two to pick up the target and watch the camera follow the movements. Tycho, Max, and Omar traded off on the controls and occasionally let Argos drive too, in order to show how he could back up when too close, and catch up when lagging. It had taken us the beginning of the day to fix the phone mount, but the extra effort was definitely worth it. However unwieldy Argos may be (he is definitely suited to outdoor/large open area events) he is definitely a crowd pleaser.

Let's assume you are building a LEGO Mindstorms or Vex IQ based Sumobot, but you want to skip some of the basic mistakes beginners will make. Here are some tips and tricks.

• Know the rules. It's silly to get disqualified because you didn't pay attention to the rules. Know the size and weight limits. Know the allowed construction materials and techniques. Know the startup behaviors. For example, your robot must not move for 5 seconds after you activate it. This simple rule has tripped up many competitors. And make sure you get to the competition on time to register and get your robot inspected for weight, size and any other requirements.
• Stay on the field. For this you will almost certainly need at least one light sensor to detect the ring's white edge. We highly recommend two such light sensors placed at the front corners of your robot. This will increase your chances of detecting the edge when coming at it from an angle. You can also adjust your retreat behavior so the robot will be less likely to exit the ring. A retreat behavior usually consists of backing up and turning back toward the center of the ring or scanning for your opponent. You can back up curving away from the sensor that detected the edge first. A third edge detector could be placed at the back of your robot - but this is almost never needed. It would be only useful if you have a behavior that could trigger backing up when the rear of your robot is close to the edge. Theoretically you could detect the edge when being pushed backward by your opponent and try to twist out of the way, but we've never witnessed anyone pulling off this advanced behavior.
• Build to the maximum weight for the competition. If your bot is heavier than your competitor's, you will have an advantage in traction and with inertia. You will be harder to push around and can more likely push them around. We've seen teams use extra unpowered motors to help maximize weight. Use a scale to be sure you don't exceed the allowed weight.
• Build compact. Your robot should be as small and dense as possible. Air gaps within your robot and on the exterior should be kept to a minimum. The larger your robot is, the more likely that your opponent will contact a part of your robot far from its center of mass. When it pushes against this part, it will very easily turn your robot in a different direction. Most likely this will be to your disadvantage. You will also be very unlikely to push your opponent in the correct direction when in this condition. Also, the rules say that the first robot to have any part touch the surface that the ring is sitting on is out. If you have a large robot, it is much more likely that part of it will touch-out.
• Build Low. The lower your center of gravity, the less likely your opponent will be able to topple you or force your wheels to lose traction.
• Build a Skirt or Shield. A Sumo Shield is a smooth ramp that decends from the front of your robot down to the surface of the ring. The purpose is to create a wedge that will go under your opponent when you come into contact. The wedge will lift your opponent, transferring their weight to your robot. As a result your wheels can increase traction while theirs will decrease. A skirt is a shield that surrounds your entire robot, making it look like a cone or pyramid, so it works wherever the contact point is. But a skirt can be much harder to engineer. They have to be very sturdy, not impede your own movement, and not get in the way of any sensors you might use. Skirts and Shields also increase the size of your robot, so you have more risk of touching-out. Particularly if you have a hinged shield. Hinged shields are great for staying as low as possible to get under your opponent, but they need to be prevented from dropping down when over the edge of the ring. A floating skirt is a wall built around your robot that is only loosely connected or not connected at all to your robot. Instead your robot pushes the skirt around the ring and the skirt's weight keeps it flat against the floor. This makes it unlikely that your robot's motions will create a gap that your opponent can get under. And if your opponent does get under the skirt, they haven't necessarily started lifting your robot to steal traction. You could also have a sensor that detects if your skirt is lifting and back away when that happens.

We've seen well-engineered robots with only edge sensors win big competitions. A solid, heavy and low robot with a great skirt will conquer when none of its opponents has the same features. Once you are in this category you can consider advanced tips.

• Locate your prey. Actively seeking your opponent creates an advantage. It's also fun. Usually a forward-facing ultrasonic sensor is a good choice. You can scan for your opponent by making your robot turn in place while checking the sensor to see if it detects something close. Calculate the maximum distance your opponent can be from your ultrasonic sensor. Simply place your robot backed up to the edge of the ring and measure the distance from the front of your ultrasonic sensor to the opposite edge of the ring. Subtract the minimum size of an opposing robot. For LEGO sumos that would be about 6 in. or 15 cm. If you see anything closer than this you can assume that you've detected your opponent. (Or you've detected humans if you've failed to keep everyone at a proper clearing distance from the ring, including the operators) Continue your turn for a fraction of a second and turn on your charging behavior. Make sure you are aware of the minimum distance your sensor can deal with. You will probably want to recess your sensor from the front of your robot so that it will continue to register your opponent even when you are right up against each other.
• Organize your software. Beginners will often design software that will do one thing at a time and be unable to react until those things are complete. For example, on detecting an opponent, charge for X rotations of the wheel. While the robot is trying to complete those rotations it's not looking at sensors, so it doesn't detect the ring and drives off if it was too close to the edge. We will post a complete lesson on designing software that always lets the highest priority behaviors (back-away-from-the-edge) interrupt the lower priority behaviors (scan-for-prey).

LEGO Sumo returns with a free Sumo Workshop on Sunday April 24th followed by the Dallas Personal Robotics Group's Roborama Sumobot competition at the Dallas Makerspace on May 14th.

Here's what the competition looks like:

A basic sumobot is a simple build. Here is an example to get you started: http://nxtprograms.com/mini_sumo/steps.html

If you have multiple NXTs or EV3s, then your team could make multiple sumobots. Typically 1, 2 or 3 students will work together on a sumobot entry. Start by making your robot charge forward while staying in the ring. If you get that working take the next step and add an ultrasonic to hunt your opponent. Plastic Fastener (LEGO or VexIQ) Sumobots need to fit within a 1 foot square footprint and weigh under 1200 grams. Full rules can be found here: https://dprgblog.wordpress.com/rules/

Teams are also encouraged to consider the novice line-following competition in the same rules document. Students compete in Roborama for free. Prizes include full robot kits. There is room for only 40 sumo robots, so please register soon: https://dprgblog.wordpress.com/pre-registration/

Come to the Sumobot Workshop Sunday April 24th from noon to 4pm at the Dallas Makerspace. DPRG members and members of FTC Team Iron Reign will be hosting an open sumo workshop at the Dallas Makerspace in Carrollton (map). Bring your sumobot, parts and laptop and you will find help with build and programming. Sumo rings will be provided. Line following help will also be available. An adult needs to accompany and remain with each team of students - this is not a drop-off activity, but parents can tour the Makerspace. If you can't make the workshop, at least check out our Sumobot Tips and Tricks. Add to calendar

And don't forget the competition itself on Saturday May 14th from 10am to 4pm: https://dprgblog.wordpress.com/

Task: Redo the inside of the recreational vehicle

Mr.Virani recently aquired an RV so it could be used as a mobile learning center for the Dallas City of Learning this summer. To convert it from someplace you might live on a long road trip to somewhere you could teach science and technology to children means stripping out carpeting, removing walls, and laying down easily cleanable floors and standing height work benches. We also have to put in a lot of computer equipment and 3D printers that Big Thought is providing. It's going to be a long proccess.

Max and Tycho have completed a lot of demolition. They've removed the bed revealing a strange trap door that we need to look under. The table and chairs are gone as are some of the cabinets. The sofa was metal framed and too big to move out of the door or windows, so they had to cut it apart with bolt cutters and grinders. They ripped out most of the bathroom relying on the big sawzall. The mess of remaining plumbing and exposed electrical wiring looks very scary. And the pile of demoed materials has already grown quite a large:

Task: Teaching children how to use robots

On 18 June, we went to the J. Erik Jonsson Library to inspire children to hopefully go into STEM-related careers. We were invited for their annual City of Learning event. We talked to about 200 people about robotics and most loved it - especially children. We showed them Minion, Argos, the ball-flipper, and Geb (the new name for our FTC bot).

Reflections

We got a good amount of people and got a good amount of kids interested in our robots. It was fun to talk with the other vendors at the fair, interested parents, and hobbyists.

Task: Clean the roof of the RV

We'd noticed that the roof was very grimey looking from the small strip you could see at the top of the side walls, but we hadn't been up there to look at it. Finally climbing the ladder we confirmed it. The roof is a very dark brown. We believe it is simply dirt that has caked into the sticky/gummy surface. It's probably not supposed to be so sticky - it kind of seems like a layer of decaying caulk laid over the rubber roof. We confirmed that this layer should be white. It covers the black EPDM rubber roof that serves as a weather barrier. Because the roof is so dark, it absorbs tons of sunlight, making it much hotter inside. We needed to clean it.

So we spent today powerwashing the roof. In the morning Matthew (from SEM's FRC team) came over with his father's power washer and we got about 1/2 of the roof partially clean. When Matthew had to leave at noon, Mr. Virani purchased another more powerful washer and we continued washing until dark. Austin, from the other FTC team at our school joined us in the early afternoon. So now all three robotics teams at SEM have contributed time to the mobile learning lab.

Here you can see the dramatic difference that powerwashing has made. We hope this will cool the vehicle enough that we can operate with only the roof airconditioners so we can turn off the main engine while on station.

Carpet ripping is not fun. The carpet is tacked down with so many staples that is is not easy to remove. It tends to rip around the stables leaving nubs of fibers and then we have to attack the stables with pliers and staple pullers. Getting it out from under the edges of walls and the slide out is really hard. And we've gouged the subfloor where removing the old kitchen and bathroom vinyl required heavy work with scrapers. We tried putting down some vinyl planks, and those are much tougher to work with than you might guess. We only got a small portion of the floor demoed today. It's kind of daunting how much work this is. In the end it will be all worth it because we will have provided a place for children to learn skills that will help them in their future working lives.

Task: Covert a 1998 RV into the Dallas City of Learning Lab

The RV exterior

to

The RV interior

to

A full tour of the RV pre-renovation can be found here.

Changes

• Removed restroom
• Replaced carpet with laminate
• Added widescreen TVs
• Added black workbenches
• Removed table
• Removed cabinet to make room for more technology
• Removed some 90s decor
• Removed bedside tables and cabinets
• Added 3D printer
• Removed bed
• Removed couch
• Removed 90s decals
• Added shelving
• Cleaned a decade of muck off of it

Reflections

We've put in >250 hours working on this RV. It's going to become a mobile robotics lab so that we can inspire kids to enter STEM-related careers and hobbies. Uaing this van, the team can reach out to children who otherwise would not have the oppurtunity to learn how to build and program robots, as well as gaining skills related to that, such as using a 3D printer.

DCOL Mobile Tech XPerience (MXP) Begins Service

Written by Jayesh Sharma
Edited by Lin Rogers

Iron Reign has been actively supporting Dallas City of Learning (DCoL) for a few years now. Big Thought (managing partner for DCoL) received a grant from Best Buy to support STEM learning over the summer by taking STEM opportunities into communities so that kids with reduced access to transportation wouldn't be left out. The original idea was to pack a cargo van with technology that could be dropped off at community centers, libraries, schools, churches and other public facilities where kids could experiment with tools and technologies that would'nt normally be available.

But Big Thought, true to the name, decided to scale up the vehicle into a true mobile learning laboratory. Because the budget remained tight, they needed to create a mobile classroom on a shoestring. So the new idea was to repurpose a used RV large enough so that 12 students could productively work on board while many more could participate inside the visited location. While Big Thought handled putting a sweet new skin on the vehicle, we volunteered our time to renovate the interior.

When we received the vehicle, it was cramped on the inside, with everything needed for a portable family living space. We removed a bed, couch, and restroom (complete with bathtub) and opened the space up for more gadgets. We tore out extra cabinets, shelving, tables, chairs, light fixures and mirrors. We ripped out the old carpet and replaced it with wood-grain vinyl, installed wide screen instructor's monitors over the driver's seat, added work benches along the perimeter and created a bay to hold four 3D printers. Max is still working on a 3D print server so that the printers can be access through the on-board wifi. We spent a whole day power-washing the roof to reveal the original white surface that could reflect away more of the sunlight so the air conditioners would have a chance against the Texas summer heat. On the inside we painted the walls and cabinets black and added diamond plate trim and LED lighting to give it a tech/industrial feel.

Including the time it took to clean about a decade’s worth of grime and dust, the team has put one and a half months and over 350 person hours of work into this vehicle, resulting in the mobile technology lab that went into service last Thursday. Throughout the course of renovating this vehicle, we affirmed the value that STEM education has for our society. Our building experience with robotics was a great advantage when working on the RV’s design and construction. The team’s engineering and design skills were put to the test and our efforts have been very kindly received. The team will continue to help DCoL spread STEM opportunities and values to those who otherwise wouldn’t have had access to them. Next Saturday we'll be going back to the Frontiers of Flight Museum to staff the vehicle for the DCOL Turn-Up there. We hear the vehicle will be pulled inside the hanger. Museum admission is free that day, we hope to see you there!

Inspiring 1,000 People to Turn Up with STEM

Written by Janavi Chadha

The Dallas City of Learning Organization held a Turn Up event at the Frontiers of Flight Museum, where we staffed the Mobile XPerience (MXP) complete with laptops, 3D printers, and LEGO SumoBots. Outside the vehicle, Lin and I taught kids how to create 3D models of houses using SketchUp. Then we let the kids bring their designs to life by designing and 3D-Printing keychains.

Out to the side of the MXP, we set up a ring for the sumo lego robots to battle in, teaching the kids how robots can be programmed to react to the world around them. Jayesh, Omar and Darshan manned that station and also demonstrated our FTC competition robot.

Omar ran minion (our robot walking companion) around the museum Pied-Piper fashion, leading kids back to our activity stations in and around the vehicle. On the way he taught kids to operate the robot with its touch and rotation sensor based leash. At one point he took minion over to challenge the airport's 700lb bomb disposal robot. That robot was not impressed.

A few more pics of the MXP in the museum while we are striking the exhibit:

Person-hours note: The night before Max and Tycho spent 5 hours getting the vehicle ready.

Task: Deploy the Mobile Learning Lab to camps and teach kids

The RV has been fully remodeled and set up with netbooks and 3D printers, so we have been making the rounds and teaching at camps and events. We try to limit the number of kids on board to under 15 or 12 for safety reasons. It'd be nearly impossible to fit more kids and be able to effectively teach.

Reflections

When we first drove up to one deployment of the RV there were a lot of kids staring, because honestly who wouldn't; the RV is huge and bright. We couldn't set up fast enough before people wanted to come inside. We split the group into modelling and robotics and got started. In the back, robotics kits were scattered on the floor, and groups of two or three were following a video to build a 5 minute bot (it generally took them longer though). When the bots were built we had a crash course in the EV3 programming environment and helped them think analytically about how they wanted the robots to behave when on different sections of the sumo. We didn't give them a program to use, they told us what to put. The result? An exciting free for all complete with screaming cheers and flipping of bots (video above).

Max and I led the modelling with the basic "build a house" tutorial below. After they got the hang of that we set the software sizing up so they could make a keychain and print it. Some people got really into their house and ended up emailing the file to themselves to continue later.

Task: Compete in UIL Robotics in Austin

A bit of background:
UIL is a Texas-specific organization that hosts competitions in both academic and athletic pursuits. This year, they ran a pilot program for Robotics, using the FTC rules and field from Res-Q. About 72 teams competed in the FTC-based competition, which then was split into two catagories. Unlike regular FIRST tournaments, the awards not earned by competition are given through nomination by other teams.

• Mentor Recognition Award
• Leadership Award
• Creativity in Design Award
• Gracious Professionalism Award
• Play of the Day Award
• Safety Award
• Team Spirit Award

• Bringing one of the 3D printers inside and printing parts
• Making a last-minute climber-holder
• A bird flying into the convention center
• Our presentation computer updating to Windows 10
• Our robot falling off the mountain

On Friday, we were not picked to be in the final matches, and unfortunately, we were not picked for any awards. We did, however, meet up with our school's FRC team and say hi, as their competition was starting. After the awards ceremony, we decided to leave. On the way back to the hotel, we noticed the Texas Workforce Commission building, which is one of our sponsors. So, we parked our RV up by the side of the building, and walked in. We talked to the receptionist, and within a few minutes, one of the TWC execs came down to talk to us and take pictures. We gave them a tour of our RV as well, and they seemed impressed, even if it was in post-tournament disarray.

Commissioner Hughs visited with the @FIRSTinTexas Robotics @team6832 today to discuss the #UILRobotics #robotroundup pic.twitter.com/ZhOlTngI9h

— TXWorkforce (@TXWorkforce) July 29, 2016

Reflections

While this tournament was not our best tournament by a margin the size of the Mongol Empire circa 1279 C.E., we were able to interact with teams in Texas that we normally would not have, get exposure for the MXP all the way down I35, and talk to our one of our sponsors in person. As well, it gave us experience for the future and was a great teambuilding activity. If we get invited to UIL next year, we know what to do to win.

Task: Connect with our sponsors in the Texas Workforce Commission

Commissioner Hughs visited with the @FIRSTinTexas Robotics @team6832 today to discuss the #UILRobotics #robotroundup pic.twitter.com/ZhOlTngI9h

— TXWorkforce (@TXWorkforce) July 29, 2016

Reflections

Getting the opportunity to meet with one of the larger organizations in Texas was very educational for us. While we helped the Commission better understand the investment they've made in FIRST, we also learned yet another aspect of our future in the American workforce. The connection we built with the Commission emphasized the role of STEM and robotics in our future. Driving the robot around, while showing off the multiple components on it, we gave the officials plenty to think about in terms of future opportunities. We hope to take the lessons learned at the TWC and use it to build on our future endeavors. Thank you to the TWC for having us!

Task:

This week we met to discuss the origination of the meetings for the upcoming year. We decided that for the first fifteen minutes of the meeting we would outline our plans for the meeting. Then during our lunch break we would get together once again to discuss the progress that we have made and what we will move onto by the end of the meeting . By structuring our meetings we will be able accomplish more in the same amount of time and at the end of the season we will be able to better analyse our accomplishments.

Reflections

Organization has always been a challenge for Iron Reign and we hope that by doing this we will be able to eliminate any periods of time during the meeting where people don't know what work they should do.

Task: Go to the FTC 2016 Kickoff to preview the new Velocity Vortex challenge

This Saturday, we ventured down to UTD to watch the unveiling of the new FTC challenge, and collaborate with other teams. The main change we noticed is that this year, it seems like there is a greater emphasis on league play instead of just doing a qualifier. To go to regionals, there seem to be three options:

1. Do league play and go to one qualifier
2. Do league play only
3. Go to two qualifiers (But you may have to give up your spot to other teams)

• Adding the Nexus 5 to the list of approved phones
• New(hopefully less buggy) version of the FTC controller app
• Ambiguous rule about not damaging the field
• Red/Yellow card penalty system

• Standing at the ramp and circulating particles around it
• Beacon defense - it seems to be the easiest way to get a lot of points
• Capping the "vortex" with the yoga ball
• Spinning the vortices around so fast that no team can score

Reflections

This year's challenge requires us to "think outside the box" in order to progress. As well, we really need to work fast, as if we do league play, the competitions happen sooner that the traditional qualifiers.

Task: Pull ourselves together for the new season

At this practice, our goal was to get everybody familliar with this year's game, Velocity Vortex, and to brainstorm some ideas for this year's robot. Some organization also needed to be done in terms of parts (everything is everywhere and nowhere at the same time) and also in terms of this year's meeting structure. Last year was somewhat unfocused and chaotic and we need to get a better grasp of things.

Reflections

We managed to get a decent amount done today. Jayesh described our new meeting structure: we begin with a group discussion of what we'd be doing that day, then would separate and work, then around mid-meeting we'd eat some food and while doing so talk about what we've done, then separate again and continue working. Hopefully we're able to stick to this schedule.

Jayesh and I also made a small table of possible wheel base options, such as using either Mecanum wheels or returning to the omni-wheels of yore. Evan and Darshan disassembled the mountain from last year's field and put it outside near our tent. We discussed several things, such as some interesting rules about how our robot will not be able to grasp onto any part of the center structure, and therefore could not stop it from rotating by doing so. We also discussed League play, and it's advantages/disadvantages. A large weakness of ours is lack of testing, and these League meets would definitely let us get some more practice in before the big qualifiers.

Evan and Tycho both tried to explain designs for this year's robot that they'd thought up. Evan, by using some loopholes in the rules, designed the premise for a robot that would park itself right in front of our Corner Vortex, having with it at least two Particles, and would cycle them through the Vortex over and over again. Even though each Particle that goes through would only be worth a point, Evan argues that these will add up since his design will be quick at cycling. Tycho's idea focuses instead on the Center Vortex; he explained that his robot would have ball intakes on opposite sides of the robot so direction wouldn't matter (unlike last year's robot, Geb), and would have some sort of mechanism in the center of the robot that would shoot Particles up and through the Center Vortex. So far, most of us are aligning more on Tycho's side of the design wars, but Evan's persistence might win us over. Who knows.

One other thing Jayesh, Evan and I decided on (question mark?) is a general plan for this year's autonomous that we 100% need to work on to be successful: the robot will hit the beacon buttons, then move to the center of the field, hit the cap ball out of the center, then park in the center (not neccessarily fully). We thought this was realistically possible given the time that we have until competition.

Task: Design and test implementation of a driving base

We have spent the last few practices formulating a new driving base for our robot this year. We went through various possibilities: tank-based drive using both tracks and the omni-regular system (both of which are systems that we have utilized in previous years). However, both systems showed inefficiencies with this year's competition. We decided to go to a system using mainly Mecanum Wheels, complemented by an extrusion-based attachment system.

Reflections:

Task: Add Cool and New Blog Features

I remember, vaguely, that someone on our team wanted to add a post counter for all the posts people appear in. And, today, I did it out of sheer boredom. And, here it is.

{% assign eh = 1 %}
{% assign dc = 1 %}
{% assign ed = 1 %}
{% assign or = 1 %}
{% assign js = 1 %}
{% assign cr = 1 %}
{% assign dp = 1 %}
{% assign mv = 1 %}
{% assign tv = 1 %}
{% assign jc = 1 %}
{% assign inc = 1 %}
{% for post in site.posts %}
  {% for name in post.rollcall %}
    {% if name == "Ethan" %}
      {% assign eh = eh | plus: 1 %}
    {% endif %}
    {% if name == "Dylan" %}
      {% assign dc = dc | plus: 1 %}
    {% endif %}
    {% if name == "Evan" %}
      {% assign ed = ed | plus: 1 %}
    {% endif %}
    {% if name == "Omar" %}
      {% assign or = or | plus: 1 %}
    {% endif %}
    {% if name == "Jayesh" %}
      {% assign js = js | plus: 1 %}
    {% endif %}
    {% if name == "Lin" %}
      {% assign cr = cr | plus: 1 %}     {% endif %}
    {% if name == "Darshan" %}
      {% assign dp = dp | plus: 1 %}
    {% endif %}
    {% if name == "Max" %}
      {% assign mv = mv | plus: 1 %}
    {% endif %}
    {% if name == "Tycho" %}
      {% assign tv = tv | plus: 1 %}
    {% endif %}
    {% if name == "Janavi" %}
      {% assign jc = jc | plus: 1 %}
    {% endif %}
  {% endfor %}
  {% assign inc = inc | plus: 1 %}
{% endfor %}
<ul>
  <li> Dylan Chorley - in {{dc}} posts</li>
  <li> Evan Daane - in {{ed}} posts</li>
  <li> Ethan Helfman - in {{eh}} posts</li>
  <li> Omar Ramirez - in {{or}} posts</li>
  <li> Lin Rogers - in {{cr}} posts</li>
  <li> Jayesh Sharma - in {{js}} posts</li>
  <li> Darshan Patel - in {{dp}} posts</li>
  <li> Maximillian Virani - in {{mv}} posts</li>
  <li> Tycho Virani - in {{tv}} posts</li>
  <li> Janavi Chadha - in {{jc}} posts</li>
</ul>

Now, this is not obviously the best code, there's probably a more efficient way than creating one variable per person. But, it works.
We've been making improvements on the site since the season began - changing the theme, Lin's commits that updated the blog for the new season, and purging old member bios from the team, just like how Stalin purged political dissidents from pictures and sent them to gulags.

Edit: We now have a Iron Reign stats page! We have spent a solid two hours debugging this so please appreciate it. We addded Austin, and cumulative personhours for team members and Iron Reign as a whole.

Reflections

We still need to work on the blog. At least for my computer, it takes a long time to load the actual site as it loads every single post made, so I'd like to add pagination. As well, I'd personally want to add a second theme for very easy readability, something like this.

Task: To talk to prospective SEM students about robotics

Every year W.B. Travis, a 4-8 has an open house for magnet schools to attend and convince students that $school1 is better than $school2. And, since it is Iron Reign's former school, we attend and try to pull students SEM. We present to about 5 groups and field questions from parents.

Unsurprisingly, we ran into issues, just like we always do. First, our chain kept on falling off of our new robot as we had forgotten to re-enforce the motor and wheel mounts. So, while our robot was still impressive, it was a bit disappointing. Second, we had our color-following robot, but we had forgotten the controller phone. Despite all this, Jayesh gave a great presentation to the prospective freshmen.

Reflections

Task: Reduce clutter from summer

We made real progress in sorting the good and dead batteries after UIL, and we've streamlined the charging process. The phones are harder to charge because their cords can disconnect without warning, and they slide around more. If we don't want to waste time in competition, it's important we make the system easy to use and reliable. Janavi and I worked on Powerpole-ing the last few batteries so we could test and charge them, and I made something like a file cabinet for the phones to rest in.

Reflections

The battery box already has some internal organization, charged batteries in a separate box, to-be-charged in the main section. The phones seem like they'd be easy to keep at maximum, but we've noticed that their cords aren't as reliable, even if we have multiple. Stacking the phones works to keep them charging in a smaller space, but if one in the middle disconnects we can't tell which. Then we have to reconnect each one while listening for a disconnect tone to sound. I used some extra prototyping cardboard to make a row of slots for the phones so we could charge them without them affecting each other. Hopefully this will survive the travel stress and

Task: Stablize Meccanum wheel base so the driving is more stable and consistent

Our Meccanum wheel base idea started off on a shaky note. While we had a good amount of success in the tass we wanted to complete, like driving right or let without turning the entire robot, including the basic driving functions. However, as we went on with testing, we found that over time, the force the meccanum wheels were exerting on the chain was actually causing the motors driving the chains to come inwards. This was thereby loosening the chain and weakening their effect on the driving chassis. To fix this, we decided to mount angled beams between the motor and Meccanum wheels to stabilize and prevent the motion. We then further strengthened the system by 3D printing trapezoid-shaped mounts that have more surface area and strength to stabilize the system.

Reflections

As we go on improving the robot, we keep finding that our new designs have an incredible amount of errors and small bugs that need to be looked at before moving on to the next big design. Now that we have a stable and relatively reliable driving base, we can now focus our attentions to the scoring mechanism. Through our redesigns of the motor stabalizers we have found the use of testing on both the ground and in stationary conditions. We need to design a new mount to make stationary testing more efficient. This will especially be important for the testing we'll have to commit to for our scoring mechanism. (which will be discussed in a future post)

Task: Obtain knowledge and share work done on Moon base project

A contigent from Iron Reign participated in a space competition at the NewWorlds Conference. The idea was to form a interstellar base to self-maintain and extend humankind's reach into the universe. After winning the previous year's competition with a Mars base, the team did a sort of prequel, committing to a Moon base. Involving writing a 21 page research paper, developing a minecraft-modded map, and work in Google Sketchup, the team presented to a group of Space researchers, genetic scientists, and privately-funded space companies over our work. We recieved 1st place for our work and garnered a lot of interest in STEM and space.

Reflections

The convention allowed us to present both to the aforementioned specialists and children who took a field trip to come to the convention. These children were especially attracted by the minecraft design. We led them through walking in the base and testing out our designs. We were able to garner a lot of interest of their concept of space and STEM was. When the judges came to our area, we mentioned how the topics we learned in SEM and in robotics helped us to finish a lot of the fact-checking for the base. In the end there was a lot of interest and praise for our work, even going as far as to convince a researcher to ask in running a molecular biology summer camp at our school. We're excited to build off our success at the competition and use it to help us in FTC as well.

Meeting Log November 06, 2016

We've been blogging/journalling at the sub-team level, which allows us to share our work at a deeper level on specific subjects. This ends up creating a need to have many posts in a single practice. That's great for our journal, but we also end up failing to document some of our sub-team work because we can't find enough time to write up every break-out project. We are also regularly missing out on documenting a lot of our organizational work, like the planning session at the beginning of practice and the list of tasks we assign ourselves. So from now on we will be adding a practice log for each meeting - starting it as an open template on our main shared computer and just asking team members to log their start-stop times there. Publish right at the end of practice. This is meant to be a light-weight log - it doesn't need great writing. Members, add your time to person-hours in this post only for planning time plus any time you worked that will not be captured in a detail post. This will be the first such post.

Today's Meet Objectives

Organization / Documentation / Competition Prep

• Review Journal - not started
• Review Robot Status - completed

Software

• Fix pose class - import from last year is incomplete and broke code - completed
• Calibrate forward and crabbing motions of the robot - not started
• Turn current teleop mecanum mixing into a method that can be used across teleop and autonomous - completed
• Begin Autonomous motion sequences - not started

Build / Modelling

• Add outside collectors to collector system - minor progress
• Begin modelling the full robot assembly - not started

Service / Outreach

• Blog about SEM open house - TBD, delegated for homework

Today's Work Log

Task: To test our robot and gauge other team's progress

First, the team arrived at the Virani's house and boarded the MXP for a Arkansas dry run. We learned that it's pretty bumpy for passengers when you're driving on the highway, making the experience a bit uncomfortable. We'll need to fix that for the 8-hour drive to Arkansas.

When we arrived at the scrimmage, it was laid out like a normal tournament, though there were only nine teams to compete against. The matches were laid out so that each team competed five times, but only four of those five matches counted towards your actual score. During the first match, things were looking up. Our catapult and intake system were looking great, we had scored two or three balls, and our driving was pretty nice. We ended up winning that match. Then, everything went downhill. First, we had a issue with a loose chain, which we were able to fix. After that, however, our robot's catapult jammed so we had no useful way to score. This led to us losing our other three matches.

Despite all this, we ended up 6th place out of nine teams, which isn't *horrible*. We were also picked for an alliance.

Reflections

There are teams very ahead of us, so we need to step our game up for Arkansas. Our next goals, in order, should be to fix the chain system permanently, stop the catapult from jamming, add the beacon presser, and add the yoga-ball lifter. However, our collection system was really nice and worked >95% of the time. The only problem with it was that balls occasionally got stuck on top of the robot delivering to the catapult.

Meeting Log November 22, 2016

Main focus for the day is fixing the problems encountered at the scrimmage and making autonomous progress.

Today's Meet Objectives

Organization / Documentation / Competition Prep

• Review Journal
• Pre-Match checklist
• Continue Presentation

Software

• Autonomously score
• Put collection system in same class as flinger

Build / Modelling

• Mount new particle bowl
• Build button pusher

Service / Outreach

• Update connection totals

Today's Work Log

Meeting Log November 26, 2016

Today marks one week until our Arkansas Tournament. God help us all.

Today's Meet Objectives

Organization / Documentation / Competition Prep

• Review Journal
• Work on Presentation
• Do Blog Posts

Software

• Autonomous
• Testing Code

Build / Modelling

• Finish 2nd Level
• Improve Catapult

Service / Outreach

• Blog

Today's Work Log

Task: Build a frame to increase available surface area on robot to rewire current configuration

The wiring, which had been on the robot, had been a constant issue. The wiring tangled, interfered with the scoring mechanism, and led to some inefficiencies in electrical output. In order to increase the available space to reconfigure the inner workings of the robot, we built a second testrix layer, which also conveniently serves as a handle.

Reflections

The new level on the robot has given us a lot of much-needed flexibility for arranging the different parts. Now the core of our robot isn't a jungle of tangled cords. As we continued building the layer, we found it could be used for various other purposes besides simply space control. The back layer simultaneously stabilizes our scoring mechanism, allowing us to control our shot more. Besides the modules, the phone and power switch are also attached to the upper layer for ease-of-access. As we only made layers for the front and back, the sides of the robot are left open, nonetheless more free without the wires, for our cap ball lift (which is currently in progress, more on it in future posts).

Task: Compete in the 2016 Arkansas State Competition

This year, to give our team a better chance of going to super-regionals for the first time, we decided to enter the Arkansas regional. We were actually pretty far ahead compared to our last seasons. We had a finished robot, a working autonomous, and good drivers.

To Arkansas pic.twitter.com/spvHb17vyo

— Iron Reign Robotics (@team6832) December 2, 2016

Upon arrival, we had to make some last minute changes to our robot in order to pass inspection, as it was too bumpy in the RV. So , we huddled in the school's band room and attached our side shields and team number, making it just in time for inspection. We set up our table for the competition as well.

Upon arriving to the hotel, we realized that we hadn't really practiced our presentation at all, so we had to hold a last minute session until 12. After that, a few team members fell asleep for the next day, but most boarded the RV and worked on the robot and autonomous until ~2 in the morning.

We woke up refreshed (totally), and went to the tournament. In order, we had: opening ceremony, the presentation, and then the four games. First, right before the presentation, we found that our robot, despite working the night before, now refused to accept any motor commands. This was due to the way our code handled controller events, so we had to change that last minute. Also, due to just having last minute practice in the presentation (and being tired), we didn't preform as well as we would have liked.

The Game

In the first match, we performed way better than we expected, and actually won the game. However, we discovered that our robot has a static issue due to the way the wheels slide, so we had to reboot it during the match.
In the second match, we lost. This was partially due to the static issue and partially due to the fact that we were paired with an inexperienced team. We helped show them the ropes, however, and saw a lot of the origins of our team in them. We wish them the best and hope they can progress.
In the third, fourth, and fifth match, we won all our matches, even though our static issue got worse. Our relatively consistent autonomous, paired with the beacon and ball scoring fared us well against our opponents. We need to build on these strengths, while also introducing end game flexibility with cap ball scoring.

We did not get picked for alliances, even though we were in 8th place with a 4-1 record. this was probably a knock on our scouting and relation building with the other teams. We'll make sure to build on that for future competitions.

Reflections

We had issues at the tournament due to static and scouting issues. The scouting issue was particularly bad due to these reasons:

• Staying on the RV and not interacting with other teams
• Alliance negotiations were started too late
• Misjudging other teams

This tournament gave us valuable experience for the qualifiers we have coming up. We have now fixed the static and controller issues. We were also able to judge the progress of other teams and compare it to ours. By the time of the qualifier, we should have some advantages over the other teams.

Task: Analyze what went wrong and right at Arkansas

We spent a good hour and a half analyzing what we needed to do differently at upcoming competitions, and how to better prepare in the upcoming school break.

Notes

Mechanical:

• Anti static spray
• Shorten wires and close wire ends
• Stabilize USB connections to controllers
• Cap Ball lift

Competition:

• Driver Practice!!
• Organize sub teams during competition
• Scouting more and building connections
• Stay aware and alert, no zoning out while in the pits especially
• Line up robot based on tile mat seams
• Control Award checklist done beforehand
• RV shifts, no more than 1 onboard at a time

Presentation and Presence:

• Mechanical demos
• Videos of demos easily available if robot stops cooperating
• Team costume and cart chariot
• RV video PSA - Pay it Forward
• Be more active on Twitter and link videos to judges
• Have a fundraiser in the neighborhood

Reflections

The Arkansas competition taught us a lot about the system of success for this years competition. We are ahead in terms of progress relative to other years, now we can focus on scoring elements like the cap ball, along with the presentation.

Task: To test our robot in a tournament setting

On Dec. 18, we came to QD Academy to test our robot under tournament conditions. At Arkansas, we had frequent static issues on the mats provided, and we had trouble recreating the static in practice to prevent it, so we wanted to try to find a cure for it. As well, we've been improving our autonomous code, so we were excited to try that.

We did well at the scrimmage, compared to the teams that we went against (4-1). We were lucky to already have been to a tournament - and a regional at that, so we ended up placing 3rd, and our sister team placed 5th. However, we still ran into new, and worse, issues. First, the static issue reemerged, and became worse than when we were at the Arkansas tournament. As well, when we bumped into the beacons with enough speed, our robot would turn off, and we would have to completely reboot the robot at the end of the match.

To solve the static issue we had bought Staticide(TM), but we forgot to bring it, so we have no idea if it works for our robot or not. We tried rubbing down our robot with dryer sheets, but it just exacerbated the issue if it did anything at all. The beacon issue seemed also to be caused by the static discharge, but we haven't determined it conclusively yet.

Reflections

We scored a lot of points, but we need to optimize our autonomous for both sides to score even more. As well, we still need to solve the persistent static problem, as it will really harm us in January if it continues.

Meeting Log December 31, 2016

Today's Meet Objectives

Organization / Documentation / Competition Prep

• Blog Fixes

Software

• Test autonomous changes

Build / Modelling

• Add swinging arms to the robot

Today's Work Log

Task: Disassemble the tent covering our field

Dallas has been experiencing some bad weather for the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately, our field was outside, with a tent that was supposed to have "protected" it from the elements. That did not happen. When a particularly bad windstorm came, it tore down our tent and ripped holes in the top, so our field tiles were damaged. As well, it snowed/rained later that week, intensifying the damage, and bending the metal posts.

So, today we had to break it down in ~30°F weather. The metal was so bent that we had to cut the tent into pieces to remove it, and ice had frozen over the plastic siding in multiple areas, making it hard to move. There was also snow still on the roof of the tent, so we inadvertently dumped snow onto our field, probably further hurting our tiles.

Reflections

We need to find a secure way of keeping our field safe. As of now, we are just replacing the tent with another tent, which will most likely just be destroyed in the next windstorm.

Task: Make some Roman helmets for the team

A post shared by Iron Reign Robotics FTC (@team6832) on Jan 12, 2017 at 6:20pm PST

We’re following a Roman theme this year, but nobody’s gonna know it if we don’t look the part. So, we decided it was time to make some Roman soldier style helmets. The most Roman helmets cover the top of the head with the body of the helm, with two additional plates on hinges that cover the cheeks, a protrusion at the back similar to the bill of a ball cap to protect the back of the neck, and of course the iconic curved crest, which would point forwards on the common soldier’s helmet (if the soldier could afford it) or from side to side on the helmet of a centurion (the best soldier of in a group of 100). While it would be nice to mimic the helmet entirely, we don’t have the time or the funds to do that ourselves, and instead opted for a more homespun version.

Our helmets each consist of a construction helmet, the sawn-off head of a broom, and a single screw holding the two together. It’s simple, but it’s cheap, easy, and definitely gets the job done.

Reflections

The helmet has most of the features of a Roman helmet already, but it is still missing the hinged cheek guards. We likely won’t add hinged ones because they could be distracting to drivers wearing them and they would take too long to build, but I have a plan to cut stationary ones out of foam board and socket them into a pair of empty slots I noticed on the sides of the helmets. Also, Tycho suggested that, at least for the drive team, we could fit a few helmets with safety glasses mounted on hinges to reduce the chance that the drivers accidentally go to the playing field without their protective wear.

Task: To go to the Wylie East robotics tournament

On Jan. 14, we headed out to Wylie East HS for a North Texas qualifier. Our main goal was to test our new code and additions to the robot - we've added static shields and staticide to protect ourselves from the issues that we suffered from last tournament. We had high prospects this tournament, with a robot further ahead than we've ever been before and a "fun" presentation.

We ended up 3-2 in the main rounds, and at 4th place. The first round we lost was a magestic, catastrophic failure. Our robot ran into the metal sides and short circuited. Then, within ten seconds, every other robot had shut off. We were gettting destroyed at that point, but the powers-that-be decided to call a redo. So, we restarted, and insted of getting destroyed, we got massively, absolutely destroyed by a huge margin. The second time we lost, our robot tipped over, and we couldn't get it back up.

We advanced to finals, and we won the semi-finals round easily. Then, in finals, we faced a combo-team of Technical Difficulties and Technibots, which proceeded to stomp the floor with us and set a new world record in the process.

Reflections

Our main failures through the tournament were that we just can't currently score enough points as higher ranking teams. However, we have a cap ball lift in progress, so well be able to score way more soon. And, we did advance to Regionals, so we've got that going for us.

Task: Analyze what we did wrong and right at Wylie

At Wylie, we did decently. We were mildly surprised that we actually qualified for regionals, but we did, so that's pretty nice.

Mechanical Problems

• Static shocks
• Catapult reliability
• Program unpredictability
• Autonomous issues

Others

• We need to be more motivated
• We need to practice driving

Task: Help Imperial Robotics before their qualifier

As said in previous posts, we have a sister team, Imperial Robotics, and it would be really nice to see them advance to regionals alongside us. In their previous qualifier, they got really close. So, with help, we should be able to push them over the qualifying line.

Tycho, our lead programmer, helped Rohit and Abhi with their code. Imperial was having servo control issues in which they couldn't continuously rotate their ball-intake servo when pressing a button, and Tycho fixed that, along with other control issues. Tycho also worked on their bass launcher, making it more reliable.

A post shared by ImperialRobotics (@imperialrob3734) on Feb 2, 2017 at 5:27pm PST

Evan and I helped Imperial with building and driving. We fixed their wheel and turning issues as referenced in this post. Their problem was that a motor wasn't working at 100%, and it interfered in driving. As well, Evan gave Imperial advice on driving, and demonstrated driving techniques. As well, we helped with general fixes of their robot, as most of their team members were focussing on the presentation.

Reflections

Imperial ended up not advancing to regionals, unfortunately. :(

Task: Build a solid drive team.

One of the leading problems Iron Reign faces is our ability to allot time to effective driving practice. Driving practice is essential for our success in the robot game, but it is sometimes difficult to find time to practice due to other team members working on various robot improvements. We have created two different drive teams, a main team and a backup team, so that despite who is available at meeting we can always have some kind of drive practice going on. The bulk of the time spent in driving practice is spent practicing putting glyphs in the cryptobox, trying to better our previous time and complete as many columns as we can. We focus on performing and scoring timed runs, and sometimes when our sister team 3734 is available, we scrimmage our robots against each other. Another smaller, yet equally essential, part of drive practice is setting up the robot in the correct orientation for every situation and running our autonomous. It is important that we make all of our mistakes during practice, so that when it is time to compete we run autonomous perfectly every time. The main challenges we face in driving practice is consistency in filling the cryptobox, adjusting to significant robot design changes, and our time management (actually finding the time to get in good practice).

In the future, the drive team is going to meet more often and hold more efficient practices. Our main goal is to significantly decrease the time that it takes to fill the cryptobox, and to accomplish this we will need to clock in many hours so that we are very comfortable in driving the robot. Ideally, any error that might occur during competition will be mechanical errors that are out of the drivers' control. We have improved a lot, but we still have a long way to go.

Task: Compete in the Forester Field House Robotics Competition

We started off with our presentation pretty early, and everything was going pretty well until our robot had a static issue, and stopped working. We were able to cover it up pretty well without the judges noticing. One of the judges seemed to like our rap, and was interested in seeing the R.V. Our presentation ran a little long and cut into our question asking time. But other than that the presentation went pretty well. As for scouting, Evan and Omar went around and talked to all the teams, we even created flyers them to pass out the all the teams.

We created a common excel sheet that we all shared on the google drive so everyone could scout when they got time. This time we actually put on shields in advance, and they weren’t made of duct tape! But we also had to replace the core power distribution module. And to do that we had to take off the shields. This resulted in us scrambling at the last minute to reattach the shields while rolling the robot over to the field. We replaced the CPDM because in the past it has been constantly resetting, and seems to have a faulty U.S.B connection. Replacing the CPDM as well as spraying staticide in between match really helped to improve our reliability during the matches. This resulted in us winning the rest of the matches. We ended up in 5th place. During the Alliance Selection we were the first pick of the first alliance captain. During the semifinals around 9 beacons had stopped working and the judges had resorted to holding up spoons with flags when the beacon button was pushed. In the end our alliance won and we also got the second place inspire award. This meant that if we hadn’t advanced already we would have had advanced during this completion.

Reflections

All in all we’re pretty happy with the results of this competition, our robot was more reliable than it usually is and we were able to completely stress test it. We believe the improved reliability was the result of replacing our CPDM and the improved side shields. We may have damaged our previous one simply through electrostatic discharge, ironically making us more susceptable to ESD in our other matches. Decreasing the conductive materials on the outside by properly blocking them with shields will make us more reliable in the future. Next time we need to make a complete check list so we don't forget the import things, like staticide.

Task: Present to kids at the DISD STEM Expo

Every year, DISD hosts a STEM expo for local companies and groups to present to kids, in hope of inspiring them to go into a STEM career. So, for our booth, we drove our RV into the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center to present. We had three activities run by Iron Reign.

The first activity was helping kids 3D print keychains using Google Sketchup. We had nine laptops set up for them to use, all hooked up to four Flashforge Finders. When we first got to the Expo, we discovered that two of our printers had filament issues, so we were running on half capacity the whole day. Even then, we probably helped about 50 kids with their keychains.

In the front of the RV, we had laptops running MinecraftEdu, which features having a teacher have admin control, moderation, a dedicated server, and no PvP. MinecraftEdu is supposed to help kids with problem solving, bolster their creativity, and assist them with working with other people.

Outside of the RV, we were running a robotics workshop where kids could program Lego Mindstorms to do various activities, including robot sumo. Our coach and a few volunteers(from one of our sponsors, BigThought) were working that section.

Task: Increase chances to advance in judging

In our competitions we really can't rely on our robot performing as well as it does in practice and our sparring matches with Imperial. If we're going to increase our chances of advancing from Regionals to Super-Regionals 90% of the time it's going to be from judging. We've always had rocky presentations in my opinion, but this year we're getting our energy up and trying to get everyone more interactive. We've heard that the organizers are having trouble getting enough judges, so it's likely the judges will be a little inexperienced. We're making a colored tab and blurb for each award to place at the front of our journal. We'll have a little paragraph on why we think we should be considered for each award, followed by a handful of key posts we believe back up our claim. Each award has a color, each post gets a number, and we place colored tabs (think these post-it flags) with a number written on the printed page.

Reflections

Judges don't have much time to inspect pages before a presentation, so it's the job of the first person who goes in to give the journal, a presentation copy (or 2 depending on the table space), and a short description of what's going on. This includes reference pages such as the awards and a copy of our scouting flier. Judges mostly listen and take notes during a presentation, so we don't want to overload them with pages to look at initially, but have enough information available to look through at the main judges meeting. The easier it is for a judge to get a sense of our team, the higher likelihood they will mention us in award considerations. This is a hard balance to strike, but the tabs served us well last year and I should have gotten them together again a while ago. Jayesh and Omar went through our tag page, picking the key ones to bring up. Tycho and Max continued working on their technical posts.

Task: Design a new banner

For the past year or two, we've brought along a big vertical banner to our competitions to help boost our presence and make it easier for judges, other teams, and even members of our own team to find us in the pits or on the field. But the banner we've been using has become outdated: Since last year, members have come and gone, we've decided on a different visual theme, and, of course, we've built an entirely new robot. The time has come to begin again.

We plan to use the same banner stand as last time (although we've dyed it red to match the helmets) to conserve materials, so the banner will have the same dimensions as before. Since we have the same amount of canvas to work with, the design will also incorporate the same components as the last version:

• Team number (in Hindu-Arabic and/or Roman numerals)
• Team name
• Picture of the robot
• Picture(s) of team members
• Sponsor logos (optional)

With some spare time between meetings, I made a draft layout for the banner in Microsoft OneNote. The previous version wasn't much more than some pictures we found and a couple text boxes thrown onto a plain white background, so I wanted to make this banner look like more thought and effort had been put into its design than last year's. I decided on a red background with black and gold trim designs to better match the Roman theme we're going for, with the team number and name at the top, the robot's picture in the middle, and a grid of our team members at the base. To make it all fit together more smoothly, I also planned to get a green-screened picture of the robot and to make individual charicatures instead of pictures for each team member. See if you can determine who's who in the team pictures on the draft version.

At the next meet, the team decided that the layout was good to go, so I got to work making a neater version in Adobe Illustrator. With the design complete, you can see how the complete banner looks in Adobe Illustrator below. It'll take a special printer to make it in the correct size, and we'll have to wait a little longer to get access to it, but all in all it should be smooth sailing from now on.

Reflections

The choice to use charicatures of the team members this year on the banner as opposed to a team photo (like we used last year) was one of the most impactful decisions to be made about the subject, but I think that it was the right judgement. Hopefully this can play at least a small part in establishing our presence among the many teams that we will encounter in regionals (and perhaps beyond), but only time will tell how effective the banner can be in competition.

Task: Resurrect the Ancient One

The Great One, Aqui'la, has slumbered for too long. Since the deity lost Its battle with the accursed Gravitae a year ago, Its physical form has crumbled to pieces, leaving It powerless to bend the world to our will. As the last High Priest and Grand Memer of Its reign, the duty falls to me to return It to Its full power so that It may reign once more. I must do more than rebuild its effigy, however. To ensure It is not defeated by the forces of Physicks once again, the body must be as strong as the mountains, and as inpenetrable as the darkness.

Time is short; I must work quickly. I have retrieved the bones of the husk which once housed the Great One, and will use the unholy power of the Tri-Dimensional Prynter through which I first summoned it to rebuild the body. The ABS Plastyck, black as night, with which the old bones were once built, shall be the regent with which I will revive It.

At the stroke of midnight last night, I performed the Ritual of Creo to obtain the designs with which I may summon Aqui'la. With haste, I brought them to the Prynter. As I write these words, the new form takes shape; the barrier between our world and Its wears thin. The Great One draws nearer with each moment. Hark! The Prynter's work has been completed. I go now to piece together the old bones with the new, and conduct Its conciousness into the new form.

Reflections

O FORTUNA

VELUT LUNA

STATU VARIABILIS

Task: Find out information on teams at Regionals

One of the things we're weak on this year is scouting. Dylan did some amazing scouting work last year that got us to regionals, but he is no longer on the team. So, for regionals this year, we want to be prepared. We took the list of teams attending the regionals and searched for any teams that we've either gone against and logged, or have any active social media presence. Then, we logged what their robot did and whether it was in teleop or autonomous. You can view the current sheet here.

If any team needs help making an online engineering notebook, contact ethanhelfman@outlook.com. It helps everyone when you put your notebook online.

Task: Win the North Texas regionals

Summary: We won

On Febuary 25, we drove our RV to W.E. Pete Ford Middle School, in Allen, TX. The tournament was split into two divisions, and for many of our members, this was our first time encountering that layout. We didn't have any of our team members going to Dean's List interviews this time. We still didn't have an operable cap-ball lift, and this was our first time using our flywheel shooter in a tournament setting.

We did decently in our presentation, but it could have gone better. We made a few missteps in our presentation and had a few stumbles. However, we did a great job of presenting to the judges who were walking around. We would greet judges and attempt to present to them, ending up presenting to two separate groups of judges about our robot's design, helping low-income families in STEM fields, and our team history. As well, we talked to one of the FIRST directors, Ken Johnson, about our MXP, and we ended up bringing him out to it to show off.

In the game, we did pretty well. We ended up 5th place, and got picked as 2nd pick for the 1st alliance. We ended up getting all the way to finals, but we didn't win due to the fact that the opposing alliance had Technical Difficulties on it. During the normal games, we won [3-1]. We had issues with our beacon-pressing erasers falling off, so we designed a new "eraser" out of foam tape with a layer of thick tape on top in order to still be able to press the button. Our robot did stop responding during one game, but compared to our previous experiences, that was actually pretty good.

The reflections post can be viewed here.

Task: Analyse what we did right and wrong at regionals

Scouting:

Notes: While we did well with scouting, it could have gone off much better. We made some mistakes by accidentally scouting teams in the other division and not watching matches when we should have.

Presentation:

Notes: We need to work on the group dynamic and enthusiasm a bit more. As well, we're going to stick Darshan under the cart so he can pop out with those 🔥🔥sick beats🔥🔥.

To-do

Promotion:

• Need to make a reveal video
• Need to advertise on social media
• Design booth for super-regionals
• Write more blog posts
• Promote & Outreach videos
• Banner holder designs

Design & Programming:

• Fix robot shooting accuracy
• Replace erasers with silicone
• Cap the ball
• Robot vision
• Build 2nd spinner
• Model the robot

Tent Building

Since we had the general idea of the shape and size of the actual pit tent, we set out to either build or find a tent that we felt best fit the theme we selected. We chose to start off by trying to build a structure via PVC pipe and a tarp like substance that we could drape over the pipe, we handed off the idea and models to Mr. Virani to have him figure out what PVC requirements we would have to fulfill and the cost to build. While he crunched the numbers a group left the house to see if we could find a suitable material to drape over the structure; Tycho, Mrs. Lux, and I went to a local army surplus store in hopes of finding a parachute like material that we could use, however the only cloth available was a very heavy and expensive canvas that we decided would end up crushing the frame, (we didn’t leave empty handed though since the store had lots of fun items). After returning to the house we had another council with Mr. Virani and decided to consider other options since the PVC and tarp idea required to much effort and too much American currency. Various hardware and surplus store websites later we found a rather unconventional shaped tent used to cover cars that was built in two sections each measuring 8’X9’ at their base, we concluded to buy the tent and use the parts to only build one of the sections, and since the pit measures 9’X9’, use the remaining foot of space in the front for table with room for a TV to play various team promoting videos meant to catch a passerby’s eye.

Shields

In terms of the shield, the basic form is completed and ready to be upgraded via LED’s and insignias which will hopefully be mounted before competition. Due to the use of recycled parts the shields are cheap, sturdy, easy to build, and most importantly relatively accurate looking. Expanding on how they were made, the core is old floor tiles from a competition field that have be locked together on one face and had the remaining teeth cut off. To provide structural integrity, old black metal broom handles were attached via zip-ties length wise to the back face of the shield bridging the gap between the two halves. Next more zip-ties were used to create a basic handle design to carry the light shield around. We chose a weathered red duct tape to cover the front face of the shield since it had the appearance of old weathered wood and saved us the pain of having to paint the shield, following the red duct tape the outside edges of the shield were gilded with a nice golden duct tape. To finish off the shield I used a drill press to mount some spare tetrix pieces to the inside of an ikea bowl and pushed the extruding tetrix remnants through the shield and zip-tied them together to keep them from coming out. Oddly enough most of the parts I used were sourced from our robotics “warehouse” and are easy to find or cheap to buy, so building one of these shields on your own would be easy. Not only is the shield light, cheap, and recycled it’s also pretty sturdy, once we had one built we were eager to play with it and made this little video for you to enjoy below.

Task: Spring Break Meeting Planning

In order to organize a plan for our spring break meetings, we created a poll on doodle.com. We all had individual plans for the break, and with the Doodle Poll we were able to see an overview of everyone's availability. As we have a Super Regional competition coming up, we are on a surge during spring break to complete our many goals regarding the robot, the presentation and more. We have been staying later than usual and attending more meetings to get as much work done as possible. We are anxious and excited to compete in this competition and are willing to put as many hours as we need in order to be completely prepared, including spending time during our break to attend meetings.

Reflections

We have used Doodle Polls in the past, and we plan to use then in the future, as they are helpful in planning our meetings in preparation for Super Regionals. It is important for us to stay organized as a team so that we can focus more on our robot and the game. A tool that seems menial, like the Doodle Poll, is very helpful for our team.

Task: Teach LEGO EV3 and 3D modelling to girls

The Yale club of Dallas organized a STEM event for groups of girls in the city. We took the Mobile Tech XPerience out front for 3D modelling and set up 8 EV3s with laptops and a sumo field inside.

Programming

We led 6-8 girls at a time through the EV3 environment to make a basic sumo program, going through a tournament, and then a final grand melee at the end of the sessions. A couple had experience with EV3, more with Vex, but this session was a lot of their first experiences with programming and robots. Tycho taught the thought process of the program as we went through the steps and I presented on a projector as he went, sometimes taking over talking when we needed breaks. The port view in the programming environment was a great tool to explain the color sensor's light intensity measurement as we could just ask everyone to plug in their bots and see how the numbers changed with the environment. The session was too short to really let them explore what they could do in the program, but we did give hints that the Power variable was something they could tweak. The girls that took the risks in their program generally found that option and won the round robin.

Everyone in the room had a bunch of fun, chaperones included. One girl realized that she had a NXT at home, and now that she knew she could do cool stuff with it, she was excited to try it out. A lot of the teachers asked about the competition levels, and we're hopeful that some of the kids will join a FLL team and the 8th graders going to high school will look for a FTC or FRC team.

Teaching Sumobots at #DallasWEST! #omgrobots #mobiletechxperience #dallascityoflearning

A post shared by Iron Reign Robotics FTC (@team6832) on Mar 11, 2017 at 12:15pm PST

Modelling

For the first deployment in a while all 4 printers worked! We were able to print every single design from the day. A couple of the laptops don't have the correct export to STL option, but we were able to work around it by grabbing a flash drive and bringing the file over to a different one. The groups in each session were pretty small compared to the waves that normally come by in an expo, so we could spend a good amount of time making sure no-one was lost. Some people grabbed the wrong design when they came back, but we've gotten the swing of things and sent text notifications to the teachers pretty quickly. Since we were parked out front the groups passed us on the way out and picked up their keychains.

Task: Get some organized driving practice in before Supers

With Superregionals drawing near, we thought it prudent to better organize ourselves in terms of driving teams. We've never felt that we were 100% solid, with people not knowing what to do at certain times in the match. For example, our "Coach" position was almost entirely dedicated to yelling out the match time in 10 second intervals. Today, we talked about our three different roles (Driver, Co-Driver, and Coach) and what each should do. We did several practice matches, rotating through positions each time just to gain practice in each.

Reflections

A large fault our team has always had is focusing too much on improving and working on the robot and not leaving enough time for driver practice. In the coming Spring Break week, we hope to meet several times in order to make sure our teamwork and communication is solid.

Task: Create a video outlining Iron Reign's outreach

We have had a lot of interest garnered towards the STEM outreach the team has committed to. When we found that FTC encouraged the creation of a video outlining the STEM outreach we had done, we saw it as an opportunity to show others a general overview of our activities. With Max's excellent voiceover, we made a video talking about how long the team's been at it, the various STEM expos/events we do, and how the problem of summer learning loss lead us to making the Mobile Tech Xperience.

Reflections

Making a connection and advancing our community has always been a priority with our team. This video helps give us a short summary to show parents and children the benefit of commiting to the STEM field, specifically in robotics. We started because of two parents who decided to start a robotics team with some energetic middle school 7 years back, and look at us now. We want to tell these interested parents and kids about how their dedication can create something special, and we're doing that by using ourselves and FIRST as examples. We plan to spread this video to those looking to get into FIRST, or even those simply interested in what our team does besides build complicated contraptions.

Task: Set last practices' priorities

Many members were out of town this break but we still managed to make a good deal of progress. What we forgot to do was post about it. Github kept track of code edits and we have other records of the practices, so we have a list of 11 articles to be written by this Sunday at the latest. Tomorrow's practice (Saturday March 18th) will be focused on:

• Driver practice
• Presentation practice
• Staging as much as possible for packing

Reflections

Each member is assigned an article for this weekend and we won't be taking up practice time for this. The list was originally written on my plate after I had pizza, but it's now being sent in our chat and updated as people write. Omar posted his first, an hour before I'm writing this.
Also: Ethan - Please. Don't use backslashes. I have to edit your posts 90% of the time because your paths break in the tag index pages.

Beautiful. Truly.

One man's harrowing journey through copyright free music lists

The Robot Reveal video is underway. With most of the filming done, the sky grows dark and the day ends. A night time of editing sets in for the poor miscreant who volunteered for the task. Huddled in the corner with a raw fish and his precious computer, the boy opens premiere pro to begin. All is right with the world. The five hour long dramatic saga of trying to figure out the dang code to his Adobe account is through and the password has been changed. He knew he never should have let his family use his student status for a discount. But it's over and he's decided to leave it in his past. Time to edit...

So the editing for the Robot Reveal video has begun and so far it's gone fine. I had an easy time getting it all in and except one crash(everything was recovered) it's been good. There won't be too much extreme editing to do. Nothing mind bending. Mostly cutting and arranging. The big problem now is finding a song to use that fits the video. I'm having trouble finding something pleasant sounding, fitting, un-copyrighted, and that lines up with the length of the video. I've been listening to a ridiculous amount of un-copyrighted music. An insane amount. It's not copyrighted for a reason. No man or woman or animal or object should have to endure this. The un-copyrighted playlists should be used as an enhanced interrogation technique and then banned by the UN for being a violation of basic human rights. Its all a bunch of extremely similar songs that should either be in the background of a shirtless guys vlog or the basis for an art students performance piece. A few outliers are some EDM and elevator music and I don't know which one makes me want to pour hot wax into my ear holes more. I'm listening to a song right as I'm writing this. I think it's the background music for the most generic cooking channel on YouTube ever. One way or another I'm going to get this done. Maybe I've made a few hyperboles throughout the post but the robot reveal will be finished. I've saved all the music I think could work into a playlist that I'll let everyone give a listen to at tomorrow's meeting. Now I must return to my hell.

Task: Get prepped for the trip

Every post I write about organization seems to start off talking about how Iron Reign hasn't had the best track record with this sort of thing in the past, but we try anyways. So, like always, we're trying to get everything put together that we can: journals, presentations, props, pit setups, etc. Tools are a little more organized than normal because I'm obsessively trying to make sure nothing important gets lost in these last practices. Batteries have been checked for internal resistance, freshely labeled, and the battery box has more USB ports for our dozen phones. Even the Powerpole box showed up again, back from hiding inside another box across the room...

Reflections

The tent materials are already pretty much together, but we need to clear off the two rolling carts and put together everything for the front setups. None of that is going to be used in practice so we're free to stage it for packing. I think we'll be needing a larger box for judging props, everything can rest inside, but we can't close it up. Longer travel distance means we'll need a sturdier method. The battery box is pretty self contained already, and the Container Store chest of drawers has miraculously remained in use, so we won't be scrambling to pack tools that people are using up until the load. I'm worried about the journal printouts and the control award honestly, I'm going to print all new posts at home on Monday and then punch them into our binder. If i can find someone free then I'll enlist them to add detail and diagrams to our Control Award writeup. Rise of Hepheastus 4216 was a huge help with Control! They gave us an idea of how much to write, and we would still be a little lost without them.

Task: Go to super regionals, set up, and present

Way too early in the morning, on March 22nd, the Iron Reign team gathered in darkness. It was approximately 65 Farenheit and gusts around 12 mph were blowing in from the South. Under this cover of darkness, a bus pulled into our school. As the trees shivered in the wind and the stray dogs around our school howled, we boarded the bus.

Of course, we were boarding the bus to head down to Athens, GA, to go to the South Super Regional tournament, and we hoped, to advance to Worlds. On our way there, we stopped at Sunset HS to pick up RoboBison Amistad, the other team from our school district. Then, we two teams were on our way.

No road trip operated by DISD can ever be simple, and this one was no exception. Our coach was driving our chase vehicle AKA our robotics RV, but managed to beat us there by five hours. The team ended up being on the same bus for twenty total hours, stopping three times. Luckily, on our way down there, many of us got to see sights such as the Mississippi River for the first time.

Finally, we arrived in Athens at 1 in the morning. Some of the team split off to sleep, while others broke off to work on the robot. But, it was late, and we all went to bed soon.

The next, first real day of the tournament, we woke up bright and early. We were one of the first ones to have pit load-in, and we actually managed to do everything in a timely manner. Our tent that we designed was slightly bigger than we thought, but the teams neighboring us were fine with it, so everything worked out in the end. We did a little bit of preliminary scouting and talked to a few teams. We also got our robot through inspections.

Finally, we went into judging, and it was the best presentation that we've done this year. We had two new team members added to the presentation, and we pulled it off flawlessly. As well, we added a new visual gag, with Darshan jumping out at the judges from under the cart. We got asked some very good questions that I can't remember, but the judges were generally very impressed.

Reflections

See Postmortem.

Task: Reminisce on our first six Superregionals matches

After a decent night's rest, we began Day Two at around 7 AM. A lot of our tools and materials were still on our RV, so we first moved them over to our pit. Our match schedule said that we'd have nine matches beginning with Match #1 (just our luck). After the...interesting Pokemon-themed opening ceremonies, we began the day with our first match.

Match 1: Our alliance partner was Thorn's Army, and we faced Greased Lightning and Guzzoline Robotics. We lost; we didn't earn as many points in autonomous or teleop. It was our first game anyway; just a warmup. No big deal.

Match 2: Our alliance partner was Saber Robotics, and we faced Aperture Science and The Prototypes. We lost; tied in teleop, but our autonomous didn't score as much as theirs. Warmup game #2, no big deal.

Match 3: Our alliance partner was 4-H Rohming Robotics, and we faced Team Duct Tape and Twisted Axles. We won; even though neither of us were able to cap, we nailed our autonomous and teleop periods.

Match 4: Our alliance partner was Static Void, and we faced East Cobb Robotics and Team CHAOS. We won; our autonomous didn't score as much (we missed a beacon and a ball), but our partner was able to cap and our combined teleop scored more.

Match 5: Our alliance partner was LASA MurPHy, and we faced Diatomic Dingos and Blue Crew, Too. We won; our autonomous worked great and scored well, which made up for our lackluster teleop period.

Match 6: Our alliance partner was Technical Difficulties, and we faced the Rockettes and LASA Ultra Violet. We won; once again, our autonomous worked great (we missed a ball though), we scored more particles in teleop, and our partner was able to cap. Four in a row!

We felt pretty good about this day, since we came off of a four win streak. However, we still worked as long as we could on improving the reliability of our autonomous. Once the pits were closed, we were directed to the team social, where there was Super Smash Bros. and DJ Mickey Nightrain. It seemed like a fun time (Tycho tried his best at professional Smash), but roboticists usually aren't the type to be out on a dance floor. Jayesh is an exception because he's weird.

As well, we were interviewed by a few groups of judges, and performed well in the interviews. We froze up a few times, but it worked out. Also, we invited some of the judges onto our RV.

Reflections

Even though we were able to do a lot of work this day, we're slightly disappointed in our tiredness. Even though the RoboBisons had brought an entire field with them, we didn't really think about asking them to let us use it to practice. We were very exhausted, and with a half-still-sick Mr. Virani, we think we just weren't enthused enough to stay up late and do some more work. If we had, we might've had the small bit of reliability we needed to win more matches with just our autonomous. ;-; Either way, we're proud of the work we did. Tycho did a great job driving for all the matches. Note for next year - we neeeeeeeed more than one driver. On to Day Three!

Task: Reminisce on our last three Superregionals matches

Our final competition day began with the driver team rushing to the pits because of a warning given by the game officials for the first match's teams to reach the pits earlier than expected. We reached in time, in fact about an hour before the match actually began. This mild inconvenience did give us time to formulate a strategy against our opponents, the high-scoring mechromancers.

Match 1: Our alliance partner was Neutrinos, and we faced Mechromancers Redfish. We lost; The Neutrinos disconnected early and we had made a strategy of denying the scoring of the Mechromancers. We were relatively succesful, halving their usual scoring output, but without the expected scoring of the Neutrinos, we lost.

Match 2: Our alliance partner was Guzzoline Robotics, and we faced Mouse Spit and Browncoats. We won a very close game, where a blocking penalty by Mouspit helped us win our closest game of the tournament.

Match 3: Our alliance partner was KNO3, and we faced The League of Legendary Scientists and Tundrabots. We lost a 15 point game, where a miscue in our autonomous positioning proved fatal and cost us the winning points of the match.

The match schedule we had today would be our toughest sleight of games for the entire tournament. Despite the unfortunate circumstances of the Neutrinos disconnecting early into our first match, we played decently well and had close games against our toughest competition.

Reflections

Our last loss ended up proving worse than anyone could've expected. In the award ceremony we figured out we were one spot on the leaderboard from advancing. Due to our aquisition of the Judge's award and our position on the leaderboard, we were named first alternate for Worlds. Unfortunate for us, we hope to do better next year.

Task: Mobile Tech XPerience's appearance at the Meyerson

The Meyerson Symphony Center hosted a Microsoft YouthSpark event this Saturday with activities from robotics to VR to 3D printing. We set up the sumo laptops up in the atrium and the 3D in the MXP outside, right next to the Perot tech van. The tech van had most of their setup outside with a smaller piece inside, and we worked pretty well in tandem. (I have it on high authority from a random girl that walked in that ours was cooler)

Reflections

The groups of kids coming by were spread out so we couldn't teach a group of 8 all at once like in previous experiences. Thankfully we had BigThought volunteers helping out. We couldn't have done it without the 5 of them. We ran through the presentation for them at the beginning, as we still thought that's what the plan was going to be, so they knew how to teach it after a few more pointers. Out of necessity it was basically one-on-one teaching, but that meant many of the kids got much more into it than they would have in a larger group. I had one mom comment that this was the most focused she had ever seen her daughter, and a couple of boys tweaked their program so much they ended up winning against everyone except each other. This event definitely got a lot of kids really excited about robotics, and we're hoping they'll look into a team or a club at their schools.

Keychain modeling went smoothly, and we ended up getting all the models printed or printing before leaving, and most given to a parent or kid at the event. We got addresses for the leftover few and are planning on sending them off within a day or two. A group of friends worked on a collaberative house, one doing the rooms, one the design, one the roof. It turned into a massive house when they had to leave, and we made sure to tell the kids and the parents where to find SketchUp if they looked interested. We had a huge number of kids throughout the day and it was a great event and great group of volunteers to teach with.

Task: Present to kids at the Discover Summer Resource Fair

Today, we brought the MXP to the DISD Discover Summer Resource Fair. We talked to about 250 people, including the Mayor of Dallas. We helped about 50 people create and print keychains using Google Sketchup. In the front of the RV, we introduced about 200 people to Lego Robotics, and assisted them in creating sumo bots.

The goal of this event was to inspire kids to go into STEM programs, and I believe it was a success. Several kids came up to us and asked us questions about camps, as well as how to get into STEM activities. As well, we increased visibility of the Dallas City of Learning group.

Reflections

These events are very good for increasing FIRST and STEM exposure in local communities, and we will continue doing them in the future. As well, we need to work on accommodating more people in a limited space.

Task: Compete in the UIL Robotics 2017 State Tournament

The UIL Robotics State Tournament is a Texas-only invitational based upon a team's performance in Texas qualifiers and regionals. Since we preformed so well in the North Texas Regionals, winning the first place Inspire Award, we qualified for UIL as well as Super Regionals.

While the tournament is planned with FIRST's help, it differs from a regular FTC tournament. First, the only awards are for the robot game. This harms Iron Reign from the get-go since we work heavily on our journal.

We did well in the robot game, but not amazingly. We went about 4-2, but got carried in some matches. We got chosen for a alliance, but lost in the semi-final round. This year at UIL wasn't much to brag about, so the reflection is the most important part.

Reflections

We learned many lessons at UIL. First, this was our first senior-less competition, so we have to learn how to moderate ourselves without them. Secondly, we ought to put more emphasis on our robot and driving. While the journal is definitely important, we could've won an extra game or two by practicing driving and keeping our robot in working condition. Finally, we need to work on delegation of roles for the upcoming year, as there'll be a vacumn left by the outgoing seniors.

Task:

Each year the Frontiers of Flight Museum hosts the Turn Up!, an event that contains STEM exhibits and demonstration to teach kids about the wonders of Science and Math. We brought the Mobile XPerience (MXP) complete with laptops, 3D printers, and LEGO SumoBot to help teach. Outside the RV we had laptops set up where we taught kids how to code EV3 sumo bots and battle them , we also taught kids how to create their own key chains on SketchUp and 3-D print them. Inside the RV we had more SketchUp latops set up as well as the educational Minecraft servers where the kids could learn how to build structures. As well, we demonstrated our FTC competition robot and Argos by driving them around the museum we got younger kids excited about robotics by giving them balls and letting them "feed" the robot.

Reflections

Going to event like the Dallas Love Field turn up allows us to introduce kids to the wonders of STEM and robotics and help prepare them for their futures from an early age. Helping introduce our community to STEM career is a really integral part of this team and we hope to inspire many more youths through programs like this.

Task: Adios mis amigos

Well... this is somewhat of a bittersweet moment for me. All of us seniors are leaving for college in hopes of spreading our horizons and making something of ourselves, but we're leaving this team that has become almost a second family. It's been a good few years since I first joined this team and I never thought that I would even make it to this point. I've learned so much in my tenure with this team, from all the technical stuff that goes into the robot building process itself, to building my teamwork and communication skills, and that has actually been one of the things I've enjoyed most. Meting new people and teaching both kids and parents the importance of the STEM field has been great especiaclly, when you see their faces light up. I've made many friends through this team and I know I'll keep in touch with some for a long time. The experiences I've had here are some that will last a lifetime, from riding in the RV all the way to Arkansas to the time we finaly made it SuperRegionals. But we've had our fair share of dissaapointment as well as sucess, but as a team we always bounced back. Something I hope the future of this team continues to do, succeed and bounce back. Hopefully y'all make it to Worlds next year XD. And in the words of YFN Lucci: "EVERYDAY WE LIT!!!" p.s. lil yachty

Task: Bye :'(

Hooray for graduation! Sort of. As we seniors write our farewell blog posts before we head to college, we have a lot of years to think about. In my case, I only have my 4 years of high school to pull from, but that's more than enough to express my gratitude for being on this team. I've learned so much in so many different areas, and not just scientific ones. I've learned about being on a team, about the logistics of managing said team, and about reaching out to my local community to spread STEM to the next generation of scientists and engineers. I've made a ton of awesome friends, as well as improved my personal and group communication skills (which were lacking before and are still lacking now, but they've still improved a ton). I hope I can apply some of my knowledge to my future, so that I may one day have a Lamborghini and drive around Beverly Hills. My best wishes to the team for the future! (You're going to worlds next year. -_-)

Task: Expose our MXP to teachers nationwide

Background

For readers who don't know what the MXP is, here's a quick description. Our coach had been floating the idea of a mobile STEM lab for a while, and he was finally given the go-ahead and some money by his company, BigThought. Originally, he planned for buying a van and loading it with tech, but like all true Iron Reign projects, it grew quickly. It turns out that a used RV and a van are roughly the same price, and why not go all out if you can? So, we ended up with a RV old enough to drink sitting in our coaches' driveway. Of course, to convert a RV with outdated shag carpet and a Sea View insignia on the dashboard into a state-of-the-art mobile tech lab, you need free labor. And, where else to get free labor than 11 robotics nerds who have nothing better to do with their summer?

That's where we, the robotics nerds with nothing better to do with out summer, come in. We ripped up the shag carpet, destroyed the bathroom and bedroom, and laid new flooring and installed tech workstations in every part of the RV possible. And along the way, Best Buy, BigThought, and Dallas City of Learning caught wind of our project and gave us grants, allowing us to install four 3D printers, 40 laptops, and 10 EV3 Robotics Kits to educate kids.

The purpose of this is to deliver STEM programs to under-privliged kids in the Dallas area, in hopes of inspiring them to go into STEM fields. As well, the MXP can help close the summer achievement gap, where kids in lower economic brackets tend to forget more over the summer than richer kids. We're also targeted towards middle schoolers - they're of the age where they're learning that they probably won't be an astronaut, and showing them alternative options that are still interesting is extremely important.

Aboard the RV, we run two programs. In front and/or outside, we teach kids EV3 programming to compete in a sumo-bots competition. While kids won't be able tp directly learn from the EV3 programming language, they can take the abstract skills they learn from programming the robot and apply them to other programming and learning endevours later in life. In the back, we teach kids how to 3D model using Google Sketchup, and allow them to create and print their own keychain to take home as a keepsake.

The Trip

The NSTA Convention is a meeting of teachers from all over America and 12 other countries to hold seminars, panels, and presentations for teaching certificates. We were invited there due to our work on the MXP and its success in Dallas. We worked on the floor of the convention, with booths from various companies and agencies also presenting.

We started our trip to Kississime, Florida at 8:40 in the morning, way too early for us high school students in the summer. It was a long, boring drive. The highlight, or anti-highlight of the drive is that halfway through our first day, we started billowing black smoke as we pulled off the interstate. We pulled over on a residential farm road in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, we were assisted in our engine troubles by a guy who happened to see us pull over across the road from his house. He helped us fix our engine and drove our coach to the mechanic's, and we were on our way yet again.

Our first day at the convention was a quarter day. We started at the convention at 4:30p, and ended at 6:30. Despite our limited time, it was probably our most productive day. We talked to over 150 teachers from all over America about our experience building and manning the MXP, and gave advice on building their own. We also allowed the teachers to make and print their own keychains if they wanted.

Our second day was just like the first day, but four times as long. We brought our Argos, our color following robot. We recently fitted him with a new power distribution module by REV Robotics so that we could test it out before the new season. As well, Argos is our Vuforia-testing robot, so we demonstrated that ability too. Our coach also presented on a panel that day. As a finale to that day, we got to see Veritasium's presentation on "The Power of Un".

On the last day, we didn't present to as many people, but we got to have better and more in-depth discussions with everyone who came onboard. We had teachers that designed keychains and programmed robots for over an hour. As well, we presented to the president of the NSTA.

On the way back, we had to engage in one of three Florida pasttimes, and we didn't want to get arrested or get eaten by an alligator. So, we settled on the less permanetly damaging option, and went to the beach instead.

Reflections - One Last Ride

The convention was a roaring success. I estimate that we talked to about 400 teachers from all over America. We can say that we probably inspired teachers from 4-6 other cities to start research and development on building their own RVs. Also, we talked about running a FTC team to interested teachers and FIRST in general.

Even though, this trip was bittersweet. This was the last Iron Reign trip with the original senior members. Lin and Jayesh have been on the team for over one-third of their lives, and this was their final ride as members of Iron Reign. I, personally, have worked with them since 4th grade - one-half of my life! And, as all last rides go, one must find happiness that it was a good one, and that it ever happened. Lin and Jayesh have been great advisors and friends, and they deserve the best of luck in college and in the real world.

Task: Present at the MoonDay Event

Today, Iron Reign was invited to the Frontier of Flight Museum by Dallas Love Field Airport for a day of STEM knowledge for its annual "Moon Day". It was time for us to bring in the LEGO robotics kit, 4 laptops for kids, ARGOS, and Juggernaut, our competition bot from this past season. Upon arrival at the museum, we noticed many other fascinating stations such as one explaining NASA's new rover and a model in the arena. We paired up with some other robotics members in the region to set up a station where we could help robotics beginners program the LEGO bots so that the bots could wrestle eachother like Sumo wrestlers. In addition, we fixed ARGOS so that the color sensor would be able to sense a stick in front of it to follow the sign. This allowed us to let other students drive the bot. The same was done with Juggernaut.

Our LEGO station was set up in a way such that even people who couldn't type could use it. We helped people code a bot that drives forward till the bot reached the edge of the board, turns backwards, rotates, and then repeats these reactions until the program is terminated. The students learned that the robot was able to determine when it reached the edge of the board by using the color sensor located on the bottom of the robot. Since the board is built in a dartboard sort of manner with the majority being black and a white ring around the edge, the robot was taught by the students to only stay on the black and not continue if the sensor is on the white. The students had the ability to individually change the speeds of their bots so that when the compete with one another in the "Sumo" game, there could be a winner.

We decided to use ARGOS and Juggernaut as play bots for the day and drove both around. While doing so, we discovered that ARGOS had a bug which, though controllable, was inconvenient. ARGOS' movement system was developed in a way such that the acceleration would compound based on the number of seconds the joystick was pressed in a certain direction. Currently, ARGOS had to be coded this way since we didn't have encoders and power was the only way to put speed into the wheels. We are currently working on fixing this problem. Regardless, we were able to drive ARGOS around and let other children control it using the color sensor stick we developed. The stick was developed in a way that the bot would shine a light onto the area in front of it and if it found the image we had for the color to detect, ARGOS knew to move. We programmed Juggernaut in a similar way so students were able to drive it as well. Since Juggernaut also had shooting abilities, we were able to play catch with numerous people in the area including booth sponsors. In this way, we were able to teach others about the shooting mechanism and carwash system developed to pick up balls in the bot. This fascinated many young people and inspired them to pursue a STEM activity.

Numerous students from a wide array of backrounds came to Moon Day and we were able to spread the knowledge of robotics to them. We had many parents and educators ask us about ways to get involved and we gave them more information about FIRST and their message of Gracious Professionalism. Robotics gave us an avenue to connect with kids, regardless of their socioeconomic status, race, gender, or beliefs. This allowed us to make a deep impact on people and join forces with them to pursue something we are all passionate about. In a world filled with discrimination against those of certain groups, the Frontier of Flight Museum gave us a chance to move people by the wonders of robotics and encourage them to pursue what they want in life without caring about the discriminators. We hope to continue to make an impact on people through future events.

Frontmatter

layout: Do not touch.
title: Title of your article (you can't use hyphens or colons.) tags: Enter as comma seperated list, case insensitive. Try to use one award and one normal tag

• Tips - tips and tricks for other teams.
• Journal - working on the journal, blog, and posts like this one.
• Outreach - volunteering and special events. Ex. Moonday, NSTA
• Mechanical - work on the robot, parts, building, ect.
• Software - programming.
• Business - grants, funding, ect.
• Organization - organizing, cleaning physical things.
• Video - if you have a video, nothing else.
• Private - will NOT show up on the blog page
• Pinned - pins post as first on the homepage until the tag is removed.
• Inspire - (award) all around good posts, important things for judges like NSTA, or a post going over our robot in detail
• Connect - business award
• Innovate - design process and uniqueness award
• Design - award about how well documented and designed your robot is
• Motivate - recruitment, representing STEM/FIRST
• Control - coding award

REMEMBER: keep the space between the colon and the information, and dont touch the "---"s.

Rules

Task: Used for succinctly describing what you did
Body of Post: Describe what you did, how you did, ect..
Reflections: Used to say how something worked out, your creative process, expectations, ect.
Images: Must be 600px wide. Use as many as you'd like. Save in images.
Videos: Use the default YouTube embed.
Embedded Insta/Twitter Posts: DON'T put in the first paragraph. You will break the blog.
Filenames: Save as YYYY-MM-DD-NAME.html in _posts. If unfinished, Draft-YYYY-MM-DD-NAME.html

Dear Iron Reign,

8 years ago, when I walked into Mr. Schulte’s room after school, I didn’t realize my life was about to change dramatically. I’d heard there was a robotics club which was attempting to be started. I’d had sparse experience with the subject, through extraneous events like the annual Engineering Saturday at UTA, so I decided to give it a shot. When I walked through that door on the second floor, I didn’t realize I would find my second family and grow in ways which were then unimaginable to me.

Iron Reign began as a play on words from a natural phenomenon on Jupiter. It began as a group of 10 energetic, passionate, and probably annoying geeks with no idea what they were getting into. Through everything I’ve learned intellectually though these years, my favorite part has been the growth we’ve gone through, both as individuals and as a group. I’ve seen us struggle through all manners of competition, conflict, and always come out on top. The team served as a place I personally could start to build, what I came to realize, my future. I wanted to acknowledge the individuals which made this group as special as it is, so here we go (in no particular order):

Charlotte, it has been a pleasure getting to know you this year. I wish we’d met and talked more earlier, but you immediately stood out to me because of your kindness and quiet dedication to what you care about. It was great talking and joking around with you. Don’t let the others (looking at you Ethan) bully you, just lemme know if they make too many Vegan comments. They’re just jealous you’re healthier than they are. I look forward to seeing how you progress.

Austin, it has been a fun two years getting to know you. Your passion and dedication to those you care about has always endeared me towards you. Your transition to Iron Reign was as seamless as I could’ve fathomed. You immediately meshed with our hardworking and fun-loving personalities, and it has given me even more hope to where this team is going to be. Stay true to yourself, and I trust you to ensure this team doesn’t lose who we are.

Ethan, you were one of the original memebers, ahem, members of the team. Since the very beginning, I knew you would be both essential to the team, as well as a good friend to me. Your technical expertise, as well as your ever- positive personality, has been essential to who we are as a team. You’ve especially made my role on the team easier, as you are always so willing to work with other people, even on tasks you aren’t comfortable doing. Stop bullying Charlotte so much, keep growing, it’s been a fun ride.

Tycho, you have been the person who has always challenged me on why I do what I do. You’ve made it possible for me to concentrate on the team as a whole, and not get lost only focusing on singular tasks. You are individually one of the most intelligent people I’ve met. It has been great seeing how you’ve advanced, especially in functioning as a team player. I hope you continue to grow in everything you commit to.

Janavi, I don’t think I’ve ever been as proud of a person on the team as I have been of you. Your growth since we met you has been astonishing. We’ve joked about your affinity towards duct tape since the beginning, but you’ve grown so much since then. When you came in, you had such a desire to learn as much as you could, and made an immediate positive impact on a veteran team. The reason people say we cherry pick our members is because we have people like you who come into the team. Keep your kind and inclusive personality, it’ll serve you well.

Evan, since day one of Iron Reign, you’ve had a direct impact to both the team’s success, as well as my progress as an individual. You’ve grown to become such a mature, and hardworking person. Seeing you take more of an assertive and self-motivated role on the team made it so much easier for us to be successful. Exploring Atlanta with you is a memory I won’t forget. Thank you for inviting us to your play, your playwriting is unique and characteristic of what may become your future. Keep your positive and dedicated personality, I look forward to see how you grow.

So, I lied earlier, I did purposely leave my seniors for last, so here we go:

Lin, you joined us a year after the team was formed. I remember how nervous you were about joining the team, especially as you were the first girl to be on it. Since day one, those concerns should’ve been voided, with how vital you’ve been to our team dynamic. You had a maturity about you, even back in 7th grade, which served as a reference and base point for us. You were essential for us, both systematically, and as the person actually caring about organization (rip). Thank you for everything, I can’t wait to see all the good things you do at MIT.

Darshan, I’ve known you for so long, it’s actually ridiculous. Since I met you in elementary school, I’ve always thought of you as a brother of mine. We’ve fought, joked around, and grown through the years. I’ve been especially proud of your courage to fight off your introverted nature, and do things for the team, both in practices, and even on our presentation (dropping bars though), which you were originally uncomfortable with. You’re going to do fantastic at UT, and I hope you continue to challenge yourself as I know you can do.

Max, since I met you in 5th grade, I knew there was more to you than the eye could see. One of my favorite parts of being a part of this team is in working and joking around with you every week. You show who you really are in front of the people you truly care about, and are comfortable with, and that’s precious to me. Your intelligence always astounds me, and I know there are good things in store for you. You are going to absolutely destroy UTD (in a good way), and I look forward to seeing what you do my bro. I look forward to seeing how you and your memes progress.

Omar, as you said, we’ll probably still be meming around by the time this all ends. You have been a brother to me since we started really talking to each other back in middle school. It has been fantastic seeing how you’ve branched out being a part of this team. I know you don’t get too much into sentimental things, but I will always be there for you my man. Your intelligence and savvy are going to serve you well. You’re going to do fantastic things at Notre Dame, and I look forward to our endless discord calls when we all have time to play.

This team wouldn’t have been possible without two specific people. Our FCE, our OTP, whichever you prefer, but Mr. Karim Virani, and Dr. Catherine Lux; you two have been the basis for everything this team has ever done. None of this would’ve been possible without you two deciding to dedicate a significant portion of your lives to all of us. You have made time and effort specifically just so we can have a better future, and I can’t even express how grateful I am for it. Your home has become ours, and your welcoming arms have always been a sanctuary for us. Mr. Virani, your technical expertise, as well as your never-ending dedication to listening to us has always been something I’ve treasured. We’ve been able to discuss anything and everything, and that openness to everything we do has been essential to forming what this team has become. Dr. Lux, your kindness and willingness to listen to us has taught us what’s important beyond the robotics which we do. You two balance each other in such a beautiful way, it inspires us to be both successful in what we do, as well as overall being good people. Thank you for all of this. You’ve sacrificed a lot for us, now it’s on us to create the positive change in our world which you’ve emphasized. Thank you for being my second family.

The seniors will be back every winter and see how everyone is doing. I have been so proud and honored to work and be with every single one of you. You have taught me the meaning and importance of what I want to do in the future. You have shown me what it is to better the world, while accomplishing difficult technical tasks. You’ve taught me that a leader isn’t just one who encourages others to do better, it’s also one who has to see the importance of even the smallest task in how a larger goal is accomplished. Thank you once again from the bottom of my heart. It has been an absolute pleasure and honor to be with you all. The future is bright for this team, and not just in regards to First ;).

Much Love,
Jayesh Sharma

Task: View FTC Kickoff and plan for the year

Welcome to FTC Relic Recovery! For those who don't know, this year's challenge is archeology themed, and it certainly will be a challenge. The goal of this challenge is to stack 6X6 in blocks (glyphs) in certain patterns to gain as many points as possible. The are also side challenges such as balancing the robot and hitting a specific field element to gain points. Due to the vast number of methods to score points, a robot must contain multiple mechanisms which are extremely accurate as well as quick.

Upon arrival to Williams High School in Plano, TX for the Dallas region kickoff, we quickly amazed. When the regional director, Patrick Michaud, asked the audience how many rookie teams there were, we were mesmerized by the number of hands that went up. Though the FTC organization was already very large, we noticed that the FIRST spirit and ideals of Gracious Professionalism were rapidly spreading to aspiring students of the North Texas region. This is very inspiring for both veterans and rookies because we need to work more closely than ever to mentor one another for our success in the 2017-2018 challenge.

All teams were eagerly sitting on the edges of their seats while waiting for the 11AM official reveal of the challenge. Something unique we noticed for this year's reveal video was that there was a skit performed. We found this as enjoyable though we were all waiting for the official animation. Upon completion of the animation video, the field was unraveled and all teams were allowed to access the field and field elements. While doing so, we took note of some complications that we could run into. First, we noticed that the balancing stones had about a 2 centimeter height jump from the ground to their tops. This would mean that our robot would need to drive onto the platform which was at an elevation and then balance. Second, we noticed that the space in which the blocks needed to be placed was very tight. This means that if the robot is not very precise, it could risk the loss of valuble points and time. Lastly, we noticed that the furthest zone for placing the relics was a relatively long way away. Since the robot cannot touch the ground outside the field, this could create some complications, especially if we want to place both relics.

Taking these ideas back to the house, we put our minds together to identify a basic robot design. At kickoff, we noticed that the glyphs felt like the same material that the floor tiles were made of. Upon noticing this, we created a make-shift glyph to prototype with.

Upon discussion of our plans for this year, we decided to strip apart the past two years' bots apart to their elementary parts. We decided to take the 2015 bot apart completely and we isolated the mechanum base of the 2016 bot (Juggernaut). We decided that a mechanum base would be best for this year's competition due to easy maneuverability.

Reflections

We're in for a hard time this year, but we'll have a solid bot. We're a little worried about the glyph-picker mechanism though, and we'll have to decide that in the next few meetings. Through the prototyping of the two intake and deposition systems, we hope to identify our design by the next couple of weeks.

Task:

After the game reveal video was released we had some ideas on how to have our robot grip onto the blocks, but we couldn't test it without a makeshift glyph to hold onto. So we decided to upcycle some old cat and weather damaged field tiles by cutting them up into 6 X 6 squares and placing them in a cube formation. Attached below is an image of our handiwork and a image of the glyphs used on FTC fields

Reflections

This did not end up work very well and in hindsight we could have used other materiel like printing out a 6 X 6 X 6 frame on the 3-D printer or by making it out of foam board so it would be more similar to the real thing. But thanks to the generous donations of the DISD STEM department we were provided with a full field set so we don't have to worry about creating our own glyphs. However, we will remember this for the future.

Sharing STEM opportinities with kids and their families at Conrad HS

Today, we brought the Dallas City of Learning MXP to Conrad High School to support Dallas ISD's parent outreach fair call PrepU Super Saturday. The focus for this Super Saturday was making parents aware of extracurricular activities available to their students in DISD. So this was a perfect event to let parents know about the robotics programs available in Dallas ISD, including Jr. FLL, FLL, FRC and FTC. The DallasISD STEM Departments was also there and since they are responsible for curating the robotics programs across the school district, we sent parents who wanted to know more over to them.

Activities

Up in the front, we started a MinecraftEDU server and had 3 computers decicated to playing it for younger kids. On the other side, we had set up computers to program EV3s for sumobots. In the back, we ran Google Sketchup on the computers to teach kids how to make keychains and other trinkets using 3D modelling and printing. Our back setup includes 4 FlashForge 3D printers, donated to us by Best Buy.

Today we presented to somewhere around 420-450 people. The MXP was ridiculously crowded at some points, up to 25 people aboard the MXP at some points. We handed out flyers about FIRST to people who visited the table next to our MXP as well, with some significant interest. About 50 keychains were completed and printed - the photo above is Austin holding our printing backlog. Almost all of them were picked up, but we weren't able to print the last 10 or so designs.

Today was a very successful day for the MXP, and we'll break our record of people talked to easily if we keep this up. We have future deployments planned soon including another Super Saturday next weekend.

STEM education for children and their parents at a DISD event

Earlier this morning, we drove the Mobile Tech Experience RV to LV Stockard Middle School and participated in a DISD event. We served around 250 kids, ages ranging from preschool to middle school. The morning started off slow, but as the day went on, the MXP became more and more crowded. Our spot was near the food and snack area, so lots of families came through after getting breakfast or lunch. We had a sumo field set up outside the vehicle and many people would stop to watch the robots fight, who we would then invite onto the vehicle and teach them how to program these robots themselves.

Like our previous event at Conrad High School, this DISD event was purposed to help kids discover activities that they may enjoy and want to do as an extracurricular. This was a great opportunity to spark interest in STEM in these kids and we answered any questions about who our team is and how they can join or start a robotics team at their school.  The kids rushed in in groups and were very excited to get started with the activities that we provide. A highlight of this specific event was a group of young folklorico dancers who came to learn 3D modeling, as seen above. When a group such as that comes in, it both forces and allows us to practice our teaching skills. Instead of teaching individually, we show the kids how to 3D design step-by-step on a large tv screen donated to us by Big Thought.

This rush of people happens at a lot of events that we cater, and these rushes can get very chaotic, but as a team we agree that it is this chaos that is the most fulfilling once the event ends. Being able to teach these kids and see their faces once they have accomplished something using the knowledge that they just acquired is the most gratifying part of serving on the Mobile Tech Experience.

Task: Present at the DISD Coaches' Training

On Monday, we went to the DISD Coaches' Meeting in order to present our robot to the FIRST DISD coordinator and other coaches in the district. This presentation was one of the reasons we got our robot working so quickly. During the presentation our coach talked with other coaches and the coordinator about funding and tounaments, while we presented in the back and demonstrated our robot and the REV expansion hubs. We also answered questions about coding and design.

Reflections

These presentations are extremely helpful to get our team's name out in the North Texas community, as well as secure funding for our team. They also assist our team in that we can exchange design ideas with coaches at events like these.

MXP at UTA

Today, we brought the Dallas City of Learning MXP (Mobile Learning Lab) to 4H’s Youth Technology Explosion in coordination with the Black Society of Engineers. Our role in this event was to offer a hands on experience for those interested in a career in engineering. We usually have three different activities: MinecraftEDU, Sumo Robotics, and CAD Keychains. MinecraftEDU runs on three computers for younger kids while six computers run LEGO Mindstorms EV3. We use Mindstorms to help people code their own robot which, once coded, will battle other robots in a sumo ring.

Unlike most events we attend, the participants were mostly high schoolers so there was a much greater interest in the 3D modeling software (as opposed to MinecraftEDU or sumo robotics). Only about 80 people came into the MXP but in very large groups at once so we switched from helping everyone individually to presenting on the TV. We walked them through designing their own keychain on SketchUp, then printed it using FlashForge 3D Printers donated to us by BestBuy. Helping people learn CAD gives us the unique opportunity to foster interest in a valuable skill on a program that anyone with internet has access to. The best part by far is giving people their printed keychains, as seen above.

Encourage students at Travis to enroll at our School of Science and Engineering (SEM)

Today we went to Travis Middle School for their high school night where they have many high schools competing to enroll their graduating 8th graders. Travis is a Talented and Gifted school and about half of our team came from there. Mr. Newton was our lead presenter. He is a DISD teacher of the year and the head of our math department. He is the school’s killer math teacher and has done the high school night presentation at Travis for the last 3 years. Each year Iron Reign has been there to support him.

It started with Mr. Newton giving his usual presentation on how strong of school SEM is, including how well it performs on the international stage. He talked about the culture of the school and about how students there manifest their love for science, math and engineering and we are always ready to support each other. He spoke about the college readiness program and how 100% of seniors last year are entering college and have been offered a total of $21 million worth of scholarships. And then he handed it over to us to describe the robotics program.

We told them about how robotics unifies all the different subjects that they're learning at SEM. We described how it brings together fields like physics, engineering, computer science and calculus to make a real tangible product. We also showed how robotics exposes the students that participate in it to experiences that they would otherwise not have the ability to access if they were just regular students at SEM, such as connections with professional engineers and our intense local STEM outreach efforts. Charlotte shared how in just this last year we’ve been all around the country to participate in competitions and outreach events as far afield as Austin, Arkansas, Georgia and Florida. Karina helped demo the robots and showed some Travis students how to operate them, while Ethan helped highly interested students understand our robotics program in detail.

Altogether we delivered our presentation to 3 different groups and spoke with roughly 120 students and family members. We know Mr. Newton convinced most families to look very seriously at applying to SEM.

We have always said that if we make a connection that helps even a single student think of themselves in a STEM field, we’ve had a successful outreach program. We think we regularly have that kind of impact and more, but we are seldom told it straight out. Today we had two students tell us that our robotics demo directly convinced them declare SEM as their high school first choice. This was a good day for us, and a great day for our school.

How to build your own RV in 6 easy steps.

1. Obtain the RV: To be affordable on price, opt for a 90s-2000s RV, preferably with as little miles as possible. If you can afford it, the newer the better, as we've run into mechanical problems over time with ours. Look for one with a slide-out on some site such as RVTrader or Craigslist.

2. Deconstruct the RV: More likely than not, your RV will have amazing 90s beachwave decor. While this may be great to pick up surfer gals and guys on the beach, it probably won't make the best learning environment. So, tear it out! Remove the rug carpet and replace it with laminate flooring. Get rid of that pesky bed/bathroom. Remove the kitchem if you want! The goal is to get as much space as possible to fit as many kids in there as possible.

3. Reconstruct the RV: You want the RV to be as kid-friendly as possible. Get rid of any sharp edges, install some workbenches so that kids can sit or work, protect the outlets, et cetera.

4. Obtain funding for the RV: You need tech. While its possible for a team to self-finance, its much easier to apply for grants. You can go to companies such as Best Buy that are willing to give grants or donate technology for help. For example. our 4 3D printers were all supplied by Best Buy. For our RV, we have about 40 laptops to instruct kids with, as well as 3 large monitors to show.


5. Create a curriculum: This will vary per team, but here's ours. In the front, we let kids program SumoBots using EV3. In the back, we teach them how to 3D model and help them 3D print keychains. We also run MinecraftEDU for the younger kids.

6. Run events: Talk to educational organizations such as local schools and afterschool clubs to plan events. This also varies depending on location, but local school districts and clubs such as 4-H may be interested in hosting the RV for a day or so.

Iron Reign's Substainability

Iron Reign has been a team for 8+ years now through multiple competitions. We started as a wee middle school FLL team at W.B. Travis, and we've grown exponentially since then. We've competed in MoonBots and FTC, represented our school at SuperRegionals, presented at the National Science Teachers' Association covention, and built our own RV in order to serve underpriveledged communities accross the Dallas Metroplex. But, after the current original team members are gone, we would like to continue our legacy.

First, recruitment. When we recruit new members, we first take into consideration their prior robotics experience. While those with prior experience may have a better chance of being recruited, it is not the sole determinant. We also take into consideration their willingness to learn and interest in robotics. While robotics may indeed be a resume-booster. it should not be the reason that a person applies to a team. Finally. we take into consideration their dynamic with other people. There must be a balance between fun and productiveness on the team, and that must be kept in mind when recruiting.

Second, transfer of knowledge. We recently had our first alumni graduate, and we had to ensure that all the knowledge that they knew were transfered to the younger people on the team. Most recently, we had to make sure that the newer people on the team knew how to 3D model so that we could contiue making parts. Myself, I started taking over some of the blog duties last year and now have become editor of the blog. Transferring these skills not only ensure the substainabilty of Iron Reign, they also give our members real world experience that they can use in college and job settings.

Finally, we divy up labor so that no one has to do everything. While a person can choose to work on a different project than normal, everybody tends to have their own specialty that they work in, such as building, blogging, programming, 3D modelling, scouting, et cetera. Doing this ensures that new recruits can have a mentor to go to in order to learn about the skill they're interested in.

Task: Build the field

Today we started the task of building the field, which we received for free, thanks to DISD and their generous donation. The first task Charlotte, Austin, Karina worked on was assembling the balancing stones and the cryptoboxes. While building the field we ran into a few difficulties. First, when we were making the balancing stone, we accidentally had on the cover plate on backwards, which made it impossible to place the screw through the center. We only discovered this after around 15 to 20 minutes of trying to get the screw to go through. However, after successfully building one of the field pieces, it was much easier to make the last three.
After completing the balancing stones and cryptoboxes, we all moved outside to set up the edge of the field and place down all of the tiles. We made the mistake of not placing the plastic tarp down before linking all the tiles. Which lead to all of us lifting the tile mat above our heads to place the tarp underneath(as you can see in the image below). In total, it took us most of practice to finish making all of the field elements and attaching all of the tiles, but we are not finished yet! We still have to set up the field border and attach the field elements, so keep on the look out for a part II on building the field!

Task: Become experts at driving the robot and scoring glyphs

Iron Reign’s robot drivers Abhi, Charlotte, and I, have been working hard to decrease our team’s glyph-scoring time. The past few meets, we have spent many hours practicing maneuvering on the field and around blocks, something that is crucial if we want to go far this competition season. When we first started driving the robot, we took approximately 4 minutes to complete a single column of the cryptobox, but now we can fill one and a half columns in two minutes.

When we first started practicing, we had trouble aligning with the glyphs to grab them. The fact that were using our prototype arms was partially at fault for our inability to move fast and efficiently. We also had some human error to blame. Personally, it was difficult for me to not confuse my orientation with the robot's orientation. In addition, our drive team had yet to establish a communication system between the driver and the coach, so the driver had no guidance as to which glyphs seemed like the easiest to go for or whether or not the robot was in position to grab a glyph. Below is a video that shows our shaky beginning:

Our driving has improved significantly. We have done mock teleop runs, timed ourselves on how long we take to complete different tasks, and have repeatedly tried stacking blocks and parking on the balancing stone. When our robot doesn't break, we can fill up to two columns of the cryptobox!

Reflections

Overall, we feel that we can further improve our driving skills with more drive practice. Driving the robot really does require being familiar with your robot and its quirks, as well as the controls to move the robot. Abhi, Charlotte, and I know we are still far from being driving experts, but we are putting forth our time and effort so that we can give it our best at tournaments.

Task: Build a cover for our field

Since Iron Reign is hosted in our coaches' house, we only have so much space. Even though we've basically taken over their house, a consequence of that is that we don't really have a place to put the field...until now.

In prior posts, we've talked about building a pool deck to store our field, and its finally become a reality. We obtained a practice field from DISD, and built it. Then, we realized that we can't really keep a practice field outside, as the tiles get water damage and the field elements slowly get destroyed. So, we decided to create a protective cover.

We bought and built an entire DIY garage set so that we can both protect our field and ourselves from the elements while driving. And, it's really cool, if I say so myself.

Reflections

This will make driving practice much easier in general, and allow us to practice regardless of weather. In addition, this benefits our sister team by giving them a place to practice.

Task:

A few weeks leaving for our Oklahoma competition we assembled a large garage tent upon the pool deck and moved our field inside the tent to shield it from the weather. The night before the competition we moved in a projector so we could project see the code on the wall and left it there when we went to Oklahoma. We were very surprised when we came back to Dallas around midnight and found the canvas that was supposed to be covering the tent crumpled in the corner of the backyard and the frame of the tent on its side resting again the tree as you can see in the photo below

But what surprised us the most was that nothing that we let upon that table was disturbed at all, the projector lay in the same spot and even a glass of water we had left hadn't moved an inch.The next day we came back, well rested and finally wrestled the RoboDojo back from the grasps of the tree and bolted it down to the pool deck to prevent any future mishaps.

After that we started to move robotics stuff outside and Max placed a board hole onto the wall with hooks so we can hang up the tools for easy access.

We moved out all shelves that overflowed with boxes upon of boxes of robotics parts to the RoboDojo. Our plan is to move all of the robotics building out to Dojo that way we have easy access to the field and don't have to constantly move in and out to test. To start the move we labelled shoe boxes with bright orange tape to organize all of the tools and parts ,

after that we started sorting through the shelves someone exclaiming almost every five minutes " I was looking for that last time! ". Eventually after getting most of the big items sorted we worked on organising the smaller items like hex keys and nuts into grid containers.

Reflections

Making this big move has really helped us not only with organization but it has allowed us to do a deep clean of all the robotics parts, we sorted thorough all of our old motors and battery and found some that either didn't work any more or were outdated. This is very important to do periodically because it allows us to make more space and it eliminates the chance of us bringing broken battery to competitions. Moving all of the items outside has taken us a while and we are still currently still moving items outside but so far it has had an immediate effect, our two teams have been able to do more testing and we are able to spend less time searching for stuff ever since we organized. Since this has been so helpful to our teams we might plan to make this a yearly occurrence, during summer or after our season ends we can spend two weekends completely reorganizing the Dojo.

A mess of projects

At the end of the first regular practice since putting up our tent, the field is populated with 4 separate projects. Evidence of a lot of great work going on....

Is it also indicative of a lack of caring for what those who live here have to endure during the week? No - we recognize that at some point in the distant past the situation got beyond the control of all of us. So I'm not trying to lay fault on anyone for the unlivable situation in our house. But I also need you all to understand that living in a storm of robotics parts is something we (my family) had accepted for a time, but to be clear, this is not sustainable.

So now we (both teams) have an opportunity to do something about it. The tent / outdoor workspace gives us enough room to sort stuff out and keep it that way. For lack of a better name, I'll call it our robodojo. It's now time for us all to commit to keeping it tidy and usable, and doing the same for any spaces used inside the house.

This requires new behaviors that we all must embrace. Number one is that before we leave practice, we have to put away everything we are working on. We have project boxes for anything currently under construction. It's your job to know when you have to leave and to allocate time for cleanup of everything you are working on. That means putting tools and parts away where they belong and cleaning surfaces. If a partner is continuing to work on a project but you have to leave early, be clear about handoff and cleaning up your part of the work. From now on, if your ride arrives without warning, they will have to wait until your cleanup is done.

I could go on for pages about the behaviors we need to adopt, but I'll challenge team members to work up a full list. I'll wrap up here by sharing our common goals:

• All things, projects/parts/tools need to be put where they belong before a meet ends
• "where they belong" is a priority. It's not acceptable to throw something into a random box to get it off the floor or worksurface
• The field in the robodojo must be usable for drive practice at any time with a maximum of 5 minutes of tidying up
• Tools are in use or in their place, they are not toys or hand candy
• Surfaces are clean and tidy - two different concepts, both important
• Abandoned projects get pulled apart and parts resorted
• The burden of maintaining the robodojo falls to all equally - it's not just a builder's burden
• Any rules for the robodojo apply equally or more so to the house

We all want a more effective workspace and I know that you also care that my family and I have a liveable home between practices. But we've all built up some bad habits that will be hard to break. I am asking that we turn those habits around, starting now.

Iron Reign (team 6832), The School of Science and Engineering and the Dallas ISD STEM Department are happy to announce that we are hosting a FIRST Tech Challenge qualifying tournament at our Townview campus on December 16th. Somewhere between 28 and 32 North Texas robotics teams will compete for awards and approximately 5 advancements to the Regional Championship to be held in February.

Calling All Volunteers

This is the first time our school has hosted an official qualifying tournament and we will need your help to make it a first-rate experience. This is a full day event on Saturday, December 16. There are also options to help with setup Friday afternoon December 15. Please feel free to circulate this message to everyone in the SEM community who can contribute their time and expertise. And if you can suggest a business that might want to sponsor the event, we'll be happy to talk with them.

We need to field some 50 or so volunteers!

One group of volunteers that support the running of robot matches include referees, score keepers, inspectors, field managers. Some of these roles require training and certification and we will generally draw from mentors already involved in FTC. Other roles supporting match play do not require training and include field management, pit management and queue management.

Another group of volunteers will support judging of teams for awards. Judges can be drawn from industry or academia and can have an engineering background or a general business backround in a technology industry. Judges assess the merits of teams' robots, their engineering process and journal, their strategic decisions, team dynamics and outreach. Judges will be led by a Judge Advisor, but will need to understand the awards criteria ahead of time.

Another group of volunteers will support the event overall. This includes team registration, crowd control, DJ, videography and photography, A/V support, floaters, runners, concessions, load-in/load-out crew, etc.

This is just a summary of the most common roles, but there are many specialty roles. Full volunteer descriptions can be found here.

How to sign up as a volunteer

FIRST is the governing body of these competitions and they have a volunteer sign up system so that we can assure that all roles are filled by vetted volunteers. We are trying to get all volunteers processed through this year's new system. It does involve creating a FIRST account if you have not previously done so. If you have any issues or are finding the process burdensome, please use our contact form for assistance.

Please sign up for as many roles as you feel comfortable fulfilling. We may need to be flexible with assignments depending on who is available and which roles can be fulfilled by our regional managing partner. Students may volunteer for certain roles and as event hosts, Iron Reign team members will be supporting the event throughout the day.

To begin, go to the volunteer signup page for our event: https://my.firstinspires.org/Volunteers/Wizard/Search/2?EventId=34105

If you have not previously registered with FIRST, you'll need to sign up / register and activate your account first. Then you can go back to the link above and indicate your preferences. We truly need your help and look forward to working with you to create a great tournament for our students. We hope this event will showcase SEM as the premiere home for future scientists and engineers.

All our Thanks,

Karim Virani and Cathy Lux

Tournament day is very involved for the teams and volunteers. Here is a typical schedule of the day:

• 7:30-8:30 Teams arrive, register and load their robots and gear into the pit areas
• 9:00 - 10:30 Teams present their robots to Judges for the awards competition. They also get their robots inspected and approved for the robot game
• 10:30 Opening ceremonies and then qualifying matches of the robot game begin. Judges are observing teams in their pits and on the competition field
• Noon - Lunch will be provided for the teams and volunteers. Judges share information with each other about the teams they interviewed.
• Afternoon - qualifying matches continue until each team has competed 5 times. There are 4 robots per match and we'll have two alternating competition fields to speed things up.
• Mid-to-late afternoon is Alliance Selection, top teams from qualifying rounds will build alliances to compete in the elimnation / playoff rounds. Judges continue deliberating.
• Playoff rounds usually take a bit over an hour
• Closing Ceremonies and Awards
• Pack up fields and equipment

We plan to end the tournament by 5pm, but events can run long. All volunteers are encouraged to stay until the end of the tournament, but it's not required if your role is completed earlier in the day.

We have been preparing to host our own qualifier since November when we hosted a DISD Scrimmage. Now we have to prepare our school for 26 teams to compete tomorrow. Most of our team was there to help construct the fields. The highlight of my Friday night was dragging assorted metal chairs across the cafeteria, only to be told we only wanted to use the black chairs and spending 2x longer than needed to make our audience seating. However, we were lucky enough get lots of help from our friends in DISD, Townview, and FTC Team 7172, which eased my chair-sorting pain. Our team has made several fields together and should have been more efficient in communicating and managing our time. But that is something to learn and improve on next time. In the end, however, it went smoothly because there was lots of teamwork between 6832 and Townview volunteers once everyone had time to figure out how to best assemble the field.

The main point we'd like to drive home is that you *really* have to consider logistics when setting up a tournament. While you'll consider all the big things before the final day, such as making maps, printing flyers, and placing fields; some of the smaller items can be ignored. A prime example is that we put off figuring out the judging room locations and had to figure that out; another example that we forgot to do is have a pit organization. It would have majorly helped had we organized the pit by team number or some other order for queueing, or at least had made a map of teams beforehand.

Iron Reign (team 6832), The School of Science and Engineering and the Dallas ISD STEM Department are happy to welcome you to the FIRST Tech Challenge qualifying tournament at our Townview campus on December 16th. Twenty-six North Texas robotics teams will compete for awards and approximately 5 advancements to the Regional Championship to be held in February.

Teams

Teams - we look forward to seeing your robots compete and learning about your progress this season. Here are some documents that will help you,
Event Schedule
Team List with Judging and Inspection Schedules
Google Map
Parking Map

Volunteers

Volunteers - thank you for supporting this tournament. We could not pull it off without you. Here are some documents that will help you,
Volunteer Schedule and Prep Instructions
Google Map
Parking Map
Team List with Judging and Inspection Schedules
Full volunteer descriptions can be found here.

Concessions

Lunch will be provided to teams and volunteers. A full and economical concessions stand will accomodate most special dietary needs.
Concessions Menu

This past weekend, Iron Reign hosted a 28-team qualifier at Townview Magnet Center. Many of us attend the School of Science and Engineering inside Townview, so it was familiar territory and made the whole experience a little easier. We were lucky enough to host a Scrimmage as practice for our actual qualifier. Weeks of preparation and anticipation paid off when the FTC Affiliate Partner for North Texas told us it was "the best run qualifier this season," and the North Texas Judge Advisor, Freidrich Elliot, called it the "best judging panel he's ever seen."
Unlike most posts in our blog, this post's purpose is not to give a play-by-play. You can take a look at how the day went on our instagram. We want to use our experience as an opportunity to help out other teams who may be hosting a qualifier.

• It is very important to manage your volunteers. We had volunteer coordinators for every task, like a match queueing coordinator or inspection coordinator.
• Our PTSA was kind enough to donate food as a fundraiser. However, a lot of it was left over and wasted because it was perishable. Our recommendation is be careful in the amount of perishable food you make.
• Make a playlist using FIRST-approved songs ahead of time or use the one we used. Thanks to Roaheen Neil Mansuri on Spotify!
• Take notice of which teams queue on their own, which teams need lots of reminding, and other general manners. You and your volunteers may be asked by the judges, as we were, which teams were the best to work with.
• This may seem obvious to some, but if you cannot find a team, they are likely at the practice field.
• If possible, build two fields (in addition to the practice field). It helps immensely with time management and is part of the reason our qualifier went so well.
• Competing in a qualifier, much less running one, makes everyone a little high-strung. The most important tip we can give is to be understanding of everyone there. We all understand how much FTC means to many and it can cause some to be less considerate than normal. People standing in others' way or not queueing is not helpful, but it is nothing to lose temper over. Try to give people some kindness in a stressful day, whether you're participating or facilitating.
• Closely related to the last point, be sure to thank people. Tell your volunteers and teams that you appreciate them being there!

Task: Talk with our former members

Since we're in the last weeks of December, our schools are legally obligated to let us out. And, while colleges aren't legally mandated to let their students out, they tend to do so, as not doing that would rather enrage their students and families. So, due to this fortuitous coincidence, us simple FTC students were able to work with their dearly departed alumni to fix various problems with our team, mainly the blog.

Besides it just being nice to see all our former members come back home, we were also able to gain knowledge from their experiences in college. As well, several of our members became judges for FTC tournaments, so they were able to provide valuable insights into the judging process, which we highly appreciate. Also, as you see in the above photo, you can see we got p-r-e-t-t-y l-i-t.

Blog Fixes

Our blog is one of our most important parts for competition, as it allows us to communicate our ideas, designs, and engineering process to judges. Through the help given by our former alums, we hope to improve our chances at Wylie East.

Meeting Log December 23, 2017

Our team alumni visited practice today. They imparted their knowledge to us in terms of the blog and our build plans.

Today's Meet Objectives

Organization / Documentation / Competition Prep

• Review Journal
• Use alumni reccomendations with number and content of blog posts.

Software

• Investigate ways to pick up glyphs during autonomous
• Review OpenCV viewing of cryptobox

Build / Modelling

• Complete frame of gripper arms v3
• Assemble new gripper arms

Today's Work Log

A Summary of the 2017-2018 Iron Reign Sponorships

Iron Reign, generally, has not been great at finding sponsorships in prior years. However, this year has been much more successful. We can attribute some of our success to the fact that we won the North Texas Inspire award last year, in that we got our name out there more. As well, the fact that we built our MXP helped get our name out, and we recieved staffing and contracts for the RV through BigThought.

Team Sponsorships

DISD STEM - $5000
We first communicated with the DISD STEM department at the DISD Coaches' Training, where we presented an early form of our robot. We soon were able to form a partnership with them to host a 18-team scrimmage for DISD, and later hosted a 26-team qualifier at Townview. In return, we recieved two full field sets, and well over $1000 of robot parts, including two REV kits and 1 TETRIX competition set.

RoboRealm - $1500
RoboRealm, a machine vision software company, gave us three full licenses to their software for free, each worth $500. They are partners with FIRST and assist teams every year.

Texas Workforce Commission - $500
Texas Workforce Commission has been our most consistent sponsor every year. When we first built our RV, we visited the TWC headquarters and talked to TWC Commissioner Hughs about how their grant directly helped us. Ever since, we've recieved a grant. They are also a FIRST in Texas sponsor.

Arconic - $500
Arconic started a grant system for any team near an Arconic facility. We were eligibile due to that, and filled out an application for the grant, then got it. We have yet to visit\thank them, as we recieved this days before the tournament.

FIRST - $250
If you fill out an application on the FIRST website, and meet minimum qualifications, you can earn a grant meant to cover entry fees for tournaments. This covered our first qualifier in Oklahoma.

REV - $50 & Invaluable Advice
Well, the $50 the gave us was about $50 for one servo and its components. However, the real value that REV has given us is advice in building our robot. Iron Reign was one of the first adopters of the REV hubs and rails, which helped us create a connection. Also, we are relatively lucky by having our base of operations by the REV headquarters, a ~20 minute drive, so we have been able to drive over and present ideas to them.

Outreach Assistance

While our MXP was built by us and bought by our coach, we can't do everything on our own. We rent the MXP to BigThought, a Dallas-based educational nonprofit, and also recieve funds for upkeep from them. Through them, we have been able to provide outreach with a variety of different programs, including the City of Dallas, DISD, and Society of Black Engineers. As well, various programs assist in staffing the MXP when our team members alone won't cut it. We have partnered with Dallas City of Learning, Americorp, Best Buy, and BigThought to provide staffing.

Best Buy initially funded the technology aboard the MXP, such as our 4 3D printers, the EV3 bots, and laptops. Later, as we proved that our program was effective, we recieved an additional grant and more staffing for the MXP.

Task:

Step 1: Find Support Resources
First(get it), familiarize yourself with the FIRST Robotics Competition. Then locate your region’s Regional Director or FIRST Senior Mentor. These people know the FIRST teams, participating schools, and FIRST-friendly businesses in your area. He or she can help you form a plan for getting your team funded, organized, and in touch with other teams in the area.

Step 2: Enlist Coaches & Mentors
Each team needs at least one adult Mentor with technical expertise that is willing and motivated to “coach” the team through the build and competition season (and beyond). Also highly recommended are two or more other adults to help with administration, fundraising, community outreach, and other tasks.

Step 3: Register and Pay
You can register and create your team on FIRST's website. All coaches and members should create their own FIRST account, register to your team, and sign their consent & release form. They estimate cost per season for rookie teams to be around $2,250, including robot kit, event registraton, travel fees, and more. Registration fees themselves, however, are $275.

Step 4: Build your team
Find and invite at least 10 students who want to be part of a robotics team (the easiest part!). Be sure to emphasize that no technical skills are required, just enthusiasm and a willingness to learn. Recruit all kinds of talents, not just engineering and electronics.

Step 5: Raise funds
Your team will need a steady supply of funds. Recruit local businesses to sponsor you. Many of them may already have a relationship with FIRST. Grants are available for both rookie and underserved teams.

Step 6: Learn about safety
At FIRST, student safety is always paramount. Every adult must become familiar with the Youth Protection Program (YPP). Take the time to watch the videos and read the materials. OSHA also has a 10-hour safety certification that can be completed online.

Step 7: Time to Build Robots!
Part of the fun is designing and building your robot; FIRST provides a wealth of information in their Resource Library to help you. Find everything from technical guides to fundraising ideas to fun activities for your team.

Reflections

Often when we participate in outreach events with the Mobile Tech Lab, we get questions from students and parents alike about how to start their own robotics team in their community, school, etc. It is hard to try and explain the steps as well as direct them to the FTC website in memorable way. So, we created this easy-to-read checklist to hand out while at outreach events. We're so exited to be able to get other kids just like us involved in Robotics. Robotics has changed all of our lives for the better, without robotics many of us wouldn't have gotten to experience working with technology let alone at the level that we are now.

Task: Help a rookie FTC team

In the week before the Wylie east north Texas qualifier, Iron Reign was going about our normal development schedule when we received a request for assistance from a smaller startup team, team 13376 Cyber Wolves, that had jettisoned from an FRC team to compete in FTC. On one of our regularly scheduled nights, which actually ended up being the night before competition day, they arrived at Iron Reign’s headquarters with all of their gear and teammates in one car. They had brought two smaller robots with simple degrees of freedom and no code. The coaches also had numerous questions about how the competition would ebb and flow.

Tycho diverted from his normal autonomous coding to assist the teams coders in polishing up their control scheme and the robot was worked on by their builders, who asked for assistance and general information from our build team that was keeping to its rhythm. While their lack of resources led to a lackluster performance at the actual qualifier, they shone through and were excited to build their reserves and team for next year's competition. We were ecstatic to help an up and coming team when we got the chance, and would offer the same kind of support to any team that comes knocking.

You can contact us at ironreignrobotics@gmail.com!

Task:

It was countdown time before the competition, we had to practice driving our robot, pack the MXP, and practice our presentation. So we decided to split up into smaller groups to accomplish more. Tycho, Charlotte, and Evan drove together to practice communicating quickly and effectively. They also played against our sister team so both teams could get practice with other robots in a competition-like setting before the real thing.

Inside, Ethan and I worked on putting the final touches on our team's journal. We hole-punched papers, decorated tabs, and double-checked the whole journal. Austin, Tycho, Abhi and Kenna were helping out our guest team with their phones and their robot(click here to read more about that!).

Every 30 minutes we all met up as a team in the tent and practiced our presentation. This really helped all of us work out any kinks or problems we had in our presentation. After each dry run we gave and received constructive criticism as well as new ideas, which really helped to improve our overall presentation.

Reflections

This method of splitting up into sub-teams really helped us organize and coordinate our time. In the past this has worked well for us, so applying this to our competition prep was a good move. By splitting up we could divide tasks more evenly and have a clear understanding of what we had to do. Another really beneficial thing we did were the practice runs every 30 minutes. By doing this we were able to practice our presentation and give each other feedback. Leaving 30 minutes between each run gave everybody time to review their slides and incorporate any new ideas into their presentation.

DISD STEM Fair was one of our busiest events, but it was also one of our least chaotic. Our team has trouble turning anyone away because we want to introduce as many people as possible to STEM, but letting everyone onto the MXP usually results in more stress and less efficiency because it becomes so crowded. This time we implemented some of the improvements we had been discussing for the past few weeks like a keychain waiting list and regulating entrance to the MXP. We were able to reach 400 students with our three activities and spoke to over 1500 parents and students. We had the opportunity to set up a field and demo our competition bot for everyone there, including some FLL and FTC teams, which is something we don't usually get to do. A lot of kids actually got to drive the robot, as seen below.

We offer two activities on the Mobile Learning Experience(MXP):3D Modeling & Printing and EV3 Lego Bots.

Using laptops, presentation monitors, and 3D printers donated to us by Best Buy, we teach students how to design and print their own keychain. We use SketchUp, a free 3D modeling program by Google, because our hope is that if we teach people the basics they can go home and use SketchUp themselves. They learn the basic functions of CAD, such as the push/pull tool, shape tool, and 3D text. We had lots of people express interest in SketchUp for their kids or students. The highlight of my day was seeing kids who had been taught SketchUp helping those who were still building their keychain.

With our EV3 kits, we help everyone code their own robot and battle it against other bots. Most of the time, it's someone's first interaction with code so what they are coding is fairly basic. The simple code gives them a real taste of programming in a way they can understand.

Among our sponsors that make our outreach possible is BigThought. They help us with the costs of maintaining the MXP as well as staffing. What we do would not be possible without them. During this event, the CEO of BigThought was able to tour the MXP and see what we do to further interest and ability in STEM for young students.

Task: Analyze our successes and failures in the Wylie East Competition

We have a new format for our postmortems. We start by asking a series of questions to figure out our problems, and we cover 4 catagories to do so.

STRENGTHS

• What are our strengths?
• What do we do better than other teams?
• What unique capabilities and resources do we possess?
• What do others perceive as our strengths?

• What are our weaknesses?
• What do other teams do better than us?
• What can we improve given the current situation?
• What do others perceive as our weaknesses?

• What trends or conditions may positively impact us?
• What opportunities are available to us?

• What trends or conditions may negatively impact us?
• What are other teams doing that may impact us?
• What impact do our weaknesses have on the threats to us?

Preparation

Strengths
This time, we prepped our engineering journal a good while beforehand, which was good. Last time, we spent the last night panicking over how our journal wasn't finished and dealing with a printer that craps out every other page. We also became more productive as the tournament drew closer, but this can also be a drawback as we need to be *consistent*.

Weaknesses
We didn't really ever get our parts and tools together before the tournament. We were helping a team the night before, and we had our tools out to help them instead of packing, then never really reconsolidated them.

Oppurtunities
We should take full advantage of non-Saturday practices to prep before the tournament. While some people did show up, not everyone was able to, and we'd like to increase attendance as much as possible. We also need to prepare ASAP, not right before the tournament. We also ought to make flair for our team like pins or something similar to get our name out and bribe teams with.

Threats
We're high school students at one of the top schools in the nation, so we're pretty busy. Despite that, we really should increase attendance so we can get more work done.

Judging

Strengths
We won the First Place Inspire Award, so we're definitely doing something right. We got mentioned for every single award but Motivate. We got all our content across, and we told a good story, but we still have room to improve.

Weaknesses
We need to smooth over our presentation in several areas. First, we need to sync up our presentation so that our laptops show the same slides. We also need to clarify our content between last year's accomplishments and this year's. Our transitions need a bit of work - we came off as rusty - and we also need to cut our time down by doing so.
We also need to be more effective in the pits of the tournament. We need to look active, and we don't do a great job of doing that. We also need the team to become more educated in the intricate parts of our team.

ALSO: ENTHUSIASM

Oppurtunities
We want to make our engineering journal stand out more - we have some ideas such as adding robot parts to our journal to make it snazzy. Also eventually, we want to get a tent for the pits to stand out.

Robot Performance

Strengths
For the *first* time ever, we had ZERO disconnects on our phones. We can partially attribute this to using new phones, the Moto Gs. As well, our jewel auto worked every single match, 100% success rate. The newest glyph system worked amazingly, but we still have room for improvement.

Weaknesses
We need a way to build more 3D-printed parts to outrace the constant wear and tear of the tournaments. We also had issues with Vuforia, and we ought to work on phone placement to fix that, which ties in to retuning our autonomous glyph tuning. We also need to add strain relief to the hub power cable.

Oppurtunities
We need to work on driver practice more with the new gripper. We also need the drivers, as well as everyone else, to get more sleep.
We're going to try and assemble more intake systems, such as a chain flipper, improved glyph system, and forward rake to test the intakes.

Scouting

Strengths
Abhi did a great job scouting. This was one of our best scouting tournaments, and there aren't many critiques of it.

Weaknesses
We need to make sure teams can follow up on their claims because some teams frankly just bs when asked about their robot. We also need to take more photos for blog posts and the presentation.

Oppurtunities
We need to have better accounts of the matches, and we need to watch other teams' matches.

Task: Build a solid drive team.

One of the leading problems Iron Reign faces is our ability to allot time to effective driving practice. Driving practice is essential for our success in the robot game, but it is sometimes difficult to find time to practice due to other team members working on various robot improvements. We have created two different drive teams, a main team and a backup team, so that despite who is available at meeting we can always have some kind of drive practice going on. The bulk of the time spent in driving practice is spent practicing putting glyphs in the cryptobox, trying to better our previous time and complete as many columns as we can. We focus on performing and scoring timed runs, and sometimes when our sister team 3734 is available, we scrimmage our robots against each other. Another smaller, yet equally essential, part of drive practice is setting up the robot in the correct orientation for every situation and running our autonomous. It is important that we make all of our mistakes during practice, so that when it is time to compete we run autonomous perfectly every time. The main challenges we face in driving practice is consistency in filling the cryptobox, adjusting to significant robot design changes, and our time management (actually finding the time to get in good practice).

In the future, the drive team is going to meet more often and hold more efficient practices. Our main goal is to significantly decrease the time that it takes to fill the cryptobox, and to accomplish this we will need to clock in many hours so that we are very comfortable in driving the robot. Ideally, any error that might occur during competition will be mechanical errors that are out of the drivers' control. We have improved a lot, but we still have a long way to go.

Task: Design a poster to tell Iron Reign's story

Our presentations to the judges usually turn out well. However, looking back at the last tournament's awards, we could've performed way better. To get a better chance at Inspire, we really need to get 2nd place in every other award, and in the last tournament, we got 3rd, and really only got the Inspire Award just because the other major team already got the 1st Inspire in another tournament. So, our number-one priority is to better communicate our timeline, story, and information to the judges. While a good portion of this is journal improvements and presentation improvements, we hope to further communicate our story to the judges by providing a visual representation of our story through the timeline.

Task: Update the Strategic Plan for North Texas Regionals

Download the full, updated plan here.

Beyond superficial changes, we hadn't done much else to the Strategic/Business plan since it was written. So, in order to not look like idiots when we give it to the judges, we had to update it.

What we did:

• Added section about testing materials
• Added section about new design changes
• Updated list of sponsors
• Updated list of outreach events
• Updated strategy section
• Updated building strategies
• Updated 3-D modelling section

What we need to do:

• Expand code section
• Talk about REVolution
• Expand build and outreach section

Task: Win at the North Texas Regionals

Introduction

Inspection

Presentation

Scouting

Robot Game

Match 1

Match 11

Match 14

Match 23

Match 27

Semi Match 1&2

Ceremony

Task:

At the end of last semester our principal, Ms.Hewitt was promoted to the ED of our feeder pattern. This semester we got the opportunity to meet our new principle, Mr.Palacios. He previously served as the Academy, Science & Foreign Language Department Administrator at Hillcrest High School, and was interested in learning more about SEM and what our students did to contribute to the school. We wanted to show him SEMs Robotics program ,so Iron Reign arranged a meeting with him. During the meeting we planned to give him a presentation much like the one we give to judges. We changed up the presentation a little by adding the FTC competition video to introduce him to the competition and give him a little background about what First is.

Presentation Notes:

Mr. Palacios said he enjoyed our presentation and it gave him a good insight into Robotics, in the past he has not worked with Robotics and our presentation showed him that in First Robotics goes much deeper than just building a robot and competing with it, First is also about giving back to the community and promoting STEM. He plans to follow up with us to see our progress in the following months, and has been following up with our team members individually in the hallways or whenever he sees us.

Task: Reflect on The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of our performance at North Texas Regionals

Preparation

Strengths
Some of our team members put in a lot of hours of work the night before the competition and we were able to successfully prepare the robot for the robot games.

Weaknesses
Though it proved very necessary, the fact that people had to pull an all-nighter before the competition shows that we have a long way to go before we have perfected our preparation strategy. We need to work on limiting our last minute robot changes/focus more on the robot in the weeks before the competition instead of the hours. Also, with any changes we make we need to make sure that we are able to practice driving with them.

Opportunities
In the future, we must take advantage of after school practices in the weeks leading up to the competition,as we historically can't accomplish everything solely on Saturday practices.

Threats
There is a threat of laziness and the lack of high priority in the weeks leading up to higher level competitions. We must work hard not only on the night before the competition, but in the days and weeks leading up to it. There is a huge threat of time crunch.

Judging

Strengths
In the presentation room we had more of an air of enthusiasm than in our previous presentations, and while we can always have more energy, it was a step in the right direction. We got a sheer mass of information out in our allotted time and did so effectively. It was evident in the fact that we won 2nd Inspire and 1st Connect that we were successful in bringing our point across.

Weaknesses
We still have the problem of coming off as inactive or lethargic in the pits. It didn't help this time that some of us were running on a very small amount of sleep. During the presentation itself we ran overtime, as we always do, and barely left any time for questions. Also, in our time crunch we didn't get to show the full demo of our robot, which is obviously a very important aspect of the presentation.

Opportunities
We can practice our presentation to make our transitions smoother and our content more concise so that we can relay all of the information that we strive to.

Robot Performance

Strengths
After our losses, our robot started to perform a lot better and won a couple of matches. While the grabber system could perform better, this competition was a good opportunity to see what works and what doesn't.

Weaknesses
We lost our first three matches due to our lift not being completely tested and fixed. It got caught on the robot, stopped lifting, and had other performance issues early on in the competition. We had to do a complete replacement of the grabber, so there were still some parts that were not completely secure; we had to make many last minute and between match fixes.

Opportunities
We were able to prove that grabber v.5 works! And now we can move on and make additional improvement so that we can truly bring forward our robot game during supers. We are using our current model (the model from the competition) and working on mounting it to a conveyor belt to flip to either side of the robot. This competition proved the ability of the grabber and opened up the opportunity to make additional modifications with it.

Scouting

Strengths
This competition we were able to talk to other team throughout the day and form connections, that way even though we were in 13th place by the end of the competition we were able to explain that we lost our first three due to some minor changes but we won our last two games because we finally got our robot to work. This helped us get into the semifinals as part of the fourth place alliance.

Weaknesses
We need to make sure teams can follow up on their claims because some teams frankly just exaggerated when asked about their robot. We also need to take more photos for blog posts and the presentation. We needed to do more scouting this competition, while we were able to talk to teams we didn't do a very good job in keeping up with a spreadsheet of all of our data that meant by the end when we were trying to see what teams to talk to we had a hard time remember their stats or much about their robot.

Opportunities
We need to have better accounts of the matches, and we need to watch other teams' matches through doing this we can keep an accurate spreadsheet and know what each team is truly capable of.

Task: Compete at the Oklahoma Regional

In November, we went to a Oklahoman qualifier in Mustang. The reason for this was purely strategic - by competing in multiple regions, we have more chances of advancing, as well as having more in-tournament experience overall. There, we got 2nd-place Inspire and advanced to the Oklahoma Regionals. Then, when we came back to Dallas, we ended up advancing to the North Texas Regionals as well, on Inspire 1st place. Then, North Texas Regionals happened to occur before Oklahoma, and we advanced there with 2nd place Inspire. Finally, we had the Oklahoman Regional. Since we'd already won a regional, this tournament proved as a testing ground for robot, presentation, and strategy changes.

Inspection

Again, we went through inspection with ease. We really hope that this will be a continuing trend because this gives us *way* more time for practice, and this helped with our performance in the game.

Presentation

The presentation...oh man. The presentation is usually the high point of Iron Reign's day, and we forgot the Engineering Journal. That's right, the one thing that allows us to get awards, our main advancement strategy. So, we panicked. Mrc. Lux was still in Texas, and theoretically would be able to get us the Journal, but we didn't want to hedge all our bets on that. So, we bought an entire printer from Walmart™ so that we could print if she was too far out by 4:30. But, luckily, she got there in time, and we didnt have to print approx. 400 pages.
Besides forgetting our engineering journal, we had other issues to deal with. We recently took on three new members from our sister team, team 3734 Imperial Robotics, and two of them had to learn parts in our presentation for Oklahoma. As well, we added new lines to the presentation to talk about our connections with outreach and mentors.
Despite all this, our presentation went really well. Our judging panel interrupted us to ask questions, which threw us off a bit, but we were able to persevere through that and pull off a good presentation.

Robot Game

We were hoping to have our new gripper system installed in time for Oklahoma, but it fell through the cracks. So, we had to reinstall our old gripper, but other than that, we made few changes to the robot.

Match 5

Match 20

Match 28

Match 37

Match 45

Match 51

Match 65

Ceremony

Even though we performed decently in the robot game, we didn't communicate well with some of the groups of roving judges, so we were unsure about how we'd do in awards. We ended up with a 1st Connect and a 3rd Inspire, as well as a few other award mentions.

Next Steps:

Task:

We came to the Oklahoma Regional woefully unprepared for the amount of stuff other teams would give out. As soon as we arrived, we received every trinket imaginable. There were keychains, pins, 3D-printed symbols, business cards, patches, and tons of other creative designs. Luckily, the MXP was there and had 4 3D printers on board. Normally, we use them to print out keychains for kids during our outreach in Dallas, but this time it was for our own use. We whipped up a quick design on SketchUP and started printing. The design wasn't especially memorable (something we want to improve on for Supers), but it was nice to have something to give out to passing teams.

Tycho also enjoyed our efforts (the red things are all keychains). We printed throughout the entire day since we hadn't come with any. It added a bit of stress to the whole day, which we could have done without.

For Superregionals, our goal is to come prepared with a creative keychain or card. Janavi and Kenna have already started working on a few designs to use to connect with other teams. We're very excited to see what all the other teams have at Supers.

Task: Prepare for the South Super Regionals in Athens, Georgia

We currently have a bit over two weeks to get ready for the South Super Regionals, and we're not quite ready. Actually, if we want to get competition-ready, we've got a long way to go. From prior experience, we're currently 55% on awards and 45% on robot game for advancement, but we want to get both to 60-70+%. So, we created a list so that we could break our workload down into discrete tasks.

Engineering Journal

• North Texas Regionals PostMortem
• OK Regionals Play-by-Play
• OK Regionals PostMortem
• Meta-PostMortem
• Reindex Journal
• Super Regionals Packing List

Business

• Talk to AWC for Sponsorship

Build

Relic Arm

• 3D Model
• Code
• Improve Gripper
• Posts

Octopuckers

• Print Latest Design
• Next Design\Post
• Print Old Versions

Gripper

• Space Attachment Links
• Test Code
• Phone Mount
• Posts for Above
• Mount Pulley Clips
• Star Intake/Post
• Update to V5
• Extend Internal Lift
• Bottom-Mounted Jewel Thief
• Posts

Code

• Automate Balancing
• Auto-Column w/ Vuforia
• Cryptobox Alignment w/ Vuforia
• Posts

Organizational

• Clean RoboDojo
• Clean MXP
• Design Pit
• Make List of Pit Items
• Design Posters

Next Steps:

As you can see, we've got a lot to do, but I'm confident we'll finish a majority of these items.

Task: Evaluate our strengths and downfalls at Oklahoma State Regionals

It wasn't a great regional, but it wasn't a bad one either, it was an OK Regional.

Preparation

Strengths
Because we had already been to North Texas Regionals, we were one step ahead of the teams in OK that hadn’t been to a regional yet this year in that sense. We already had everything in some sort of order from North Texas, so we were prepared for the challenges we know we will encounter at a competition at the regional level.

Weaknesses
We left the engineering journal in Dallas. If it weren’t for our chaperone, we would have had to re-print all 300-400 pages of our engineering journal in Oklahoma. This is the worst example of us not following the checklist when packing up our vehicle. Also, we left polycarbonate, so we had to go to Walmart and use the lid of a plastic box for the polycarb pieces on our robot that needed replacement. Because we had already qualified, we were not as serious in our preparations as we could have been, and that cost us in the robot game.

Opportunities
In this competition, we 3D printed keychains to hand out to teams (pictured below). We started this process a couple of hours before the competition, so we only had enough to hand out to our alliance partners. A lot of teams also had extravagant pit setups, so during Super Regionals we should strive to set ourselves apart in the pits, especially since a large part of judging occurs in the pits.

Threats
As always, a large threat is lack of urgency for the competition in the days leading up to it. We only had one week to prepare and we will only have two weeks to prepare for Supers, so our head has really got to be in the game in the days leading up to it.

Judging

Strengths
In the presentation room, there was a great environment and our presentation flowed more as a conversation than a lecture. The judges were curious about some of our accomplishments, like our REVolution system and the RV, and interrupted us during the presentation to ask questions. This made us feel more relaxed and the presentation ran very smoothly. Unlike last time, we had enough time to demo the robot and show off its capabilities. Also, a lot of judges visited our pit and we were able to show many of them to our Mobile Tech Lab.

Weaknesses
We didn't mention to the judges that we have already qualified, which would have been helpful for us as we won't have been seen as a threat to Oklahoma teams. Also, we added many parts to the presentation on the day of judging, so we were less practiced on those parts.

Opportunities
Now we have the opportunity to refine the parts that we added to the presentation so that it flows smoothly with no awkward breaks.

Robot Performance

Strengths
Our autonomous is where we do best during matches, especially the jewel portion which we did successfully every match. When it worked, the internal lift was helpful in making out game and although we didn't score a lot of glyphs, we were consistent in getting 1.5 columns every time. With practice we could continue that consistency but with more columns.

Weaknesses
Our robot performed decently, but the grabber was slow and we never got more than 1.5 columns. The internal lift broke many times throughout the day. Because we changed the grabber recently, we mounted the phone in a position that it can't read the target so that it places the glyph in the correct column and didn't have time to fix it. Also, we were one of the few teams without a relic arm which I think hurt us in both our success in matches and in not getting picked for an alliance. We won all of our matches except for one, but that was mostly due to luck which we can't count on at Supers.

Opportunities
Our grabber system is now at v.5, which is the old lift (the one we used in OK) but on a conveyor belt system that flips it to either side of the robot. We think that this grabber is going to be our best and hopefully, paired with a lot of drive practice, is going to significantly improve our robot game.

Scouting

Strengths
We were able to make some connections with teams that we are going to see in Georgia for Super Regionals and further practice our communication with other teams.

Weaknesses
We did a poor job in advertising our robot to other teams and were not picked for alliances despite our decently high ranking after the qualifying matches (12th place). We have had a lower ranking and been picked before, so we need to start scouting earlier in the games and form connections with competitive teams so we have a chance to get picked.

Opportunities
For Supers, we are going to prepare handouts, like flyers, keychains, and pins to give to the other teams and make our name known. Also, at this point in the season there is a lot of data for each team, so we can get a lot of the scouting done before the competition. We can also prepare our spreadsheets or whatever method we choose to use to get information from the teams at the competition.

Task: Evaluate how well Iron Reign has stuck to its priorities

As Super Regionals approaches, we'd like to evaluate our past performance on post mortems, to see how well we've done, to modify our future post mortems, and to find new approaches towards solving our problems.

Past posts are:

• Mustang Qualifier
• Wylie East
• North Texas Regionals
• Oklahoma Regionals

Mustang Qualifier at Oklahoma

ISSUE: Time Management

ISSUE: Referring to Coach

ISSUE: Preparedness

ISSUE: Presentation

ISSUE: Robot Stability

Wylie East Qualifier

ISSUE: Packing

ISSUE: Judging

ISSUE: Robot fixes

• More 3D parts to combat wear and tear - fixed
• Vuforia fixes - not fixed
• Strain relief - fixed
• Lack of driver experience - fixed

ISSUE: Scouting Gaps

North Texas Regional

ISSUE: Last minute robot changes

ISSUE: Lethargy

ISSUE: Robot Weakness

Oklahoma Regional

ISSUE: Preparation

ISSUE: Design Keychains

ISSUE: Speed

ISSUE: No Relic Arm

With SuperRegionals just around the corner, everyone is going into overdrive and we almost forgot about our video for the Promote Award. We got lucky with the due date being extended for the South, so we had two extra days to make ours.

We wanted to this year's Promote Award video to be a little different from last year's. This entire season we've been trying to move away from the creation of the MXP and more towards its sustainability (as well as Iron Reign's sustainability as a team). Last year's video focused on the MXP. Through FIRST, Iron Reign has affected the lives of all of its team members so we had no lack of stories from members who wanted to share what FIRST and robotics means to them.

Our plan was to have an older robotics member reminisce about their days in FIRST, then we flashback to a slideshow of photos of our team from 2012 to 2018 with a voiceover talking about what we want the world to know about FIRST.

We scavenged through years and years of photos saved on our Google Drive. We even got to see the famed salad bar video where some very young Iron Reign members present a sanitary alternative to a salad bar through song. Some of my favorite pictures are below:

The video clip at the beginning took about an hour to film and record. Kenna outlined a script for the whole video which Austin narrated and acted with Ethan filming. The audio for the intro where Austin pretends to be a retired FTC member had to be recorded separately so the transition from live video to slideshow. After several tries, we had a few good clips. But those just made up a couple seconds of the entire video because most of it was the slideshow. Below is Austin recording the voiceover.

Using VideoPad Video Editor, a free program, Kenna screenrecorded the slideshow and added the intro clip with the voiceover files as the audio. For anyone who is inexperienced with video-editing and needs to do it in a hurry, VideoPad is a good way to go. Be warned, you can only download your final video once or twice without paying. To be very honest, everything was done in a bit of a hurry. We liked our idea, but we wish we had more time to execute it. Next year, hopefully, we will plan ahead of time and have a few weeks to create our video.

Update: Since we have been lucky enough to be selected to go to Worlds, we will be making an updated version of our Promote Video.

Task: Make team informational posters for South Super Regionals

Last year, we didn't spend that much time on the poster/aesthetic side of things for Supers, and we ended up getting the Judges' Award. While we can't really prove a cause-and-effect relationship between the two, we want to improve in all aspects so we don't repeat last years performance. So, this year, we're going to try to convey more information to the judges so that we can bolster our chances for awards.

While we were in Oklahoma, we saw another team's pit setup/poster design that we liked (FTC Team 4962, the Rockettes), and we realized that having posters stand by in the background that we can refer to would significantly help our chances in judging, as we would be able to further back up our claims during questions from roving judges. So, we made our own designs that will sit in the pit for the judges to see. All 3 were made in Adobe Illustrate.

Next Steps:

After this, we need to make new posters and Aquilas, as both are currently water damaged.

The Transition from Imperial to Iron Reign

It all started when both teams went to the North Texas Regional - I was part of Imperial at the time, with high hopes for our robot. We worked really hard on the robot, though we were only a team of three, so all were eager to see the robot compete. But, once the matches started rolling, we saw we didn't have what it took to compete against power houses like Technical Difficulties.

This really made us feel bad because we had only worked on the robot game and not on any of the awards. At the end of the day, the Imperial team waited for the awards with our sister team, Iron Reign, because they worked really hard toward the awards. Sure enough, their hard work paid off because they were able to get the 2nd place Inspire award. They were heading to Supers. We all went out to celebrate their victory, some of us happier than others.

While everyone was talking, our mentor made us an interesting offer. He saw us put extreme effort into making a competetitive robot and, liking our work ethic, said "You guys are varsity material." So he decided to offer Justin and I a spot on Iron Reign to continue our adventures with robotics. We could not believe Iron Reign would be so generous as to take us in with open arms. We accepted right away because we couldn't pass up such an opportunity - our team hasn't been to Supers for years.

It came with conditions though: we had to start doing blog posts, which we had never done before, and our mentor wanted to see the same work ethic from when we worked on our Imperial robot. We were also given many opportunities here at Iron Reign. Since Iron Reign goes for all the awards, I have been able to learn what each award means and how to work towards getting them. We have also learned more on software and hardware. Tycho is an experienced coder and Austin is an experienced builder, both ready to teach anyone willing to get their hands dirty. These opportunities could not have been found anywhere except Iron Reign.

Meeting Log March 17, 2018

Today we focused on changes we planned from Supers. Also, we decided to have a mini discussion about good and bad things from Supers (not a post mortem).

Today's Meet Objectives

Organization / Documentation / Competition Prep

• Review Journal
• Post Mortem
• Assigning Blog Posts

Software

• Implement Field Oriented Drive
• Open CV Progress
• Fix Viewforia demo mode
• Driver Practice Modifications

Build / Modeling

• Build Sparring Bots
• Make flag holder
• Learn how to 3-D print
• Build Relic Arm

Service / Outreach

• Promote video redesign
• Reveal Video footage

Today's Work Log

Task: Reflect on our accomplishments in South Super Regionals

Judging

Strengths
In previous presentations, we have had difficulty with timing and conveying everything we have to in the allotted time. This time, we got all of our information across and had enough extra time for some questions and good discussion with the judges.

Weaknesses
Although we did improve our timing, due to a lack of practice we had some poor/awkward transitions, and we had to shuffle a bit every time we needed to demonstrate something we have made which made for awkward periods of silence. Also, we tended to ramble, so with practice or by making a script we can be more precise. We didn't stress connect/first specific events and we didn't stress the year round deployment of or outreach program as much as we usually do, so we didn't get any visits to our Mobile Learning Lab from judges. The main logistical error we had was that one of the computers didn't have the latest version of the presentation on it, and we couldn't download it because the venue didn't have internet connection. As always, we were lower on energy then we could have been, so we may have come off as less enthusiastic as we really are.

Opportunities
The greatest improvement we can make is practice: with practice we can make our presentation crisp and flushed out to avoid those awkward pauses. To avoid the awkward shuffling to the presentation box, we can have every person hold different versions of the grabber. We are going to make a bar with every version of the octoplucker because this would be helpful to demonstrate. Also, FIRST specific events are very important to us and the judging.

Threats
Our Mobile Learning Lab is going to be at an Earth Day event during Worlds, so we will not be able to share it/give judges tours.

Robot Performance

Strengths
At Supers, we had the best gripper flipper that we have had yet, it worked alright and it looked nice so it impressed the judges. Our robot didn't die during matches which is a welcome improvement. We won 2nd place innovate award for our REVolution system. Also, we noticed our robot has good speed and maneuverability.

Weaknesses
We were ranked 32/36, so overall our robot game was weak. We assembled our final Supers robot too late, so we didn't have nearly enough driver practice.

Opportunities
Driver practice is key. In the weeks leading up to Worlds, we are going to avoid major robot changes and practice driving the robot as much as we can.

Scouting

Strengths
This time, we had things to hand out to teams that we visit and those that stopped by our pit. We made 1000 business cards and a lot of keychains that we 3D printed previously. Also, we visited a lot of pits, both in Kilrain and Pemberton, and made friends with teams, connections that will continue into Worlds. We even took pictures of everyone's robot and made a collage, pictured below.

Weaknesses
Our pit was disorganized and crowded, we were having. A few members of our team got sick, so there was a lot of sitting around and looking lazy. Apparently they will not be supplying chairs at Worlds, so that should help. We aren't known for being particularly high energy, but it is essential to be active in the pits on competition days.

Opportunities
By Worlds, we hope to have completed the awards case that we had planned for Supers, and hopefully we can create more Roman inspired items to give our pit a more unique touch.

Journal

Strengths
Our engineering journal was effective in portraying the progression of the robot design. It had an enormous amount of posts that show all of our accomplishments this year. The many posts we made for the REVolution system probably helped us catch the attention of the Innovate judges.

Weaknesses
Some of our sections were a bit empty, such as our control section which only has 6 posts and the business section.

Opportunities
Before Worlds, we are going to organize the posts into their respective awards a bit better as well as writing abstracts for each award and why we are good candidates for them. We are running out of space in our binder, so we are going to split it into two which will be nice so two judges can read our information at the same time. For our control section, we are going to add an Open CV post, which is something we talk about in our presentation but we don't have many details about it in our journal.

Threats
When we split into two binders, a judge may mistake each on for a full journal, so we must make it clear on the cover of each journal that it is only half.

Task: Present at the Fort Worth Science Museum iMake Festival

The iMake Maker Fest is an annual event held by the Forth Worth Museum of Science and History to celebrate innovation and Maker culture. We've presented here before, most recently in the Rescue Recovery season. We really wanted to get in one more outreach event before worlds, and we already had a good connection with the museum from prior events, so we contacted them asking them if they had extra space for a 12x12 robot field. They did, and we came.

We came early, around 8, so that we could set up an entire field for practice. Even though we're planning on volunteering, we still can't reasonably give up an entire day of drivers practice. So, we turned our outreach into a combined event - talking to parents and educators about FIRST, as well as more directly demonstrating that by driving our robots around the museum.

We talked to about 900 people today from all over Texas, and had an overall very successful day. We had many parents interested in putting their kids in FIRST programs, and had a former FIRST official talk to us!

Next Steps:

We don't have much time to do any more outreach events before Worlds without sacrificing valuable time, so our next focus is solely on the robot and journal.

Task: Analyze Failures

Two words describe the picture above: "Oh dear". The wires shown above are connected to our jewel thief on the bottom of our robot. The reason the wires are so shredded and torn is because the chain on our grippers would rub against the wires when the lift was in the lower position. However, it was not always like this.

This piece used to be on the robot prior to stripping. It's purpose was to protect the wires from damage of grippers. However, at SSR, I decided to take the piece off temporarily because it halted the gripper too short from the optimal intake position. Ignorance led to this piece becoming forgotten about and left in a random box. Since then, the robot had experienced many issues.

The first and most evident effect was the wires being stripped. This created a safety hazard and made the robot dangerous to others on the field. In addition, this cutting led to the color sensor becoming unresponsive many times, taking away valuable time from autonomous testing. Another issue was that the wires shorted out our batteries, leading to destruction of valuable batteries. This is shown below.

From this, we lost over 4 hours of driver practice since we would constantly be waiting for batteries to charge (unaware of the issue at this time). As a result of losing one piece of the robot, we lost many things in the process. To fix this, we had to: order new sensor cables, use a new color sensor, rewire the robot, use new batteries, and reassemble the jewel thief.

It took me about 3 hours just to remove the jewel thief and reassemble it to get it ready for rewiring. After this, someone who was better at electrical had to rewire the robot. In the end, the fix took close to 7 hours.

Aside from physical build, I also made a mistake on the software side. Being a novice at Github, I managed to create a collection of merge issues for our game repository. As a result, Tycho had to take about 2 hours to fix all merge conflicts and make the robot functional again. This again led to loss of driver practice-something we are very bad at.

Though I have made many failures recently, this post is also about the team as a whole. As a team, we have not been the best at organization. For example, after returning from Georgia, we left the poles for our tent in the middle of the backyard. Though we were very tired, we should have put the poles in a safe location. Since we neglected them, we now have to wash them because of rain damage in the following days. Another issue we have is phone and battery management. It is always exciting to be on the practice field driving around but we seem to forget about the most important thing: charging. After some driver practice, we seem to just leave the phone and used batteries on the field and go home. Therefore, we lose valuable time to charging, time that could be used for driver practice or autonomous testing. Finally, we are terrible at putting things back where they belong. If you look at our practice space currently, you cannot see one clean spot as it is either occupied with another chassis, some rev rails, or nuts/bolts. Spreading all these items around leads to not only decreased efficiency as we spend infinite amount of time looking for parts, but also an unappealing place to live for our coach and his family.

I have reflected on my failures and am working hard to make sure I don't make similar mistakes in the future. It is also time for the rest of the team to reflect on our negligence. After analyzing our weak points, we are slowly working towards fixing the mistakes. As an example, Kenna was able to clean up our table so we could finally see the wood underneath. Our team is now at the Championship level and we shouldn't make these mistakes simply due to laziness. As we continue on our journey it is important for us to grow from our failures and avoid them to reach maximum efficiency.

Task: Volunteer at the DISD Discover Summer PREP event

Today, our sponsor volunteered our RV for DISD's Discover Summer PREP U. This is the week before Worlds, but luckily this event was from 9am-1pm, so it didn't interfere with our normal practice. The event was originally planned to be outside, but it was 39°F, well below the Dallas average April temperature of 57°F. This meant that we didn't get as many visitors as planned because we can't exactly park our RV inside, so we braved it alone. For the first few hours, we didn't realize that, so we sat all lonely inside. Finally, we realized our mistake and sent people in to demo our robots and invite people outside.

Once people heard the gospel of Iron Reign, we were flooded with visitors, and we were completely unprepared. We had a team member who fell asleep under a bench, and the masses of people trapped her underneath, and we had to wait for an oppurtune moment to free her. The RV had its usual two modes, with EV3 Sumo Bot programming in the front, and keychain printing in the back. We recently bought two new filament types, green and translucent blue, both of which produce higher quality prints and easier removal than the usual red filament.

Inside, we had people talking to the passerby, giving them the history of Iron Reign and other FIRST-related information. Austin and Tycho drove Argos and Kraken, drawing many interested visitors of all ages. We even saw the father of one of our former alums. We talked to the most people in there, but we still drew a decent amount of people to the RV.

Overall, we interacted with about 450 (Waiting on BigThought estimate) people. While not exactly as much as we hoped, this was still a decent showing for the weather.

Next Steps

This was our last outreach event before Worlds, and it was an successful one at that.

Task: Publish REVolution Parts

Tired of slipping set screws? Want a rigid drive shaft as long or tall as your robot? Have a bunch of REV Rail lying around? Have we got a solution for you...

Turn your REV Rail into a beater-bar, a drive shaft or a heavy duty hinge with our Spintastic Axializer System … The REVolution System

Iron reign has developed these parts over the course of this season and they have served as essential pieces of our robot. Now you don't have to worry about snapping axles and those darn set screws. Choose your attachment plate, your internal pieces, and assemble them together! With this system, you robot can be efficient and flashy.

The parts are avaliable at

If you need help with part assembly or printing, please contact us and we will be glad to help. Tutorial videos are in the process of being made. Details about the parts are listed below

Task: Publish Scouting Sheet for Houston

It is almost time for Championships and that means scouting time! Thank you everyone for contributing to the scouting sheet. The combined effort of all teams made this job easier for all of us. If you would like to view the sheet, visit tinyurl.com/HWC18

Task: Publish Robot Reveal

After a season of work, Iron Reign has the final version of Kraken ready for Championships. With it comes a video showing off its features. We filmed it moving in all sorts of ways. We also found pictures from this season of the team's design growth and outreach events, including having fun. You can view it here below!

Purpose:

The purpose of this video is to represent Iron Reign as a whole. FTC is not only about the robot but also about the journey there. We showed our thoughts over the season, including outreach events, scavenging polycarb, or illustrating the engineering process of grippers.

Task: Present and play first match

It was a dark, surprisingly non-humid, Houston morning. Tarballs blew through the parking lot from dusty, abandoned oil refineries down by the bay. One by one, phones went off in the hotel looming above the lot, waking up their inhabitants. In these rooms, their occupants dusted off their Bucees wrappers and Iron Reign shirts and stumbled to the tournament.

The first day was relatively short, with a lot of waiting. There were two main parts of the day, presentation and first match.

Presentation

Game 1

Task: Compete in robot game

It was the beginning of Day 2. Our members rolled out of bed, covered in old Fiesta receipts and Chipotle wrappers. One by one, they stumbled onto their charter bus, unprepared for the new day.

Game 26

Game 34

Game 55

Game 73

We also entered the block design competition this day. AndyMark released a form on their Twitter a few weeks before to enter, and we requested 64 blocks. We settled on a throne design, using a bread carver to add more details. We had teams from all over gravitate to our pit to sit in our chair and get help in their own designs.

Task: Compete in robot game

It was the beginning of Day 3. We awoke, covered in metal parts and broken servos, took our sleeping-caps off, and went off to the Houston Convention Center.

Game 82

Game 99

Game 116

Game 131

See awards information here.

Last week at the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Robotics World Championship in Houston, Team 6832, Iron Reign, from the School of Science and Engineering in Dallas ISD earned the Motivate award which ranks them at the top in the outreach category.

Each of the 5,200 active robotics teams this year is expected and encouraged to share their passion for robotics and all things Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) with younger students who haven't had the same opportunities. One hundred and twenty eight of these teams from around the world earned spots at this championship, including teams from the USA, Canada, Mexico, South America, the Middle East, the Pacific Rim and China. Iron Reign received this recognition for their work in creating, operating and sustaining the Mobile Tech eXPerience, an RV that they converted to a mobile STEM lab in order to support the work of Big Thought and the Dallas City of Learning Initiative.

On board the vehicle, students can learn to program one of sixteen sumo robots, design 3D objects and print them on one of the four 3D printers, learn to program in Scratch or create virtual worlds in Minecraft. The robotics team converted the vehicle and helped run the pilot program in summer 2016. This school year their goal has been to help Big Thought sustain the vehicle by continuing to support deployments, improve the curriculum and simply "make it loud." And now Big Thought is taking vehicle operations year-round. With this vehicle and accomplished instructors, Big Thought is bringing STEM exposure into under-served neighborhoods to help young students think of themselves as future engineers, scientists or technologists. This year alone the team has contributed 680 hours supporting 15 deployments of the vehicle to neighborhoods and large events. They've taught or spoken with over 3,400 students or parents at these events, and they've shared curriculum and the story of the vehicle nationwide by participating at the National Science Teachers Association STEM Expo.

This video will tell you more about the MXP from the perspective of the team members:

In the robot game the team finished 26 of 64 teams in their division, a good showing for a first-time Worlds team with a new young drive team. And Dr. Woodie Flowers, lead mentor of FIRST and Professor Emeritus at MIT signed and kissed our robot:

The team is fully appreciative of all of the support they've received this year. Special mention goes to Big Thought, Jeff Marx and Joe Schelanko of the Dallas ISD STEM Department, the SEM PTSA, the School of Science and Engineering staff and our advisor Calvin Boykin, Principal Andrew Palacios, Executive Director Tiffany Huitt and the tireless parents of all team members.

Please see the team website for more information. The team will be going to the UIL State Championship in Austin on May 18. Finally, here is our robot reveal:

Task: Speak to 200 prospective recruits about Iron Reign

Today, we attended the Science and Engineering Magnet's annual freshman orientation. All prospective students are required to attend.

Since more than half of our team are going to graduating next year, we're already thinking about the 2019-2020 season. We want to start members early so we can ensure an effective transfer of knowledge between our rising juniors and new teammates. The best way to learn is through hands-on experience that this coming season could give them. This means that the recruiting season starts here and now.

We drove it through the crowd and spoke to over 20 families about our work in FTC, the robot, competition, and more. There were many kids who were very interested in FTC. We answered much more specific questions with them, like what the time commitment is, why we chose specific parts, etc. It was great to see such enthusiasm for STEM at such a young age! At one point, they started giving us building suggestions like where to add support bars.

Overall, the event was a big success. We made lots of meaningful connections with incoming students and have some prospective members. We look forward to attending next year and maybe welcoming some new teammates.

You can watch a short video of the event here

Task: Present at the Dallas Love Field for the DCOL Turn Up! Event

Every year, the Frontiers of Flight Museum hosts Turn Up!, an event where kids can learn about science and math. Once again, we brought the MXP equipped with 3D printers, Lego sumobots, and our world class FTC robot, Kraken. We ran the sumobots on a table outside of the MXP and 3D printing inside. We also demoed Kraken and Argos, which were great attention grabbers to get kids interested in the MXP. The kids enjoyed programming the Lego sumobots and battling them against each other, as well as creating their very own customized 3D printed key chain. The 3D printers were very busy this year so we had to create extra space outside of the MXP for more laptops with the 3D printing software.

We drove Kraken around the exhibition room and talked to many interested parents about the joy of robotics. While we talked to the parents, someone driving the robot would showcase the capabilities of Kraken by bringing kids glyphs and shaking hands with the relic arm. Kraken was great for showing families what FTC is about. We also had Argos for display but the steering was broken so we didn't drive it. Around 1100 people turned up to the event and we talked to most of them about what we do here at Iron Reign. Turn Up was a great opportunity to introduce kids to the world of STEM and robotics and we hope to have more opportunities like this in the future.

Task: Discuss Iron Reign's Awards Strategy for the Upcoming Season

FTC is undergoing a series of changes next year that will most likely negatively impact Iron Reign's ability to advance to further levels. Given that there are about 5,400 teams in FTC for the 2017-2018 season and 256 teams advance to worlds, 4.7% of teams advanced to worlds this year. Next year however, the amount of teams will increase, but the amount of domestic teams advancing to worlds will stay the same. Effectively, the percentage of teams advancing to Worlds will decrease, so that some regions may lose advancement spots.

The best plan to advance is still a dual focus on awards and game. So, we need to up our game. Talking about our RV, while still impressive, has lost its luster with Dallas-area judges. We're still using the RV, and doing our normal outreach, but we plan to aggressively pursue business and engineering contacts. We've already received around $5,000 from individual donors, and received a separate $2,500 grant from Mark Cuban. In addition, members of our team are working at companies such as Verizon, ESi, Abbott, Parkland, and more; all the while gaining contacts in those industries.

We have our work cut out for us, this year will be additionally challenging, losing one of our coders and one builder. We're training people in the skillsets that we're losing out over the summer, and we're also seeking FRC teams to mentor (we want to flip the traditional dichotomy of FRC teams training FTC teams on its head). We really want to get to Worlds this year - its the last year that any of the original members are on the team, and we want to go out with a bang.

Next Steps

• Seek further business and engineering connections
• Extend assistance for FIRST outreach
• Continue team training
• Continue RV outreach
• Seek continued grants from TWC and other TX sponsors

Task: Recruit members for the upcoming robotics season

At the end of last season, we had two members graduate, Austin and Tycho. Their upcoming "goodbye" posts will be posted here, the same as last year. So, we wanted to recruit at least one member to replace them. Recruitment methods that we had used in the past, such as posters and Townview recruitment seminars, had failed to gain any meaningful recruitment. So, we fell back on our secondary, having individual team members submit possible recruits, as well as recruiting from our JV team. This year, we already have Justin. Last year, we had Kenna and Abhi as a submitted recruit. The year before, we had Janavi and Austin.

These prospective recruits are required to fill out a Google Form on our website, titled signup. We had this post stickied for the better part of last year. Of all the people who were asked to fill out this form, we had three people respond, with a fourth potential recruit being the younger sibling of our leaving members. Our current step is vetting the current recruits - we have two interested in coding, one in building, and one no-show. We're giving the recruits tasks to weed them out, the ones that are less experienced will be shunted back into our JV team.

Next Steps

We will recruit 1-3 members out of these recruits and teach them the other aspects that they don't have experience in: writing, code, tools, etc.

Task: Present at the J. Erik Jonsson Public Library

This Saturday, we drove down to the J. Erik Jonsson library to present at the Dallas City of Learning Discovery Fair. We brought our sumo-bot equipment to the library, as well as a few of our new and old bots, such as cartbot (a mobile air cannon), bigwheel (a new testing robot), and Kraken (our Worlds robot).

We presented for about 4 hours, talking to about 190 kids. We had multiple parents interested in starting FLL teams, and many other children entertained by our new mobile cannon.

Task: Reach out to the community and spread the magic of robotics

Iron Reign had a great time today at the Frontiers of Flight Museum for the 2018 Moon Day. We demoed three of our robots today: Argos, Kraken, and Big Boi. Kids were very interested in watching our robots drive. Big Boi was a fan-favorite because of its speed and the attached can launcher. Kids were also given the opportunity to drive Argos around. We were also able to interest kids in FTC when we explained Kraken, our robot from the previous season and demonstrated how it could pick up glyphs. In total, we spoke to approximately 200 individuals.

Besides driving our finished robots, we made progress on Garchomp, another robot with mecanum drive serving as a replica for Kraken. We explained our design to people and why we like the mecanum drive so much. Many parents were interested in getting their children involved in a robotics team because they could see the build process at its middle stages in Garchomp and as well as the finished product in Kraken.

Next Steps

Here at Iron Reign, we value the community's interest in robotics. We will continue to make ourselves and our robots accessible to the community at future outreach event, and we will also encourage kids to get involved in STEM.

Task: Present about STEM to new freshmen at SEM

Today Iron Reign presented at the New Student Orientation (NEST) camp at our school, SEM. All incoming freshman were there. We had two sessions, one with 3D modeling, and another with sumo-bots. We also drove around two of our robots from last year, Kraken and Argos. We gave the freshmen chances to drive around these robots. Most of the students were very interested in our presentation, and a few even signed up to join Iron Reign because of it. We spoke with around 160 students.

Next Steps

Here at Iron Reign, we value the community's interest in robotics, especially the students at our school. We will continue to make ourselves and our robots accessible to the community at future outreach events, and we will also encourage kids to get involved in STEM. We hope to recruit many of the students who were interested in robotics from our meeting.

Task: Present at the Dallas Back to School Fair at O.W. Holmes

Today we brought the MXP over to O.W. Holmes Academy in South Oak Cliff for our usual presentation. We spoke to about 130 children, doing our usual sumobots and 3D printing sessions.

Next Steps

We have a few more outreach events before our season goes into full swing, so we need to get in touch with as many people as possible.

Task: Spend a Summer at MIT

Hello all! You might have been wondering where I went the entire summer while Iron Reign was busily working on tasks. Well for those of you interested, I was invited to spend a month at MIT as part of the Beaverworks program. I worked in the Medlytics course and analyzed medical data using machine learning methods. This seems distant from the work we do in FTC but I learned some valuable skills we could potentially use this season. But before I discuss that, I want to talk about the work I did while I was away.

Traditionally, machine learning and artificial intelligence were used for enrichment of the technology. We have been seeing development of search engines to learn our searching trends and craft new results or online shopping websites like Amazon learning our shopping to suggest new items to buy. With the help of machine learning, all this has become possible but there are potential healthcare applications to the same technology. The new algorithms and techniques being developed have shown potential to save lives in times where traditional approaches had failed. Even with basic implementations of artificial intelligence, we have seen instances where a doctors provided an improper diagnosis while a machine said otherwise. These scenarios have further inspired research for medical analytics, which has become the focus of my course at MIT. The Medlytics course was dedicated to learn more about these issues and tackle some real world problems.

The work I was doing was very intensive. I applied the algorithms we were being taught to a number of situations. One week, I was analyzing physiological signals to determine the state of sleep. The next week, I was training models to detect breast cancer from mammograms. Within all this work, the underlying structure was just techniques that could be applied to a number of fields. That brought me to think about the potential applications of my work in FTC. The neural networks and similar models I was training learned a number of scenarios of images or signals. I realized that by integrating computer vision, I could come up with something similar in FTC.

To demonstrate an example of where this could potentially leave an impact, I will go with object detection. Right now, Iron Reign captures a series of images of the object of interest (an example is a cryptobox from Relic Recovery) and attempts to manually fine tune the OpenCV parameters to fit the object as accurately as possible. This sort of task could easily be delegated to a Convolution Neural Network (CNN) architecture. What is a CNN you ask? Well here is a brief description.

In essence, the model is able to determine a pattern in an image based on edges and details. The image is processed through a series of layers to determine the shapes in the image. Then the model attempts to label the image as seen above with the car. If this was brought into context of FTC, we could train model to learn the shapes of an object (for example a wiffle ball) and then feed the information to the robot. The bot could then navigate to the object and pick it up. There are a vast number of applications to this, with this just being one. I hope that my knowledge can be of use for Rover Ruckus.

Next Steps

Wait for Rover Ruckus reveal to see if I can combine my expertise with new code.

Hopefully, you're here because you heard our announcement or saw our flyers. Even if not, welcome! We are team 6832 Iron Reign Robotics. We've been a FIRST team since 2010 and currently compete in FIRST Tech Challenge. Some have been on the team for a few months, others over half their lives. We design, build, and code robots, but we also spend a lot of our time on the MXP. We won the Motivate Award at the World Championships for the creation and sustainment of the MXP. On our team you will learn practical skills, like how to solder programming wires, and soft skills, like how to present to a panel of judges.

If you are interested, please fill out our form for potential members. We are also having an interest meeting at Townview Magnet Center on August 30th in room 363. Feel free to explore our blog or learn more about us.

Task: Discuss potential support from MIT

In a previous post, I mentioned how the knowledge I gained in machine learning at MIT could help the team. But another way our team could be helped is with mentor involvement from MIT. I couldn't have done the research I did at MIT without the help of my amazing instructors. I wanted to bring them on board the Iron Reign way so they could also teach the rest of the team how to be awesome and help us grow. Currently, Iron Reign is speaking with two of my instructors.

Lyle Lalunio (leftmost in image) is a freshman at the University of California at Berkley. He was an intern this past summer at MIT as part of the Laboratory of Computational Physiology and also the Medlytics program. He is proficient in numerous programming languages including Java and Python. He is pursuing computer science in college but is also interested in the medical applications of the science. Lyle has been an incredible mentor for myself and my teams during my month, inspiring me to invite him to the team.

Dr. Danelle Shah (2nd from left in image) is a Technical Staff member in Lincoln Laboratory’s Intelligence and Decision Technologies group. Her most recent research has focused on the detection, representation and characterization of human networks by leveraging natural language processing and graph analytics. Dr. Shah earned her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, where she developed algorithms to facilitate natural and robust human-robot interaction. Dr. Shah has also left a great impact on my life and has a background in robotic algorithms, inspiring me to invite her to the team.

Next Steps

Continue discussion with mentors about potentially joining Iron Reign.

Iron Reign Clutter

One of Iron Reign's greatest weaknesses is the organization of our physical space. It is rare that our workspace is free of clutter, and it is always difficult to find tools or parts that we need. We often joke that when we put an item down it goes in a "black hole," and you won't be able to find it again. This summer, however, we have made a system to tackle this problem and this season we hope to maintain it. We cleared out the front room and set up some shelves and got to organizing. For anyone looking for certain tools or who doesn't know where to put a tool they just found or used, use the article for reference.

This is subject to change, but as we begin the season, here is the current shelf organization:

In the tall black set of drawers, you can find these tools and parts:

In the silver drawers on the right side, you can find these tools and parts:

In the colorful drawers on the left, you can find these tools and parts:

We have a long way to go, and we need to put organize these drawers even more and maybe soon label them. If anyone has any questions ask Evan or me (or Tycho if he's home), and make sure you put things back after you use them!

Task: Recruit new members for the 2018-19 season

Last year, Iron Reign lost two members, so we're only looking for 2-3 members to replace them and their particular skillsets. However, our sister team, Imperial Robotics (3734) lost nine members. So, we decided to host a recruitment session at our school to find interested freshmen.

We put up posters around the school, and got a healthy crowd - 30 people. We talked about Iron Reign's history, needed levels of commitment for various teams, and what the average person will do on the team. We also answered questions about the team from the crowd. Of those people who attended, 17 signed up for a testing session next week, including two former members of Iron Reign, Alisa and Trace.

Next Steps

We will hold training sessions to assess each potential members skills, then divy them up with Imperial Robotics.

Task: Present about Worlds to new teams

This was our last presentation in a series of presentations in conjunction with teams from around Texas for new and returning teams in the North Texas region. This particular presentation was about strategies in awards and the game, as well as general thoughts about FTC and Worlds.

Presentation

Task: Attend the North Texas FTC Kickoff

Today, we went to the Rover Ruckus kickoff! This year's main challenge is getting blocks (gold) and balls (silver) into the main lander. The other side challenges, in order of hardness, are hanging, parking, and placing the team marker. The main upside of all of this means that it is theoretically possible to perform every single function on the field with the same mechanism.

The main non-robot game changes are the elimination of Supers, the standardization of awards, and Worlds spot changes. The one that particularly piqued our interest was the award standardization. Historically, there have been huge disparities between the awards in North Texas and the awards at Worlds. For example, in North Texas, we continually won the Connect Award for our outreach (while in the rubric, it was the award for connecting with engineers). But, at Worlds, we won the Motivate Award instead.

Next Steps

We will do a brainstorming session to figure out are design paths for the next few weeks. In addition, we need to complete sorting of the new members.

Task: Improve Iron Reign's team organization and time management

Iron Reign sometimes struggles with our team organization and time management. There have been many instances where we have fallen behind in different subteams due to this lack of organization. This year, in order to tackle this downfall, we are going to put an emphasis on project management.

We started a project in a program called Team Gantt. We learned how to use this program from watching the many tutorials in the program and by trial and error. In our project, we have made task groups that represent our subteams, such as build, code, etc. You can see this in the image above, but I did not include the whole chart to not expose any team secrets. A project manager will be in charge of keeping these subteams on track with the chart, and will update it accordingly along with periodic meetings regarding the chart and our progress. Hopefully, this will really help us in our team organization so that we don't fall behind this season.

Next Steps

Continue the use of our Gantt chart in order to improve our organization and give us a big-picture view of our progress for the rest of the season.

Task: Plan for 30+ influx of team members

So, as we've stated in prior posts, this year has been a successful year for recruitment. We have had 30 total signups, up from -5 last year. This wave of new recruits means that the Iron Reign family must grow. So, in addition to Iron Reign and Imperial Robotics, we are introducing TWO new teams to North Texas and the Iron Reign family.

To accommodate this influx, we are changing the organizational structure of SEM Robotics a tad. Iron Reign will remain the varsity team, and as such, will be responsible for tutoring and assisting the other teams, as well as other organizational decisions. Then, Imperial will now be the JV team, and be the intermediate training ground. You can see their efforts over at https://imperialrobotics.github.io/. Finally, we have the two new additions: Iron Star Robotics and Iron Core. Iron Star Robotics is a self-formed, co-op team of motivated freshmen; the other is a more lax training team.

We'll deliver tutoring updates and joint outreach events on this blog, as well as our usual content. Everything claimed in this engineering notebook will be Iron Reign (6832) only, and we will hold the same standard of separation to the other teams.

Next Steps

We will tutor the new teams and identify the promising recruits. For ongoing tournaments and eliminations, we will recompose new teams of the most promising members.

Task: Prepare for and set up SEM STEM Spark

The National Honor Society at our home school, the Science and Engineering Magnet, has been working hard to prepare for the upcoming SEM STEM Spark event for middle school girls in North Dallas that they have been planning for since last May. A few of our very own members are members and leadership in NHS and have been working to include our robotics outreach as a featured activity as well as working with other activities we are passionate about, such as chemistry and environmental science.

In the past few weeks, we have confirmed a spot for our outreach in the event and have been trying to recruit middle schools girls to attend the event. A few members even visited the middle schools they attended and spoke to their old science teachers to share information about the event and hand out fliers. Due to some complications, we weren't able to get registration for the event up until a week before, so recruitment has been a struggle and is very time sensitive. Our numbers are increasing quickly though, so we have hope that the event is going to be a success.

The event is tomorrow, and today we spent a few hours setting up. On our day off, we went to our school and organized all of the materials we collected as donations along with those we bought with our own funds. We ran through each activity to ensure that they would fit in the allotted time frames. Everything seems to be running smoothly and we are ready for the event tomorrow. Fingers crossed! :)

Next Steps

We are very excited to run this event and have learned a lot from the work we have put into organizing it.

Task: Volunteer at SEM STEM Spark, a girls-in-STEM event

For the past year, members of Iron Reign have been planning this event and getting approval. For those not-in-the-know, this event is a women-only STEM event with a guest panel and four different stations: environmental science, chemistry, engineering, and robotics. Iron Reign members had a hand in planning and assisting with 3/4 of these, as well as general logistics. However, most of this is detailed in prior posts - this post is for the actual event.

Today, we talked to 140 girls in groups of 12-18, allowing us to be able to focus more intensely in our sessions and get more done. We taught them the 3D-printing program and sumobots. Finally, we had a member present as a panel member as a woman in STEM.

Next Steps

This event was a great success, and we plan to do more like these in the future. At the moment, we have a date set in March for a second event with entirely new activities.

Task: Present about Iron Reign to 120 prospective members

Today, we went to the Travis H.S. Night to talk to prospective freshmen about our robotics team. The format of the night was this: four twenty-five minute periods, with twenty minutes about SEM and five minutes about robotics. To fit this time schedule, we condensed our usual recruitment presentation down to five minutes while also demoing our former Worlds robot, Kraken. We mainly talked about the main points of FTC: being well rounded, the emphasis on writing, business, and the like. Then, we answered questions from the audience for the rest of the time. Overall, we presented to about 120 parents and students.

Next Steps

We plan to hold more presentations and outreach events in the future. We've already stepped our recruitment game up, so events like these are crucial.

Our deepest thanks to all volunteers!

Iron Reign (team 6832), The School of Science and Engineering and the Dallas ISD STEM Department are happy to announce that we are hosting our second annual FIRST Tech Challenge qualifying tournament at our Townview campus on December 15th. Thirty North Texas robotics teams will compete for awards and approximately 5 or 6 advancements to the Regional Championship to be held in February.

Calling All Volunteers

This is the second time our school has hosted an official qualifying tournament and we will need your help to make it a first-rate experience. This is a full day event on Saturday, December 15. There are also options to help with setup Friday afternoon December 14. Please feel free to circulate this message to everyone in the SEM community who can contribute their time and expertise. And if you can suggest a business that might want to sponsor the event, we'll be happy to talk with them.

Our deepest thanks to all volunteers!

One group of volunteers that support the running of robot matches include referees, score keepers, inspectors, field managers. Some of these roles require training and certification and we will generally draw from mentors already involved in FTC. Other roles supporting match play do not require training and include field management, pit management and queue management.

Another group of volunteers will support judging of teams for awards. Judges can be drawn from industry or academia and can have an engineering background or a general business backround in a technology industry. Judges assess the merits of teams' robots, their engineering process and journal, their strategic decisions, team dynamics and outreach. Judges will be led by a Judge Advisor, but will need to understand the awards criteria ahead of time.

Another group of volunteers will support the event overall. This includes team registration, crowd control, DJ, videography and photography, A/V support, floaters, runners, concessions, load-in/load-out crew, etc.

This is just a summary of the most common roles, but there are many specialty roles. Full volunteer info can be found here.

How to sign up as a volunteer

FIRST is the governing body of these competitions and they have a volunteer sign up system so that we can assure that all roles are filled by vetted volunteers. We are trying to get all volunteers processed through this system. It does involve creating a FIRST account if you have not previously done so. If you have any issues or are finding the process burdensome, please use our contact form for assistance.

Please sign up for as many roles as you feel comfortable fulfilling. We may need to be flexible with assignments depending on who is available and which roles can be fulfilled by our regional managing partner. Students may volunteer for certain roles and as event hosts, Iron Reign team members will be supporting the event throughout the day.

To begin, go to the volunteer signup page for our event: https://my.firstinspires.org/Volunteers/Wizard/Search/2?EventId=39812

If you have not previously registered with FIRST, you'll need to sign up / register and activate your account first. Then you can go back to the link above and indicate your preferences. We truly need your help and look forward to working with you to create a great tournament for our students. We hope this event will showcase SEM as the premiere home for future scientists and engineers.

All our Thanks,

Karim Virani and Cathy Lux

Tournament day is very involved for the teams and volunteers. Here is a typical schedule of the day:

• 7:30-8:30 Teams arrive, register and load their robots and gear into the pit areas
• 9:00 - 10:30 Teams present their robots to Judges for the awards competition. They also get their robots inspected and approved for the robot game
• 10:30 Opening ceremonies and then qualifying matches of the robot game begin. Judges are observing teams in their pits and on the competition field
• Noon - Lunch will be provided for the teams and volunteers. Judges share information with each other about the teams they interviewed.
• Afternoon - qualifying matches continue until each team has competed 5 times. There are 4 robots per match and we'll have two alternating competition fields to speed things up.
• Mid-to-late afternoon is Alliance Selection, top teams from qualifying rounds will build alliances to compete in the elimination / playoff rounds. Judges continue deliberating.
• Playoff rounds usually take a bit over an hour
• Closing Ceremonies and Awards
• Pack up fields and equipment

We plan to end the tournament by 5pm, but events can run long. All volunteers are encouraged to stay until the end of the tournament, but it's not required if your role is completed earlier in the day.

This weekend, SEM sent four teams to the first qualifying tournament of the FTC Robotics Rover Ruckus 2018-2019 season. Iron Reign won the top award (Inspire) and advanced. For reference, Iron Reign is last year's FTC World Championship Motivate Award winner and is the "varsity" team of the SEM Robotics organization.

Imperial Robotics was a finalist for the Think Award due to the excellence of their engineering journal.

Our two new rookie teams beat back tough odds from a field of seasoned teams. Iron Star became the 4th alliance captain in the playoff rounds.

Iron Core was publicly invited to join the 3rd alliance in the playoffs, but graciously declined because they had a new fault in their robot and didn't want to drag the alliance down just to get into the playoffs. This was a highly laudable moment at the tournament and demonstrates the highest level of sportsmanship. FTC is about so much more than the robot, and no team emphasized that more then Iron Core.

Task: Mentor a middle school team at the RMS Qualifier

Earlier today, I attended the Rice Middle School Qualifier in order to mentor my middle school team, SchimRobots, as an alumnus. Last year, when I was a member of SchimRobots, we had qualified to regionals by attaining 3rd Place Inspire Award in a qualifier. Since the Inspire Award had a heavy focus on a team’s engineering notebook, I decided to help out by looking through their journal. The way 12900 operates is through units; there is a unit specifically dedicated to the engineering notebook, and the members in that unit are the ones who work on the notebook. However, as I’ve learned thus far, because different members are equipped with different skill sets, it is more effective for each member to record their personal experiences within the team, rather than for a smaller group to carry the entire load.

SchimRobots Team Overview

That was the first takeaway that I decided to pass on. The second was that all ideas, regardless of potential, must be recorded. The purpose of the journal is to document all ideas, despite their success rate. This documentation showcases how iterative a team’s thinking can be when attempting to solve a problem. Because an iterative process helps portray a team’s “journey” in overcoming a challenge, dedicating a portion of an entry to any idea a team considered implementing is an effective strategy in making one’s journal as thorough as possible.

At the end of the day, we discussed the possibility of another meet-up, this one with more experienced members of Iron Reign to mentor the middle-school team, prior to their second qualifier.

Next Steps

The next step is to consider, with the rest of Iron Reign, the feasibility of organizing another mentoring session, taking into account where and how much help SchimRobots needs, and where and how much Iron Reign can offer.

Task: Set up an outline as to how the DPRG Presentation will operate

Next Saturday, December 8th, Iron Reign will be giving its judging presentation to members from the Dallas Personal Robotics Group. Our primary purpose from this visit is to gain feedback from engineers in the community on our presentation. The presentation is anticipated to go beyond 15 minutes, so that we can introduce our potential ideas for the near-future, and so that DPRG can ask us more technical questions, that may not have arose from our presentation. Here's our anticipated agenda:

Next Steps

Task: Present to the Dallas Personal Robotics Group about robot vision and Iron Reign

We reached out to the Dallas Personal Robotics Group to present - we've presented to them in the past about gyros - this was actually our biggest numerical outreach of the season back in the day. This year, we wanted to present again on computer vision, as this is something that they were very interested in, but we also wanted to give our actual presentation as practice for our next tournament. However, after we reached out to them, other Dallas-area groups joined in, such as Computer Visionaries. So, our presentation was advertised all over Dallas Meetup groups, but the main one was here.

The initial agenda is hosted on our website, but a quick summary is: a rundown of Worlds, our usual presentation, and our vision presentation. Our presentation went well - it was our usual tournament one for judges - we just took more time for the presentation, went on diatribes, told stories, and the like, and generally made it more entertaining. We answered questions on everything: code, building, outreach, and more. We're going to upload the video here soon. We also asked for feedback from the listeners.

The main feedback we received for the presentation was to make our awards points more clear. For vision, we were told that we should take a look at Google's foray into computer vision.

Then, we moved on to the vision presentation, the reason why everyone was there. Again, we'll upload a video of the presentation, and attach the presentation slides below. But, a quick summary of the presentation is that we covered OpenCV and VuForia first, then moved on to TensorFlow and CNN. This is where everyone became really became interested and asked questions. We also got a lot of advice, mainly on training the neural network. The presentation is here.

Task: Help teams at the Townview Tournament

On Saturday, December 15, Iron Reign hosted 30 teams at the Townview Qualifier tournament. As a part of hosting the tournament, we wanted to ensure that all teams were able to compete at the best of their ability. As such, we made sure that we helped teams who needed our assistance.

One such team was PiGuardians, team 14787. They had no code (except for the example teleop), and their programmer was unable to make the tournament due to a conflict. Without our help, they would not have been able to do anything more than be a pushbot. Iron Reign wanted to make sure that they were not excluded, so we assigned a programmer to help them out.

We helped them write a teleop program so that they could participate in matches. We also helped them write an autonomous, using the replay program we designed over the summer to make developing an autonomous easier. With our help, they went from being a pushbot to having a full-blown autonomous.

PiGuardians was extremely grateful for our help to them. They promised to reach out to us if they ever needed any help in the future.

Task: Run the Townview Tournament

On Saturday, December 15, Iron Reign hosted 30 teams at the Townview Magnet Center, our home school's campus. This entry serves more as a description as to how we got to the point of hosting the qualifier and what to consider when hosting one.

First, for a tournament, you need a lot of volunteers of varied ages. Frankly, you need a good amount of younger kids for jobs such as queuing and judge assistance - this makes the tournament run much more smoothly. We had about 10 queuers throughout the day, and while this may seem excessive, we started out the day with a +10 minute surplus and kept every single match on schedule.

There still needs to be adult volunteers. We had 2 judges per room with five rooms, as well as 6 referees. All of these must be adults. And, we had to recruit from a diverse set of groups to cover our bases - we recruited people from the Dallas Chamber of Commerce meeting, the Dallas Personal Robotics Group, prior FTC tournaments, alumni, teachers from our school, and even our own families. It's hard to get enough judges for a large tournament, so this process had to start early.

The second item that we'd like to emphasize is the need to make everything accessible by teams. Being an FTC team ourselves, we wanted to make this tournament easier for others. So, we kept a spreadsheet with inspection results on a screen in the pits so that teams could be updated, made pit maps so teams could find one another, and built a practice field a decent distance away from the others for practice. In this, we hoped to take some stress off of teams.

On the same topic of helping teams, we had volunteers assigned to help fix robots and to assist with code, as well as putting the Mobile Learning Lab in workshop mode for teams who needed it. Iron Reign has been stuck in bad situations countless times, and we wanted to return the favor to those who helped us.

Finally, we'd like to thank all of our volunteers for being there. It was a hard, long day, but it was worth it, and we'd just like to extend our gratitude. We'd like to thank DISD STEM for providing food for volunteers and Townview Magnet Center for letting us host the qualifier here. Finally, we'd like to give a huge shout-out to our coach, Karim Virani, for doing the logistics of this tournament.

Next Steps

We're going to write up a few other posts about interacting with judges, supporting teams, and a postmortem on the tournament. We've got a lot to do over the break, and this was just the kickoff for it.

Task: Visit REV headquarters and learn more about the engineering process

Today, a group of Iron Reign, Core, and Star members ventured down to the REV headquarters in Dallas. REV is a Dallas-based FTC+FRC parts company that produces their items at an accessible cost for all teams. All the SEM Robotics teams use REV, their parts are easy to use while still giving the ability to create technically impressive mechanisms. So, we were elated when we had the opportunity to visit them.

We started out with a tour, seeing the workshop in which they host their FRC teams - with RoboGreg inviting some of our members to apply to the new FRC team. Then, we saw the rest of the warehouse. Stretching infinitely towards the ceiling were rows and rows of REV parts in every variety imaginable with a center island of organized bins of parts. The last thing we were able to see on the first floor was the recording studio that REV's working on so that they can record tutorial videos.

We can't talk about everything we saw on the second floor, as some of it may not actually be released yet, but we can tell you of the Wonderland-like nature of it. As we walked in, we were met by a room dedicated to testing electronics. Iron Reign is accustomed to soldering on the floor or a hastily improvised bench or whatever clear space there is on the kitchen table, so this alone was enough for us to long to use it. And then, we were met by the 3D-printing room. You see, REV has two normal nylon printers that Iron Reign has plenty of experience with - been there, done that - but they also had a resin printer. We've never had the luck to see a resin printer in real life, only in far away youtube videos and whispers of whispers. In this alone, we were extremely jealous. Finally, we got to meet the engineers and have a general discussion with RoboGreg and David.

First, we got to learn about REV's design process. First, we learned about their revision process. They begin with a general idea, a goal that they want to achieve. Then, they create a small prototype with the tools they have at their home base if they can - after all, they have a reflow over, laser cutter, resin printers, and more we probably didn't get to see. From there, they send out their design for a small batch from a given manufacturer, just enough for testing. From there, they identify faults, fix them, and send for the next iteration, and so on. They end up with a finished product that, at the very least, has no physical/hardware faults; this is important as their philosophy is to give affordable parts to academic programs, and if they release faulty parts, they harm their customers. We learned a lot about the importance of a central design philosophy - something Iron Reign lacks. REV's is twofold: to make their parts affordable for those who normally wouldn't have access and to make their parts accessible for teams of all skill levels.

Finally, we got to the part in which we presented to RoboGreg and the rest of the engineers. Last year for Kraken, we designed a system called REVolution, which, when printed, allowed any team to turn REV extrusions into shafts. We felt that it made robots easier to build, so we presented it and asked for feedback. They were impressed by Kraken and liked the way in which it was implemented. Then, we learned some things about high-level design. First, an idea doesn't mean anything as long as it's just that, an idea. What differentiates those who do from those who don't is their vision and process to realize their ideas. In REVolution, we had done this. But, then we learned about a little system called Cost-Benefit analysis. As macroeconomics states, if a person chooses to make one choice, they inherently lose out on another, even if it isn't realized. In our case, it was this: if REV chose to produce the REVolution system, naturally, there would be other products that go neglected. And, one has to consider how a new parts system fits with the other parts; if REvolution were made real, one would have to create a whole extra parts library while still maintaining other similar rotation systems, increasing the work. It's not that REVolution is a bad system, its just that it could present too much of a tradeoff. In RoboGreg's words, this is "reality-based creativity."

We also asked some questions about things that Iron Reign wants to use; for example, where we could get access to a metal-3D-printer. We were informed that a local company down the road from REV, MLC CAD, was likely to provide this service for Iron Reign if requested. We asked for criticism of the REVolution system, learning that under normal operating speeds and temperatures, that nylon has the tendency to fuse with itself and that if possible, we should switch to a material such as Amphora.

We also presented BigWheel, this year's robot. We had some difficulties setting it up, but overall, they were impressed. The one point that we heard was that, when extended, BigWheel has a very high center of gravity, making it prone to tipping. We've considered it in the past, but really noticed it when it nearly hit someone rising up.

Next Steps

We learned so much here, and we'd like to give a huge thanks to RoboGreg and REV for giving us a tour. We want to implement the changes to our engineering process that we learned, and we're going to fix up BigWheel to solve its current in-presentation issues.

This Saturday our two all-freshmen rookie FTC Robotics teams took it up a notch at their last qualifier tournament of the season. Iron Core was 5th place of 30 in robot performance and made it into the playoff rounds, but were then eliminated by the highest scoring team in our region. Iron Star also made it into the playoffs and then advanced upon receiving 2nd place Inspire Award along with the Control Award.

Iron Core: Mahesh Natamai, Ben Bruick, Jose Lomeli, Samuel Adler, Ephraim Sun (not present)

Iron Star: Katelyn Cumplido, Harish Jai Ganesh, Benjamin Oommen, Shawn Halimman, Aaron Daane, Evan Branson, Paul Lea, Beau Aveton, Cooper Clem (not present)

Iron Star joins our veteran teams Imperial Robotics who advanced on Jan 19th and Iron Reign who advanced in November and double-qualified on Jan 19th. Please congratulate our team members - we are the only school in the region with 3 advancing teams and it's unusual for a rookie team to advance. The Regional Championship will be held February 23rd at Wylie East High School. Five or six teams will advance from there to represent our region at the FTC World Championship in April.

This coming Saturday, February 2nd, is the Dallas ISD STEM Expo. Our teams will be there representing SEM and teaching younger students how to program simple sumo robots and how to use 3D printers. Come see us at the Dallas City of Learning exhibit where our teams will also be demonstrating their advancing robots and staffing the Mobile STEM lab that Iron Reign built. Tickets are free but you need to register: here.

Task: Plan for the DISD STEM Expo

Tomorrow, Iron Reign along with members from the other 3 teams, is participating in the DISD STEM Expo for our third year. As we have done for the past 2 years, we are bringing the Mobile Learning Experience Lab to the event area in Kay Bailey Hutchinson Center. The purpose of this event is to connect with children in the DISD Area by helping them a foster an appreciation for engineering and the sciences. With the support of the Dallas City of Learning, a non-profit organization operated by Big Thought which helps schedule The Mobile Learning Experience, Iron Reign will have a featured exhibit within the MXP. To maximize event productivity, we will be working alongside volunteers from Microsoft and Best Buy who will help us ensure that the exhibit runs smoothly.

As part of the exhibit, we will have events similar to those hosted as part of STEM Spark! This includes the LEGO Mindstorm Sumo Robots Event as well as our 3D Printing Keychains activity.

At the end of the day, modeling and coding are two of the many aspects encompassed in STEM, and more importantly, FIRST. In introducing these activities, we hope to promote a student initiative in FIRST Robotics. And who knows - tomorrow, we might just meet the future members of Iron Reign.

Task: Present at the DISD STEM Expo

DISD STEM Expo has been our busiest event this year. Overall, we met with over 1000 participants for both the 3D Printing event and the Sumo-Robots station. Despite the fact that this was a first-time event for many of the members helping out, STEM Expo ran smoothly. The purpose of this event is to spread STEM programs to students in the Dallas area who otherwise would have no access.

We started out by setting up the MXP and the EV3 robots. After ensuring that the MXP was stocked up with laptops and 3D printers, we set up sumo mats, laptops and LEGO Mindstorm Robots in tables outside the vehicle. All the freshmen were given a quick crash-course on how to run the Sumo-Robots session, while the seniors ensured that all of the FTC robots were demo-ready.

Since the participants were of varying ages, one of our biggest challenges was trying to convey the message of actually coding the robot across a variety of audiences. We learned earlier on that the best way to teach younger audiences how to code the robots was by letting them test out each block of code, so that they could get a sense of what they were trying to accomplish.

We also had a few connect opportunities. Best Buy (Geek Squad) representatives boarded the RV to ask about our program. Our MXP is funded by Best Buy - we received a $10k grant from them earlier this season - and this was a great opportunity to talk to them again. We spoke about the history of the MXP program, what it currently does, and our plans to create a new MXP with the $150k in funding that BigThought received as well as our need for an additional $100k. Also present at the STEM Expo were several Microsoft employees. We've worked at Microsoft events before, most notably YouthSpark, and they've contributed to the MXP program, so we talked to them again over the same topics, trying to garner up support for the new MXP.

Next Steps

Our booth could not have operated as smooth as it did without BigThought, for helping us staff and maintain the MXP, and DISD for giving us the opportunity to introduce FIRST to such a large audience. As hectic as it was trying to teach block programming and 3D modeling to students with little to no technical experience, the event ran much more systematically than we could have expected. It was energizing to see children excitedly “battle” their robots, and to see them walk away, waving a 3D-printed keychain. We are incredibly thankful for having been able to interact with the next generation of engineers, and giving them a platform to see robotics as a comprehensible concept.

Task: Compete at the Woodrow Wilson Scrimmage with Woodrow teams

This past Saturday, Iron Reign competed in the Woodrow Wilson Scrimmage. To ensure that the wiring did not become tangled when the robot moved around, we added an ABS cable-carrier to the arm of the robot.

Overall, Iron Reign was able to establish a semi-stable deposit scoring game-plan in the match. Since we haven’t focused on practicing game play in a while, this scrimmage gave us an opportunity to pin-point build and code issues, as well as get a clearer idea of what our strategy for regionals needed to look like.

Next Steps

On Febuary 23, 2019, SEM Robotics sent three teams to the fifty two team North Texas Regional Championship, the largest showing of any school.

Left to right: Jose Lomeli, Arjun Vikram, Abhijit Bhattaru, Ben Bruick, Bhanaviya Venkat, Evan Daane, Karina Lara, Charlotte Leakey, Jana Chadha, Kenna Tanaka, Justin Bonsell and Ethan Helfman

Iron Reign, SEM's varsity team, won 1st place Motivate award and 3rd place Inspire, advancing them to both the State UIL and Worlds Championships in April. The Motivate award recognizes teams who demonstrate exceptional community service, and in this case, was for Iron Reign's continued expansion of the Mobile Learning Lab program. In addition, the Inspire award is given to teams who represent the spirit of the FIRST program: outstanding not only in robot game, but also engineering processes, connecting with professionals, innovative designs and supporting other teams.

Individually, Karina Lara and Justin Bonsell were recognized as FIRST Dean's List Semi-Finalists. Named after FIRST Founder Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and the portable dialysis machine, Dean's List students are considered leaders in their community who exemplify the ideals of FIRST while achieving technical excellence. Karina Lara was then announced as one of four Dean's List Finalists who will go on the represent North Texas at the FTC World Championship.

Imperial Robotics, our other veteran team, medaled when they made it to the final round of the Regional Championship through their exceptional robot performance, only losing by a thin margin in the last match. If another advancing team can't go to Worlds, Imperial will be the next team to advance.

Members included: Trey Davis, Samuel Adler, Rohit Shankar, Christian Saldana, Hudson Shields and Blaine Wells (not shown)

All-freshman team Iron Star performed with distinction. Not only did they earn a spot at the Regional Championship as a rookie team, they also demonstrated coolness under stress as they experienced persistent issues with robot disconnections. They never stopped trying to get the robot back online, stayed professional throughout the tournament and gained valuable experience that will help them elevate to veteran teams next year. Members included: Katelyn Cumplido, Shawn Halimman, Evan Branson, Paul Lea, Aaron Daane, Beau Aveton, Cooper Clem, Harish Jai Ganesh, and Benjamin Oommen.

Our thanks go out to all of the people and sponsors who have supported us already this season, including but not limited to: Mr. Schelanko and Mr. Marx and the Dallas ISD STEM Department, Mr. Boykin our faculty sponsor, Mr. Palacios and SEM staff, Ms. Huitt, The Texas Workforce Commission, FIRST in Texas, DEKA, Patrick Michaud - our FIRST FTC Regional Affiliate, Fried Elliott - Regional Judge Advisor, and the Virani / Lux family.

Task: Present to the Dallas Personal Robotics Group about FTC app and our modifications

Today we had 2 goals: present the FTC control system and allow everyone in the room to create their own FTC app to deploy to our robot. In the beginning of our presentation, we had a slideshow to show the overview of FTC as well as our progress this season since they last saw us. After this, I went through the process of creating a working opmode for our robot, Iron Reign style. The presentation is given below.

Task: Outline new planning sessions

Beyond the Gantt chart and meeting logs mentioned in (T-17, Project Management), another one of the biggest additions to the team with the project management role are planning sessions. Planning sessions are a seemingly simple concept, but the team has struggled with actually implementing them. The main purpose of these sessions are to set off each member with a game plan, one that will keep them productive, engaged, and helpful to the progression of the team.

These planning sessions take place around the main monitor in our robot house at the beginning of each practice, with a document pulled up to record our agenda. Often the whole team cannot be present, but if not the project manager reaches out to those members individually and let's them know the discussion that was had. Each session is recorded in an agenda that separates objectives into its subteam: engineering, code, blog, and miscellaneous. Each agenda is then included at the beginning of each meeting log and frequently referenced to throughout the log.

These sessions seem like an obvious addition to the team, but we have struggled to implement this change in past years. With a project manager, there is a leading voice in these meetings that emphasizes their importance. In the future, hopefully attendance to these meetings will improve, and the whole team will recognize them as incredibly important to our success. Ways to ensure this improvement are for the project manager to create outlines before each meeting and to begin these discussions over Discord during the week in the #planning channel so that we can solidify these plans during the planning session.

Task: Update the meetinglog template to more accurately reflect efforts

An essential part of the project management role is the meeting log, where the project manager records all progress made in each subteam during each session. It requires diverse knowledge of every part of the team, and is a very important part of our engineering journal, tracking the lower level progression of the team.

The meeting logs were previously constructed in long form paragraphs, detailing a narrative of that day in each part of the team. However, as a judge scans across the notebook, it is difficult to pick out key accomplishments from these walls of text. So, we changed the formatting of the meeting log to describe each task in a single bullet point then offering a brief feature-benefit description below said bulletpoint.

The meeting logs are now organized as follows: Agenda (created and screenshotted then put into the log), Objective Summary (a summary of the agenda giving an overall theme for the day), Meeting Log (the actual bullet points and descriptions of the tasks that day), and the Member Meet Log (a chart at the bottom of the log that details each member present and what they worked on that day). The purpose of this organization is to allow the judge to scan the whole log and understand what we did that day, so their eyes go from broad overarching planning to specific detailed description of what we did. If they read the objective summary or look at the agenda and are interested, they are immediately drawn to the bullet points and can look at the chart in the end if they are so inclined.

The meeting log is an ever changing addition to our notebook, and we are constantly looking to improve how our story as a team is being conveyed to judges and to people reading the blog online.

Task: Ensure skills are passed to underclassmen

Since our project manager is leaving for college next year, there has been an effort to teach the younger students on our team to take on this role and its many responsibilities. These responsibilities include updating the Gantt chart, writing meeting logs, gathering information for meeting logs when you are not able to make it to meetings, leading and helping writing post mortem and roads to, ensuring general organization for the whole team in terms of Discord and other communication methods, writing articles about the ever-changing responsibilities of this role, managing competition day roles and management, leading and recording planning sessions, being part of leadership in the blog sub team, ensuring communication between the various subteams in Iron Reign, encouraging and understanding detailed explanations of each part of the robot, blog, code, and presentation, among much more.

This is a lot for one person to take on, emphasizing the importance of gentle and detailed mentorship so that next year our new project manager has all the tools and much needed coaching they need to succeed and not get lost in what the role entails so that they can make the team a more organized unit.

We have taken on many freshmen interested in assuming these responsibilities, notably Bhanaviya and Cooper. This mentorship begins with the meeting logs, which often take multiple hours to construct due to the fact that they must understand not only what each member of the team is working on, but also how that plays in the overall progression of the team. One big example is in conveying the progress of the coding team. This has been a challenge for me this year due to my lack of experience in dealing with robot code. Taking the time to have a longer discussion the the coders and demanding explicit details about the code changes and how these changes affect the overall progression of the code is what helped me with this challenge. This demand for detail is what is most important in the mentorship process, as it takes a certain confidence and assertion to do so.

Aside from these soft skills, there are some hard skills to be had too. First of all, we mentored all the underclassmen on how to use HTML to write and post a blog post as well as an introduction to what their language should sound like in these blog posts. Rather than conversational, each post should be written in a professional, technical, or formal manner, depending on the subject matter of the post. Meeting logs have their own template and formatting, which have been taught to future project managers so that they can practice these skills. Bhanaviya has already written a promising number of meeting logs with impressive detail.

As the season comes to an end, there a few things remaining to teach, especially planning sessions and the Gantt chart. The Gantt chart especially requires a lot of hands-on mentorship, as though the software is intuitive it is difficult to be in the mindset for that type of higher level organization if you haven't ever before and haven't been walked through it. Alongside this mentorship, I will have the freshmen lead planning sessions with me as an advocate alongside them, so if the conversation gets off topic I can supply them the confidence needed to call the meeting back to focus. Mentorship is a long process, but is essential in such an abstract role in the team and I will continue to be there as a voice of support throughout the whole process.

Task: Help Mechanicats, the other DISD team, debug their code

Competition is always stressful for everyone. There's so much that can go wrong, and when something does, it feels like all your hard work has gone to waste. We know first hand how it feels when something breaks. That's why we volunteered to help out Mechanicats when there was an announcement over the intercom that a team needed help with vision.

Mechanicats were having some trouble with their vision code. They told us they were able to sample correctly when they were on depot-side, but when they were on crater-side, they were unable to correctly identify the position of the gold mineral. We talked to them and helped them debug their code, and after a bit of testing, we were able to identify the problem for them.

The issue was that the TensorFlow detector they were using was returning null when it had already been called before because it expected client code to cache the objects it returned. This meant that when there were lots of minerals in the background, the detector would reuse the same objects to be more efficient. Mechanicats did not realize this, and thus since they were not caching the response of the detector, when they were on crater side they were unable to detect minerals.

After we fixed this issue for them with a few simple lines of code, we helped them exhaustively test it to ensure that it worked correctly. Mechanicats was extremely grateful for our help.

Meeting Log April 13, 2019

Compete at the REV Scrimmage and do final changes on our robot in build and code before Worlds.

Today's Work Log

• Change code presets
The code team worked on changing the presets for the hook-servo and the Superman arm to ensure that the hook was low enough to latch and so that superman is low enough to deposit minerals in the lander accurately. They also lowered the range of the intake so that our intake system can pick up more minerals without causing the robot to collapse from the pressure caused by the intake.




• Get range of servos and lower the elbow shaft
The build team lowered the elbow shaft so that it was at the right level to latch and so that it was parallel to the mounting bar. They also used the servo tester to get the range of servos on the hook to ensure that the hook was able to latch on accurately. They also lowered the elbow shaft so that it was at the right level to latch and so that it was parallel to the mounting bar. They also used the servo tester to get the range of servos on the hook to ensure that the hook was able to latch on accurately. Subsequently, they attached the control hub in the place of the REV expansion hub and the phones.




• Create a business card
Finally, we created a template for a new business card. It will be unvealed at Worlds.

Today's Work Log

Task: Test the new REV Control Hub at the REV Scrimmage

Founders of REV working with our team

REV recently updated the control hubs they've been providing to FIRST Global for the last two years. They are hoping to get them listed as an option for FTC teams next year and so they wanted to test them with a variety of teams. This latest version has a USB-C connector and some internal component improvements. These control hubs take the place of the REV Expansion Hub + Android Phone combo because they effectively have a quad core android device inside. This should make USB disconnects a thing of the past, though teams using machine vision will need to use an external webcam and that will still require good cable management. All the North Texas teams invited to the beta test were also invited to a scrimmage to drive their Rover Ruckus robots with the control hubs instead of phones.

We had some initial setbacks due to pre-manufacturing issues with the beta unit we were sent. The control board was set to the wrong address and couldn't be used. Once we got it replaced, the primary robot functions worked well. The only exception was vision. Because we lost so much time we didn't quite finish our OpenCV integration so we couldn't test our mineral sampling vision pipeline. Unfortunately we had to turn in the beta unit at the end of the event so we couldn't profile its vision performance. We plan to do so when we get the newest control hubs in May or June. Despite the setbacks, we found that overall, the control hub made robot control more efficient. The driver control was pretty similar to that of the phones and expansion hubs, but it saved us time in trying to ensure that both the phones and expansion hubs worked. We enjoyed the experience of using control hubs, and we hope to use them next season if they are allowed.

We are incredible grateful to REV for giving us the opportunity to test of the new control hubs as well as interact with other NTX teams before Worlds. This chance to test the control hub was not only a good opportunity to test the potential of our robot with new technology, but it also gave us the much-needed chance to drive-test in a match with other teams before Worlds.

Task: Evaluate the Project Manager position

This year, I started the role of project manager, and there have certainly been plenty of growing pains. Iron Reign had previously learned to embrace chaos, frequently pulling all nighters and fumbling to finish each part of the robot in a timely manner. In this post, I will discuss all of the different aspects to being a project manager on Iron Reign so that we can continue to improve on our organization. The main focus will be the meeting logs, planning sessions, and the Gantt chart.

• Meeting Logs
This year we have completely changed meeting logs. We changed the format to using bullet points rather than long-form, and the way they are told to using feature-benefit language. Feature-benefit describes the what (taking up 2/3rds of the description) followed by the why (taking up 1/3rd of the description). These descriptions are incredibly important to concisely portray our progression to the judges.
• Planning sessions
In previous years, we have had trouble implementing these planning sessions effectively and we still have this difficulty. When there is no project manager present, they don't occur at all and must be supplemented with discussion in the Discord. They have been very helpful in constructing agendas in meeting logs, but next year we are going to push the need for these sessions even more. They make sure that every member has a task to accomplish during the meeting and help remove the pull of distractions. In mentoring the freshmen, hopefully these needs will be met.
• Gantt chart
The Gantt chart has been the most difficult factor of project management to implement. The higher-level organizational mindset required is one difficult to acquire without any close mentorship. Our Gantt chart has seen many changes, especially earlier in the seasom, but dropped off nearing the end of the season due to other responsibilities. Next year, the most important improvement would be to involve other team members in the creation of the chart a lot more than this year. This would help the chart accomplish higher detail and accuracy as well as allow it to be helpful and references by not only the project manager, but the whole team. They will be implemented into the planning sessions

Next year, there are quite a few improvements to be seen in this role. This was the first year and going in with no previous experience and with the team not used to such a role has been a challenge. Hopefully, most of the mistakes to be made have already been made, and the project manager role in the team can be seen as important to the organization and overall well-being of the team. It requires intense dedication, confidence, and organization, which I have tried my hardest to provide this year, but I have faith that with the amazing abilities of our team, we will improve our organization and project management for years to come.

Task: Set up our Worlds pit, complete inspection and judging, and compete in robot game matches

Presentation

Our presentation went well. We were able to get all of our information across effectively in a shorter amount of time as usual, but this led to more time for questions , which the judges had a lot of. Throughout questioning, we were able to hand off questions so that no individual member dominated the questioning time.

One problem we had with the presentation was that the rooms were constructed within the competition hall with fabric, just like last year. This made it so that sound did not carry very well within the rooms, and that sound could carry over from other rooms, so the judges had difficulty hearing us at some points which was especially worse when we spoke too quickly. Despite this, we're confident that the majority of the information came across.

Match 1(Q12)

We lost 290-95. Our poor planning led to the drive team having phones with low batteries and being unable to play in the match and Rhoming Robots were unable to carry us in this 2v1 match.

Task: Compete in more qualification matches

Match 2(Q28)

We lost 340-280. We had a flawless auto this time and followed with 9 far crater cycles and a latch. During the first cycle 3 gold minerals were scores at once with resulted in a 50 point penalty. If we had better visibility of the mineral tray this would have been avoided and the win margin would only have been 10 points.

Match 3(Q52)

We lost 322-242. Once again we had a complete auto including scoring the sampling mineral. This was followed by 6 far crater cycles but an attempt for a 7th cycle during end game resulted in a tip over for Icarus and neither us nor Masquerade could hang. If both robots would have hung we would have won by a small margin.

Match 4(Q67)

We lost 335-217. Due to technical issues Icarus was forced to be hung for about five minutes and this burnt out both elbow motors. This resulted in no autonomous and only about two cycles. We also had no hang and had to park in the crater. If we were allowed to delatch Icarus while the issues were being resolved we would have won by a large margin.

Match 5(Q84)

We lost 272-211. In between matches we were able to buy and replace the elbow motors but they had encoder issues which could not be resolved in time, this meant we had to run on only one elbow motor for this match. With this we were able to have a complete auto and 7 near crater cycles. There was no hang this time so we went for the crater instead. If we had both elbow motors functional we could have scored a few more cycles and hung which would have won us the match by a thin margin.

Match 6(Q104)

We [finally] won 315-160. At this point we still haven't fixed the encoder issue but we still pulled off a semi-complete auto since the team marker was not dropped and the sampling mineral was not moved enough to count. The cycles this time were mostly unsuccessful but we hung and Batteries Not Included had enough cycles to compensate and we managed to finally win a match.

In between matches we took a trip with CartBot to the FLL pits to attract anyone interested in the next stage of FIRST(FTC). We told them they could come by our pit at any time for a in-depth presentation of our robot and about an hour later an FLL team, the Engigears, came to visit our pit. We were able to show them how complex FTC can get and showed them Icarus' capabilities and let some of them drive it around. They had a great experience and we hope they are now informed of FTC and pursue it come 7th grade.

Task: Compete in even more qualification matches

We won 292-280. With the elbow motors fixed we were ready for this match. We had a full auto and 5 successful but hang was not successful and we had to go for the crater again.

Match 8(Q159)

We won 240-185. Just as normal we had a complete auto but we were blocked from the crater by Tech Hogs(opponent). Once Tele-op started Icarus was tipped over after bumping into Tech Hogs. Although Icarus is designed to recover from any tip over, a sideways tip is nearly impossible to recover from, however Icarus' chassis was on the crater edge and after about 30 seconds of suspense Icarus recovered and received lots of cheering from the crowd. After this however we got tipped over again by Tech Hogs(whether it was intentional or accidental is yet to decided) and there was no crater edge to save us this time. Despite this RoboEclipse was able to carry the alliance to victory.

Match 9(Q172)

We won 370-108. We again had a full auto this time with a deposit of the sampling mineral. we had 6 successful far crater cycles but on the 7th the deposit articulation on Icarus was initiated too early and it tipped over and 20 seconds was not enough time to recover and hang. Even so, the lead we had was good enough to win us the match.

Task: Participate in Alliance Selection and attend the Award Ceremony

Today was the last of the 2019 FTC World Championship and our first task of the day was to ask top-seeded teams if they thought we would be a good asset to their alliance for the play offs. We intrigued a few with our higher-than-average depot-side cycle time and hoped for the best during alliance selection. Unfortunately our 55th position probably made the alliance captains think again about who to pick.

A while later followed the award ceremony, we went in with high hopes as we have received many pit interviews throughout the week. Our hopes came true as we heard "the finalists for the Collins Aerospace Innovate Award are ... ... team 6832". The whole team burst into happiness and joy as our unique robot design was recognized at the World Championship. We were finalists for the Innovate Award!

Task: Teach kids how to program and 3D-model at the Discover Summer Fair

This Saturday was the Discover Summer Fair organized by the Dallas City of Learning. This was our very first Mobile Tech Xperience (MXP) event to kick off the start of our outreach efforts for the Skystone season. For background, the MXP is a robotics classroom on wheels that our robotics team uses to take to underserved areas around the Dallas region to teach the students we meet there about STEM and robotics. The vehicle is an old 90's RV that our team renovated around 3 summers ago and since then, the vehicle has been maintained by Big Thought, an educational non-profit organization who operates a program called Dallas City of Learning - the vendor for several of our outreach events. During today's event, we had a large turnout of about 500 participants for both the 3D printing station and the sumo robots programming challenge. The purpose of this event was for our team to introduce robotics-based activities like programming FLL robots and 3D-modelling keychains to students in the greater Dallas area who would have otherwise had no access to such activities.

We started out by setting up the MXP and the EV3 LEGO Mindstorm robots. After ensuring that the MXP was stocked up with laptops and 3D printers, we set up sumo mats, laptops, and LEGO Mindstorms robots in tables outside the vehicle. We wanted to kick-off the first outreach event of the season by demoing our competition robot from the world championship, Icarus, so we had to make sure that Icarus was able to both balance and drive around.

Between the four of us, there were so many participants that we had made the decision to teach them as a group to maximize efficiency. Making every step of the teaching process - whether it's block-programming a robot or modelling a keychain - as interactive and engaging as possible allowed us to easily communicate with large groups of participants.

Next Steps

Our station could not have run as smoothly as it did without the help of Big Thought for helping us staff and maintain the MXP, and for allowing us to introduce FIRST to so many young participants by giving us a booth at the fair. 3D-modelling and programming are, at the end of day, two important concepts encompassed within FIRST. Watching students who had little to no experience with robotics marvel at their keychain designs and their robots coming to life allowed us to see firsthand the impact we were hoping to make with our MXP events - to teach kids of all ages and all backgrounds that robotics was for everyone.

Task: Prepare for the DPRG RoboRama Competition

Tomorrow Iron Reign is to send out a team of two people to compete at the annual Dallas Personal Robotics Group (DPRG) RoboRama as well as demo Icarus, our competition robot. Our robot, fittingly name Iron Core(as homage to one of the freshmen teams in our robotics program), is to compete at the sumo wrestling portion of the competition.

For reference, Dallas Personal Robotics Group is a Dallas-based robotics organization that holds mini robotics competitions, talks on the development of personal robotics, and has, on more than one occasion, given our team the opportunity to present to them about computer vision, and FIRST Tech Challenge in general.

To prepare for the competition, we used an existing Lego EV3 sumo bot that we use for our outreach and Mobile Tech Xperience (MXP) events and modified it with a 3D printed plow. As for code, we took the existing program of going forward and turning and going backwards after detecting the edge of the ring. We modified this code by adding a sensor to detect nearby robot by spinning until they are found, once located Iron Core will go full force towards the target in hopes of winning.

We also prepared Icarus for demonstration by tuning it as it has taken some damage from our previous competition. Some minor repairs were required but after just a few minutes Icarus was up and running again.

Next Steps

Task: Compete at the DPRG RoboRama and present Icarus

Ready and prepared, our two man team came to compete at the Annual Dallas Personal Robotics Group's RoboRama.

The first event was the sumo wrestling event, it featured a double elimination bracket and five teams total came to compete. In our first match we won, our robot seeking program served us well and eliminated the opposing robot on the first try. Unfortunately, we lost our second match after a long, agonizing battle the opposing robot had more torque than Iron Core and slowly pushed our pride and joy off the playing field. This 1-1 record scored us 3rd place for the event.

Seeing the event, Quick Trip, a test for accurate movement over long distances, I(Jose) programmed a path for it during lunch. With no time to use a gyro sensor, the path was inaccurate, but this could be fixed with a specific starting position. We finished with a total of 4 points, placing us third.

Along with competing we got to demo our competition robot for FTC, Icarus, to anyone interested, this included DPRG members and Girl Scout Troop #7711b. We demonstrated its capabilities including the articulations, our FTC season as well as show off "tall mode" which is Icarus with the Superman wheel activated completely and the arms extended completely. Overall most were impressed and appreciated the opportunity to see a functional robot.

Task: Motivate children in STEM fields at the Frontiers of Flight museum

Janavi teaching kids how to build EV3 Robots

Iron Reign went out to the Frontiers of Flight museum to promote STEM and robotics. We brought the MXP, and parked it in the main hangar where it garnered much attention from guests. At this event we instructed young children on basic block programming, 3D CAD modeling and EV3 robotics. We interacted with over 300 participants in this event.

We brought Icarus and Cartbot as a demo of our team's capabilities and to help inspire the children present at the museum. Getting Icarus to work ended up being a whole ordeal, as there were a slew of bugs that had to be ironed out. Cartbot was equipped with our air cannon, to the great amusement of the kids.

Task: Prepare everything for the Discovery Faire next week

I(Jose) fixed the battery box and charged the robot phones and batteries so that we could charge Icarus before next Saturday. Next week, Iron Reign is doing a demo of Icarus at the Frontiers of Flight Museum, which will be our largest MXP event. After charging the batteries, I drive-tested Icarus. While it is still functional, it can't balance as well as it did back in Houston. However, some last minute code on the day of the event should be able to solve that.

Next Steps

While Icarus is still functional, it can't balance as well as it did back in Houston. However, some last minute code on the day of the event should be able to solve that.

Task: Teach students how to block program and 3D model at the Discovery Faire @ Central Library

On July 13th Iron Reign attended the 5th annual Dallas City of Learning Discovery Faire at the Central Library. This was our third MXP event where the 250+ kids had access to our 3D printers, Lego EV3 sumo robots, and our four demo robots.

We demoed 4 of our robots including Icarus, Cart Bot, Kraken, and Argos. Cart Bot was by far the most popular with its can cannon. There were always kids around it, even when we were ready to pack up. Although Icarus had an issue with the superman, we were still able to get it working and show its features to anyone interested as well as Kraken and Argos.

Over all, the discovery Faire exposed kids to robotics and inspired parents to invest in their child's extra curricular education, furthering the growth of interest in STEM of the community and guaranteeing a future with these kids at the front line. 3D modeling and programming are essential to any FIRST robotics team and by showing them the basics they are likely to explore more about the subject.

Our booth could not have operated as smoothly as it did without BigThought, for helping us staff and maintain the MXP, and for giving us the opportunity to introduce FIRST to such a large audience. We’d also like to thank Fox 4 Local News for helping publicize our event by taking pictures of the event in progress. We are incredibly thankful for having been able to interact with the next generation of engineers, and giving them a platform to be introduced to FIRST.

Task: Reach out to the community and present at Moonday

Iron Reign went to the Frontiers of Flight Museum again with the DPRG to represent FIRST and SEM during their 50th anniversary celebration of the Apollo moon landings. This was our 4th year presenting at Moonday, and we interacted with over 300 students from as ages as young as 3 to 14. At this event, we helped to spread the message of FIRST and promote STEM. Cartbot and Icarus were present, as well as 10 members of Iron Reign. During this event, we taught students on how to block-program an FLL EV3 robot and 3D-model a keychain, two skills that are very relevant to both FLL and FTC. The event started at 8 AM at Love Field airfield, where the museum is located, and ended at around 2 in the afternoon. We interacted with many parents and students, talking about robotics, STEM, FTC and FIRST.

During the event, we shared a booth with the Dallas Personal Robotics Group(or DPRG, for short!). For the past 5 years, our team has presented several of our robot designs and articulations with DPRG, and earlier this summer, we competed in a robotics competition organized by DPRG. As such, we were excited to work with them again. Members of DPRG and the participants at Moonday enjoyed watching our Rover Ruckus competition robot, Icarus, in action.

The motorized air cannon mounted on Cartbot was also used to great effect, much to the amusement of the younger children. Cartbot itself was also used to great effect to help demonstrate our teams engineering capabilities; driving it around the venue was also admittedly very entertaining for both the drivers and the driven.

As the summer is drawing to a close, we are thankful to both Big Thought and the Frontiers of Flight Museum for the opportunity to once again present our robots, and to educate the next generations of engineers on robotics. We look forward to returning to these events next season as well!

Task: Introduce incoming freshmen to our robotics program

Iron Reign was given the opportunity by our school, The School for the Science and Engineering Magnet, to introduce and present our robotics program to the school's incoming batch of freshmen. This event allowed us to share our achievements this past season, talk about what it means to be a FIRST Tech Challenge team, and emphasize Iron Reign being a team for the past decade. Through this event, we were even able to get some hopeful recruits on our sign-up page! We were able to demo both Cart-Bot and Icarus during Nest Camp.

We also use this event as a chance to introduce our MXP program. In each session, we met with about 20-30 freshmen and we divided these groups such that one would learn to program EV3 robots and the other would learn to 3D-model keychains on the MXP vehicle. Since these are the two main activities encompassed within our MXP events, showcasing them to the freshmen allowed us to talk about our outreach events and exemplify that Iron Reign as a team focused on both robot-game as well as educating our community about STEM and FIRST.

This event also allowed us to create a connect opportunity. Individuals from Boeing attended and spoke with us at our sessions here which allowed them to see our team in action at an outreach event as well a chance for them to learn about the MXP and our work in bringing STEM to our communities.

Next Steps

We are thankful to SEM for giving us the opportunity to present ourselves and the ideals of FIRST Tech Challenge to the next batch of engineers in the Class of 2023. We enjoyed the chance to meet the future members of Iron Reign and look forward to working with them soon.

Task: Educate students at the Mayor’s Back to School Fair on robotics

Iron Reign was given the opportunity to present the MXP and its activities at the Mayor’s Back to School Fair. During this event we met with around 260 participants from ages 4 to 12 and were able to teach them about block-programming LEGO EV3 robots and on 3D-modelling keychains. The purpose of this event was to spread STEM programs to students in areas of Dallas were a STEM education was not as prominent.

This is our fifth year at this event, and it has been our busiest one this season. Alongside our traditional MXP events, we were able to launch cans using the CANnon (pun-intended) to cartbot. Considering the crowd we had at the event, and that the MXP could only hold 10 participants per session, a can-launching cannon allowed us to ensure that participants were able to stay engaged while they waited to board the vehicle.

During the event, we also met with a representative from the Dallas Innovative Alliance (DIA), a non-profit dedicated to supporting the execution of building Dallas into a city that leaves a legacy of innovation and sustainability for future generations. The representative we spoke with mentioned that the DIA was looking to collaborate with programs dedicated to bringing forth STEM in their communities like the MXP program. As such, we look forward to any future possibilities for working with the DIA.

Throughout the event, we met several students asked us how they could join a robotics team of their own. Being able to educate such a large group of participants on FIRST and robotics was a gratifying experience for our team and as such, we'd like to thank the City of Dallas for giving us this opportunity. Our fifth year being a part of the Mayor’s Back to School Fair could not have gone smoother, and we look forward to returning again the next summer.

Task: Reach out to congressional representatives in our area to improve the implementation of STEM-based legislation

This past year at the world championship, the founder of FIRST, Dean Kamen, emphasized how much of an influence reaching out to congressional representatives could have on furthering STEM in a community. Drawing inspiration from Kamen’s speech at Minute Maid Park, where the closing ceremonies were held, we reached out to three congressional representatives in our region - Eddie Bernice Johnson, Colin Allred, and Kenny Marchant. We wrote to them about FIRST, Iron Reign’s achievements and our MXP program dedicated to sharing the lessons we have learnt within robotics to the rest of our community. Specifically, we wrote about bills H.R. Building Blocks of STEM Act and the H.R. STEM Opportunities Act of 2019, and how we as a team could improve our outreach programs to help with the passage and implementation of these bills. Both bills are dedicated to promoting STEM education and careers, with the second one narrowed in on promoting the progress of underrepresented groups in STEM.

As a robotics team in a STEM school, we know how much our education has impacted us in how we function within the team. In a city like Dallas, where economic and racial disparities are large enough that not everyone has access to the same education that we do, we wanted to build upon our existing efforts to improve communal access to a STEM education. If we receive a response back, we hope for an opportunity to discuss these bills with said representatives to see how Iron Reign could further contribute towards bringing STEM to our communities through our MXP program.

Task: Plan to support at least 3 teams for the incoming Skystone season

One of the biggest challenges we will face this upcoming season is the fact that 6 of our members graduated just a month ago. This leaves a team of 7 underclassmen and two upperclassmen - a pretty significant difference to last season when these numbers were reversed. Luckily, all of us have had at least one year of experience on being in the SEM robotics program so we know what skills we need to learn to pick up where our seniors left off. These schools include build, programming, CAD modelling and journal. Filling in those niches will be difficult, and adding to this challenge is that our program currently consists of 2 teams - us and our sister team, Imperial Robotics. We also to support at least one freshmen team, Iron Core Robotics, one of the freshman teams in our program from last season. The only difference is that last year, the freshman teams were occupied by us for the better part of our freshmen year. Part of adapting to the new season includes the need for us to step up and mentor any new members similar to how we were mentored when we first joined the program. In order to expand our program, we also plan to hold another recruitment meeting like last year and put up posters around our school. The goal isn't to make our program as large as possible but rather to recruit enough members to keep it sustainable even after we've graduated.

Next Steps

We will talk to prospective members from our school on joining the SEM robotics program. Although 6 is a pretty big number of members to lose to graduation, we don't have any immediate plans to take on new members just yet. Our main goal recruitment-wise will be on expanding the overall robotics program, us, Imperial Robotics, Iron Core, and a potential second freshmen team. In order to expand our program, we also plan to hold another recruitment meeting like last year and put up posters around our school. The goal isn't to make our program as large as possible but rather to recruit enough members to keep it sustainable even after we've graduated.

Task: Brainstorm current and future plans on a google docs and try to switch to Trello

Tonight we set out to organize our thoughts and projects by laying them out on paper. We started out by listing major topics like 'presentation' and 'build'. From there we filled in with more specific things. Overall we had about 6 sections with 5-6 tasks each. This meant that we could easily import the information to Trello- a business organizing online service that Iron Reign tried to use last year. It failed due to the fact that we used it later in the season, so we hope by starting to use it earlier in the season this year will help. Now that we are using Trello, we can have it open such that people can always know what needs to be done.

One of the most notable things about the list is that we finally put down solidly which chassis ideas we will be working on, which is Frankendroid (our Robot in 2 Days robot), the unnamed big mecanum chassis, and most interesting a round robot. Iron Reign has a penchant for employing out-of-the-box ideas. So we went as far from the box as we could this season and have decided to build a circular chassis.

Next Steps

If we can pull it off, a circular robot will be a pretty interesting chassis design-wise. Such a chassis will require careful planning, so we will need to use Trello to evaluate our next steps which will include modelling the chassis and its dimensions first before beginning its actual build.

Task: Recruit new members for the 2019-20 season

Today we held an interest meeting at our campus - Townview Magnet Center. Over 30 people of varying grade levels attended this session, including returning members from Imperial Robotics, Iron Star and Iron Core. Last year Iron Reign lost 6 members to graduation, and since we plan to support two other sister teams in addition to our own, this meeting allowed us to meet potential members to fill in for the skill-sets we lost.

During the meeting, we talked about what it means to be an FTC team, and the difference between FTC and other robotics programs. We also went over Iron Reign's history as a team, and the different levels of organization within an FTC team such as outreach, build, programming, engineering notebook and presentation. Other topics such as the various time commitment levels for each individual team were also discussed.

Next Steps

We plan to invite all interested members to our practices as well as the season kick-off this upcoming Saturday and assign them teams depending on their prior experiences and team preferences.

Task: Attend the kickoff event

Today Iron Reign attended the FTC 2019-2020 season kickoff event at Williams High School. Team members and prospective members alike turned up to witness the unveiling of this season's challenge. As per usual, we were disappointed by the lack of water in the game, especially considering the amount of water seen leading up to the actual game reveal. Jokes aside, we are excited to tackle the Skystone challenge. You can see the reveal video below:

(Our robot from Rover Ruckus, Icarus, is featured in the video at 1:10!) There were some things we took away from the conversation prior to the game reveal. For one, we will definitely be using the REV control hub instead of an expansion hub this season, given our bad experiences with OTG cables disconnecting in the past. We also made note of the change in the way tie breaker points are added. The total will be averaged per match played, which will decrease the amount of jumping around teams do in the live rankings.

We also made some (fairly obvious) strategy decisions, such as the fact that we will not be doing offensive play because we cannot risk the associated penalties. Instead, we will focus on our robot's speed. We also plan to model our capstone after the shape of the stones to make it easier for an alliance partner to stack. Lastly, we will have to move the foundation in the direction that the smaller face of the stones points to minimize the possibility of it falling while maximizing efficiency. We could stack the stones in an alternating pattern, but we would have fewer layers supporting the capstone which would cost us points.

Part of the reason we needed to brainstorm strategy decisions quickly is because for the first time, Iron Reign is attempting the Robot in 2 Days Challenge. The Robot in 2 Days is usually a challenge taken up by long-standing veteran teams or alumni of those teams wherein they attempt to (and succeed!) at building a functional, coded robot in 2 days after the reveal. We don't think we will have a robot capable of performing all tele-op and autonomous tasks by the end of the weekend but the goal is to build a solid robot that can accomplish at least one tele-op game challenge.

Next Steps

Now that we know what kinds of tasks we're facing, we'll be moving forward into the discussion-and-prototyping phase of our Robot in 2 Days challenge. Of course, we'd like to thank REV for giving us a stone! Having at least one game element will make it easier for us to test our subsystems as we attempt to build a robot in a weekend.

Task: Show team 16296 Wattever how we run our meets

During our time participating in the robot in 2 days challenge, rookie FTC team 16296 Wattever (that's their name!) stopped by to take a look and get some advice from us. They were brand new to FTC, and came to us since we were a veteran team in the area. We enjoyed sharing with them our previous experiences and season highlights, as well as any and all steps a rookie team could take to ensure that they were ready to start competing in the Skystone season.

We showed them what tools and materials they would need, skills they would acquire, and priorities that were vital to competing in FTC. Not only that, but we did some discussing of this years challenge, sharing some ideas that may have not come straight to mind. We told them our preferences for kits, parts manufacturers and what kind of projects a rookie team could partake in for the upcoming build season.

Next Steps

Overall, they were very enthusiastic about FTC and we were excited to help them out. We had fun introducing them to the gospel of FIRST and we look forward to collaborating with more such teams in our region as the season progresses.

Task: Clean our work space and set up the field

Today we started preparing for the first meeting with the new recruits. Some of the things we set out to do were cleaning the robot room and assembling the new field for this year's challenge. All of the things we wanted to do had the common goal of making a safe and educational environment for the new recruits.

Before we started cleaning the robot room was a total mess and the main room was no better. Because the robot room is where the rookie teams work, we set out to clean that first. We tried to put away everything that could pose even the smallest danger like loose parts and tools. Even though we didn't make too much of an effort to organize because we knew it wouldn't have lasted long, we still made the room 100% safer. We also did the same for the main room. Finally, we also filmed the reveal video for the robot in 24 hours; however, that footage is still not edited.

Next Steps

We need to ensure that we are prepared to open our meeting to an influx of new recruits tomorrow. Now that the field has been set-up and our robot room has been organized, it will be a lot easier for all new recruits and our 2 teams to work in a shared space.

Task: Train the influx of new recruits

During a robotics interest meeting at our school 2 weeks ago, Iron Reign saw a crowd of around 20 hopeful recruits. Today was our first meeting to introduce the new recruits to our program - during which we encountered 4 returning members to our sister team, and 23 potential new members. Needless to say, practice this week was a little more chaotic than usual but we managed to not only train the recruits, but also take care of some driver practice and journal backlog.

Of the 23 recruits, 4 had robotics experience and 2 had 3D-modelling experience. Regardless of their previous robotics experiences, however, all recruits made significant progress as they experimented with the new REV kits. Most of our team is compromised of under-classmen, and after a year of watching our older (and significantly taller!) seniors induct us into robotics, it was a new experience to be teaching new recruits of our own this year. We divided the new members into two team of 10 respectively, and the remaining 3 observed and learned on how to use PTC Creo from our lead modeler, Justin. The first team was assisted and taught by several returning members from our sister team Imperial Robotics. They worked on building a differential chassis with the Imperial members. The second team was compromised of entirely new recruits and they worked on building a pushbot using the new REV kits, an initiation ritual that we ourselves had to encounter our freshman year. The first team finished the chassis but is yet to implement any additional subsystems onto it, something they will work on during the next meet.

The second rookie team finished building a push-bot during their first meet! Of course, they encountered some difficulties in the beginning as there were 10 individuals working with one REV kit. Some challenges they had to encounter included figuring out how to position the extrusion bars, and where to place the push-bot wheels. Several Iron Reign members floated in and out of their work area to provide assistance when needed, and as well as to teach them how to safely operate power-tools. Once they finished building their push-bot, Jose helped them program the robot with sample push-bot code and taught them how to operate the phones and expansion hubs. Although Iron Reign is the only team in our program as of current to be using a control hub, this may change in the future if members on our sister teams are confident enough of their robots to experiment with a control hub.

By the time the rookie team had a coded, operational push-bot, we accomplished several hours worth of driver practice, which allowed us to play our very first round of the Skystone Season with our new sister team. This also served as a good opportunity for some of the new recruits to learn how to drive and control a robot, a skill that will come in handy as their first qualifier approaches.

Finally, Iron Reign was able to clear some journal back-log. Our team has been occasionally guilty of abandoning journal articles until the last minute, so we used today's practice as an opportunity to knock out any posts we've held off on. As of now, we are 100% up to date with our blog, and we hope to be more consistent as our practices continue.

Next Steps

Although turnout was much higher than we initially anticipated, this practice was a good opportunity to meet the future members of our program. All rookies were advised to come to our Saturday practices regularly so that they could eventually be placed into teams. As this was the first practice of the year for many, we haven't yet identified how many teams we will be hosting but we hope to do so over the next remaining practices.

Task: Plan for 30+ influx of team members

Just like last year, this year has been pretty successful recruitment-wise. We have had 24 total signups, up from -5 last year. In addition to our returning members to our sister team, Imperial Robotics, and the existing members on Iron Reign, this wave of new recruits means that the Iron Reign family must continue growing. So, just as we have done last year, we introducing TWO new teams to North Texas, making us one of the only school-operated NTX teams supporting a total of 4 teams.

Structure-wise, Iron Reign will remain the varsity team, and as such, will be responsible for tutoring and assisting the other teams, as well as other organizational decisions. Then, Imperial will now be the JV team, and be the intermediate training ground. You can see their efforts over at https://imperialrobotics.github.io/. Then, Iron Core Robotics and Iron Golem Robotics will be freshmen teams and will serve as a good platform for the new members on the SEM Robotics program to understand what it means to be on a first-time FTC team. While we are pretty early on in the season to make decisions on how many members each of the freshmen teams will have, we estimate that they will both have around 7-8 members each. So far, all of our recruits are motivated and show great potential for the future of our robotics program.

We will deliver tutoring updates and joint outreach events on this blog, as well as our usual content. Everything claimed in this engineering notebook will be Iron Reign (6832) only, and we will hold the same standard of separation to the other teams.

Next Steps

We will tutor the new teams and identify the promising recruits. For ongoing tournaments and eliminations, we will recompose new teams of the most promising members. Our goal has been to ensure that the Iron Reign Robotics program is sustainable for years to come and with our 4 teams, we are confident that we will be able to achieve this.

Task: Reach out to congressional representatives in our area to improve the implementation of STEM-based legislation

This summer, our team reached out to three congressional representatives in our district - Colin Allred, Eddie Bernice Johnson and Kenny Marchant. We emailed to them letters detailing our Mobile Tech Experience Program (MXP), our accomplishments over the Rover Ruckus season, and how our team has dedicated itself towards promoting STEM education in underserved areas of Dallas.

This week we received an email back from Representative Allred's office and they agreed to our request for a meeting with a member of their staff. The meeting will occur next week, during which we will discuss a bill pertaining to STEM education - more specifically, the H.R. Building Blocks of STEM A Act. This bill was passed this summer, after our correspondence to Allred. The H.R. Building Blocks of STEM is about improving female participation in STEM and in improving STEM education for younger children. As such, our meeting will focus more on discussing how best to implement the contents of the bill and how we can improve the MXP program to collaborate with Allred's office.

Next Steps

We are incredibly thankful to Representative Allred's office for giving us the opportunity to discuss STEM education with them. We look forward to the meeting next week.

Task: Meet with Representative Colin Allred's office to discuss FIRST robotics and STEM-based legislation

Today, we presented to Mr Andrew Krause of the 32nd District Representative Colin Allred's office to increase awareness of FIRST and the STEM Outreach that Iron Reign has done in the community. Last year at World Championship in FIRST, the founder of FIRST Dean Kamen emphasized the importance about reaching out to our local representatives to spread the word of FIRST. So, our team reached out to Representative Allred's office, and they agreed to our request for a meeting!

The legislative bill we wrote about in the email to their office was the H.R. Building Blocks of STEM Act. This bill focused on improving teacher training for STEM educators, increasing funding for STEM-based extracurriculars, and in reforming STEM based education to draw more girls to STEM. As a robotics team coming from a STEM-based school, all of these are issues that we care deeply about, and are issues that we have the privilege to address. During the meeting with Mr Krause, we brought up the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) Convention that Iron Reign presented at 3 years ago to highlight the importance of STEM teacher training. We also discussed STEM Spark since it was an all-girls event wherein Iron Reign taught middle-school girls how to code and 3D-model.

We were also able to bring our mobile learning lab, the Mobile Tech Xperience (or MXP, for short) to the meeting. The representatives we met with enjoyed boarding the vehicle to get a first-hand look at the activities we teach during our outreach events. We talked them through the actual process of how the MXP itself was built as well as the plans for its future expansion.

Next Steps

Although the Building Blocks of STEM Act was the bill we had reached out to the office about, our main goal for the meeting was to find ways to collaborate with Representative Allred's office to better spread STEM in our community. As students from a STEM-based school, we know that we are privileged in terms of opportunity, and through our existing outreach programs, we hoped to better spread that opportunity to other students in the Dallas community. At the end of today's meeting, we discussed the possibility of members from the Representative office being present at our school-hosted qualifier and our future outreach events. We are thankful for the opportunity to have gotten to present to Mr Krause and we hope to further collaborate with Representative Allred's office in planning our outreach events.

Task: Analyze the viewer statistics of our Robot in 2 Days Reveal Video

2 hours after the challenge reveal for Skystone, Iron Reign kicked off the new season with a new robot - FrankenDroid. It's been one month since then and FrankenDroid has undergone several significant build and code changes (to be revealed in our next few blog posts!), and the video we posted on our youtube channel, Iron Reign, has reached over 2K views. The whole purpose of the video was to inspire teams who were having trouble coming up with build designs for their robots. As a team who's had its fair share of build challenges, we know how Robot in 2 Days videos can be pretty helpful to look at when starting off the new build season.

As shown above, the release of our video led to our channel receiving over 3,300 views and has a watch time of 7,033 minutes. This is an instance of online outreach and is the primary reason why all our journal articles and videos are public. The NTX region itself is pretty large compared to many other regions competing in FIRST, which makes for teams with active build seasons. Posting videos of this sort allows our team to share our build progress to the rest of the FIRST communities world-wide who may not be as expansive as the North Texas region is.

Next Steps

We hope our video was helpful for any teams starting off the new build season. We look forward to posting another reveal video once our robot for competition is ready.

Task:

As most people in the FIRST community know by now, Dr. Woodie Flowers passed away on October 11th. As a team who has met Dr. Flowers twice at the FIRST Championship, this saddened us greatly. Dr. Woodie Flowers was an MIT and Louisiana Tech Alumni, college professor, husband and co-founder of FIRST robotics. Launched in 1989, FIRST was created to inspire kids of all ages to find STEM as a fun, engaging and learnable concept. Ever since its founding, Dr. Flowers was an actively-involved member of the organization. He introduced innovative ways to encourage non-STEM motivated kids to the program, and introduced core values to make FIRST an all-inclusive, one-of-a-kind environment. He coined the term "Gracious Professionalism" as a way to persuade everyone to be competitive while also being respectful to themselves and their opponents. Today, FIRST has become a community - one where students of all ages, nationalities, and skill-sets have learned to make robotics and STEM a crucial part of their lives. From creating one of the most popular robotics classes in MIT, to co-founding one of the longest-lasting robotics programs in the world, Dr Woodie Flowers was a man who had dedicated almost his whole life to inspiring the new generation of inventors. His contribution to FIRST is what inspired many teams, including ours, to spend the better part of our schooling towards learning and spreading the influence of robotics to our communities. Rest in peace Dr. Flowers, you will be missed by us all.

Task: Compete and observe important things needed to continue the build of circle robot and for future competitions.

This Saturday Iron Reign attended the scrimmage at Hedrick Middle School. This scrimmage was for many rookies, the first exposure to a competition environment and the basic structures of team communication. Both the rookies and the returning team members had an opportunity to communicate with different teams and to get exposed to different ideas and their respective thought processes. Iron Reign used this scrimmage as a way to look at what robot designs were most effective and a lot of key aspects of the game we may have glossed over earlier in the season.

Many things determined a robot's effectiveness, for example, we noticed that the robots in the competition that did the best were the ones that had the most direct routes and were able to manipulate the stones efficiently and effectively. We also noticed that positioning and placing the stones on the towers was very difficult for us and the teams without programs that automatically line up the stacks. This strengthens our need for circle robot which when finished should be able to stack with much more precision than the average robot. The other thing that the circle robot would help with is lining up the arm to pick up stones which also proved to be very challenging for teams with grippers that need to grab a block in a certain orientation like us.

There were a lot of unexpected penalties that can change the tides of a game, for example, the human player can not place an object in the quarry if there is already an object in it. Doing this awards 15 points to the opposing team. Another thing we learned is that to receive the points from delivering a stone the robot must fully cross over the tape under the bridge. A lot of people with push-bots lost points because their robots didn't fully cross the tape. Overall, penalties and losing points were easy ways for a team to lose a match quickly and if we don't watch what we do we can potentially lose an entire competition because of them.

Next Steps

Our next steps are to keep working on the circle robot because it should be able to better complete the challenge. We also see like never before that even though this robot is not done, we still have Frankendroid and we still need to perpetually do driving practice with it because ultimately, the best teams will have the most driving practice. However, the biggest next step we are taking is that we are coming to practice more often because our first qualifier is so close but we are so far from a good robot. There is still a lot of work to do.

Task: Respond to an email about the MXP to the local Idaho STEM director of Girl Scouts.

Today, Iron Reign received an email from the STEM director of the Girl Scouts of Desert Southwest saying that they are seeking to create their own mobile learning lab, similar to our Mobile Tech xPerience (MXP). As such, in the email we were asked for the story of the MXP - its deconstruction, construction, design and the like. Considering the MXP is nearing its time for expansion, it was fitting that we received this email. Since the correspondence comes from Idaho, this will also be our first out-of-state connect opportunity of the season.

In a brief summary, in our response we detailed the interior construction of the vehicle. Buried in this blog's archives is a series of posts that details the whole deconstruction and reconstruction process of the vehicle. Of course, no one from our current team was involved in this process and as such, we made sure to accredit the interior furnishing of the vehicle to our team alumni. This process included replacing the carpeting with wood-grain vinyl, adding new shelving to store LEGO robots, installing new wide-screen monitors, and creating a bay to stock 3D printers.

We also made sure to explain how the MXP is operated. For reference, the vehicle is operated by Big Thought, our programmatic partner, and during the vehicle's deployment at outreach events like Moonday, our team mans and runs the MXP booth where we teach students how to block-program LEGO EV3 robots to battle one another, and how to 3D-print a keychain on SketchUp that they can take home. Now, the MXP is nearing end of its lifetime and Big Thought has plans to expand the program by creating a new, bigger vehicle.

Next Steps

We were very gratified by the STEM director of the Girl Scouts of Desert Southwest reaching out to us about the plans for their mobile learning lab. Being able to take part of the MXP's mission to bring STEM education to students in the greater Dallas area has been one of the best opportunities Iron Reign has recieved, and its one we intend to pass on to others in our community like the Girl Scouts. We wish them the best of luck in putting their plans to fruition and are looking forward to answering any more questions they have on the plans for the vehicle.

Task: Share with other teams how Iron Reign creates its engineering notebook

This weekend Iron Reign attended the Woodrow Wilson Scrimmage. On top of participating in the scrimmage, we were invited to present on Engineering Notebook Success as part of the morning workshops. The team went through our slides, going back and forth with our audience when they had questions, with two major focuses: journal content and the physical notebook. You can access the presentation below:

Iron Reign would like to emphasize that this is how our team creates its engineering notebook, not that it is the "right" way.

One thing we want to emphasize is that unlike previous years, presentations only run for 5 minutes before being cut off. And so, the engineering notebook is the main way teams can advocate for themselves to the judges outside of face-to-face interactions. Therefore, teams must effectively communicate what they want judges to know about their team through the notebook. Iron Reign does this by highly organizing content through the use of tabs and highlighting to correspond with specific awards. We included other suggestions, such as table of contents and a "how to read this notebook" page, all for the convenience of the reader.

Task: Compete and work on TomBot at the scrimmage at Woodrow HS.

This Saturday Iron Reign attended a scrimmage at Woodrow High School. Woodrow offered a variety of activities that improved the capabilities of our team like for example, the mock judging sessions. Our session gave us insight into how our judging presentation needed to be reformed and cut down to fit into the new five-minute time limit. It also gave us a chance to see who was going to do each slide and how long they should talk about it. Other criticism we received was founded on the same basis that we were not owning up to our story, were not motivated enough, and were more focused on the infrastructure we were given rather than what we had done with it. All of these points are entirely valid and were worth looking further into and making better.

Iron Reign also held a journal workshop where Rookie and veteran teams alike were able to learn the basics of constructing and preparing an engineering journal for competition. It went through the most important organizing structures, writing techniques, and time management practices. This workshop went well and we would definitely do it again in the future.

When it came down to performing in the robot game we did not surpass our expectations even though we made first place out of all the teams there. This was because we were using Frankendroid, the barely functional robot we built in two days. This robot was only capable of producing subpar results fully functional but at this particular competition, it was not fully functional. This means that Frankendroid was only able to make at most ten points because of a broken encoder cable that rendered the arm nonfunctional. However, we are not going to use this robot at the first scrimmage next Saturday. Instead, we are going to use TomBot which was being worked on the entire time. In that time we were able to attach the arm and gripper and write some basic code to control the robot which is still being debugged.

Next Steps

Iron Reign is working around the clock to make sure that we don’t show up with a robot like Frankendroid at the first qualifier. We are well on our way to finishing the arm and turntable on TomBot. We are also working to better the judging presentation and to fit it into the newly established 5-minute time limit. So far it looks like we are going to get there by Saturday.

Task: Compete in Qualification Matches and maybe some Playoffs

Today was our first qualifier at the Allen STEAM Center and we were able to compete with our official competition robot, TomBot, at the event. With its build being done the day of and its code also minimal, we didn't have high hopes coming into this competition in terms of robot game. Nevertheless, the following ensued. For reference, we have a separate post underlining the analysis of the qualifier that does not include match analysis. This post merely details how each one of our matches went, and we will have a future post discussing our drive issues at the competition.

We lost 113-36. This match was a though one against 7172 Technical Difficulties, who managed to almost set a new world record alone. We had no autonomous at this point and very little driver practice led to our low score.

We lost 5 - 29. Early on in the match the wires that control the entire arm of TomBot were caught on the team number side shield, making the bot virtually unusable during the rest of the match. (insert sad face here)

For the second time in Iron Reign history we tied 10-10. With still no autonomous at this point we had an early disadvantage and to make things worse, the servo that controls the stone grabber disconnected, making TomBot a pushbot for the rest of the match.

We won 29 - 38. In this match we got to play with our sister team 3734 but against our other sister team 15373. Despite never practicing together before we had great synergy throughout the entire match and even pulled off a double park at the end.

We lost 36-50. Our luck ran out here despite the improvements shown in the last match. We were able to run a ten point autonomous with 15204 but our opponents closed the gap during Tele-Op.

We finished the qualification matches seeded 22nd out of 28 but that didn't stop us from asking the 3rd seed, 11629, if they would like to have us in their alliance, after a quick discussion they said they liked our bot and added us to their list. This ended up working out as we were their 2nd pick during alliance selection.

We won 58-38. This was a great match where our autonomouses combined scored 20 points. From here we used a feeding strategy where 15176 fed us stones while we stacked them. During end game we also managed to get a double park.

We won 48-28. In this tense match against the 1st seed alliance we were able to do our 20 point auto again and executed the feeding strategy like before. During the end, however, a quick attempt at a park caused the tower we build to fall, but luckily so did the opponents' stack.

We lost 38-86. Both our autonomouses failed which resulted in some time wasted during tele-op to push the foundation to the building site. We were able to pull off the normal tower we build and double park, but this wasn't enough to overcome 7172's and 9161's massive lead.

Next Steps

With so little driver practice done ahead of the qualifier, we hardly expected to receive the Finalist Alliance award but the opportunity to compete in the finals match allowed us to analyze what code and build changes need to be made to our robot to put us in good shape for our next qualifier at UME Preparatory Academy on January 11th.

Task: Compete at the N. TX Allen STEAM Center Qualifier

Right off of a subpar performance at the Woodrow Wilson Scrimmage, Iron Reign walked on shaky ground to the qualifier at the Allen STEAM Center. In the 2 weeks leading up to the tournament, Iron Reign worked hard, with countless changes to our blog and robot. Despite this, we had virtually no driver practice for the qualifier, and did not expect to do exceptionally well at the competition.

Inspection

For possibly the first time in Iron Reign history, we passed inspection the first time around! Our robot fit well within the sizing cube, though we will need to improve our wiring management after the qualifier.

Presentation

We walked in, and started off out strong. Half of a good presentation is the energy, and we certainly had a good amount of energy going in. We were also able to finish our presentation within the 5 minutes allocated, which gave us more time for questioning. Unfortunately, during our robot demo in the questioning demo, one of our chains slipped which meant that our demo was not as successful as it could have been. The plan for the robot demo was that while the turntable rotated, the circular chassis would rotate in the counter direction. However, the slip-up with the chains also took away time from our questioning, so we were unable to convey our information as effectively as we could have.

Robot Game

To start off, we didn't really have a working robot. However, as the day went on, we were able to make additions to our robot that eventually rendered it capable of being picked for a semi-finalist alliance, and from there, advance to the finals. For reference, this is merely a summary of the entire day, and does not serve as our match analysis. The match analysis has been documented in a separate article.

Match 6

We lost 113-36. With no autonomous, and little driver practice, we were no match for our opponents.

Match 11

We lost, 5-29. The wires on TomBot got caught on our side shields, rendering us useless for the rest of the match.

Match 18

We tied 10-10. We still lacked autonomous and we were basically a pushbot for this match.

Match 28

We won, 29-38. Our autonomous wasn't solid, but both us and our alliance (our sister team, Imperial Robotics) were able to double park.

Match 31

We lost, 36-50. We had a semi-working autonomous, but our tele-op performance wasn't enough to catch up to our opponent's.

We finished qualifying matches in 22nd, but talking to the 3rd seed team Todoians prior to alliance selections, helped us secure a place in their alliance for semi-finals.

Semifinals Match 2-2

We won, 58-38. At this point, both us and our alliance partner, Broken Axles had a working autonomous and were able to double-park at the end of the game.

Through our performance in the semis, we qualified for the finals matches!

Finals Match 2

We won 48-28. Although our autonomous worked well, both ours and our opponent's towers collapsed, which led to a low point win.

Finals Match 3

We lost 38-46. Both us and our alliance's autonomous paths failed and although we double-parked, our opposing alliance took the lead.

After-Judging and Awards Ceremony

While we thought we hadn't done well in judging, we were quickly rebuffed. A good measure of judging success is if the judges come back to talk to you, and this was no exception. We had four separate groups of judges come up to us and ask us about *every* component of our team, from business, to outreach, to code, to design.

In the ceremony, every single member of SEM Robotics waited. Iron Golem had been the 11th place ranked team; Iron Core had been the 16th - both impressive ranks for rookie teams at such a competitive qualifier; Imperial had been the 2nd seed alliance in semi-finals; Iron Reign had multiple in-depth discussions with judges. As award nominations went on, Iron Reign has not been nominated for any of the awards, which could be a good or bad sign. Then came Inspire. We heard two names echo off as nominations; neither of them SEM Robotics teams. Finally, a speech flew across the arena as Iron Reign stood for their Inspire Award.

Next Steps

Even though we won Inspire, we have a long way to go. We are going to compete at at least one more tournament, and we aim to get all 3 of our sister teams qualified. Although 4 teams from one program at regionals is unusual for any team, we believe that all of our teams have the potential to qualify at the next competition on the 11th. In the meanwhile, there will be several post-mortem posts for our performance at Allen, and we hope to analyze our results at the qualifier with both the current and alumni members of Iron Reign.

This weekend, SEM sent four teams to the first qualifying tournament of the FIRST Tech Challenge 2019-2020 season. Iron Reign (6832) was a finalist in robot game and won the top award (Inspire) and has advanced to the Regional Championship in February.

Imperial Robotics (3734), was 8th place in match play, the highest qualification ranking of our 4 teams, and made it into the semifinals playoffs, but was then eliminated in their second semifinals match.

Iron Golem (15375) was 11th in qualifying rounds, and won 3 out of their 5 matches. Their impressive performance at the first tournament for this all rookie team has set them up for a more successful experience at the next qualifier on January 11.

Iron Core (15373), another all rookie team, was 16th in qualifying rounds, and demonstrated coolness under stress as they experienced persistent issues with robot disconnections. They are already hard at work aiming for their next qualifier.

Our thanks go out to all of the people and sponsors who have supported us already this season, including but not limited to: Mr. Schelanko and Mr. Marx and the Dallas ISD STEM Department, Mr. Gray our faculty sponsor, Mr. Palacios and SEM staff, Ms. Huitt, The Texas Workforce Commission, FIRST in Texas, DEKA, Patrick Michaud - our FIRST FTC Regional Affiliate, Fried Elliott - Regional Judge Advisor, and the Virani / Lux family.

Task: Respond to a request for outreach help from Team 6964

Recently, Iron Reign received a request for advice on how we run our outreach events from FTC Team 6964 Igutech from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. They are organizing their first outreach event for a STEM club at a local middle school and reached out to us to ask our team on how we organize our outreach events.

As a team that has participated in several outreach events around the greater Dallas area, we were happy to respond. We started out by explaining the activities we have at our events - this includes bringing Big Thought's mobile learning lab, the MXP, to the event location and using its resources to teach students how to 3D-model a keychain using ninjaflex and block program a LEGO EV3 robot (similar to the kind used in FLL), and demo-ing our competition robot, and on occasion, letting kids test out the controls themselves by driving the robot around. Something that our team takes pride is being able to get students with little to no background in STEM interested in robotics. As such, in our correspondence to Igutech, we made sure to emphasize that one thing Iron Reign focused on was trying to create an interactive experience for all participants involved.

Next Steps

We were very gratified by Team 6964 reaching out to us about the plans for starting off their outreach program. Being able to connect with teams so far outside the NTX region like 6964 in Pennsylvania served a good opportunity for our team to realize just how expansive the FIRST community is. We wish Igutech the best of luck for their first outreach event, and we look forward to hearing from them soon.

Qualifying Tournament needs Volunteers!

Iron Reign (team 6832), The School of Science and Engineering and the Dallas ISD STEM Department are happy to announce that we are hosting our third annual FIRST Tech Challenge qualifying tournament at our Townview campus on December 14th. Thirty Two North Texas robotics teams will compete for awards plus approximately 4 or 5 advancements to the Regional Championship to be held in February, and 4 advancements to the Wildcard Qualifer for another chance.

This is the third time our school has hosted an official qualifying tournament and we will need your help to make it a first-rate experience. This is a full day event on Saturday, December 14. There are also options to help with setup Friday afternoon December 13. Please feel free to circulate this message to everyone in the SEM community who can contribute their time and expertise. And if you can suggest a business that might want to sponsor the event, we'll be happy to talk with them.

Volunteer Roles

One group of volunteers that support the running of robot matches include referees, score keepers, inspectors, field managers. Some of these roles require training and certification and we will generally draw from mentors already involved in FTC. Other roles supporting match play do not require training and include field management, pit management and queue management.

Another group of volunteers will support judging of teams for awards. Judges can be drawn from industry or academia and can have an engineering background or a general business backround in a technology industry. Judges assess the merits of teams' robots, their engineering process and journal, their strategic decisions, team dynamics and outreach. Judges will be led by a Judge Advisor, but will need to understand the awards criteria ahead of time.

Another group of volunteers will support the event overall. This includes team registration, crowd control, DJ, photography, A/V support, floaters, runners, concessions, load-in/load-out crew, etc.

This is just a summary of the most common roles, but there are many specialty roles. Full volunteer info can be found here.

How to sign up as a volunteer

FIRST is the governing body of these competitions and they have a volunteer sign up system so that we can assure that all roles are filled by vetted volunteers. We are trying to get all volunteers processed through this system. It does involve creating a FIRST account if you have not previously done so.

Please sign up for as many roles as you feel comfortable fulfilling. We may need to be flexible with assignments depending on who is available and which roles can be fulfilled by our regional managing partner. Students may volunteer for certain roles and as event hosts, Iron Reign team members will be supporting the event throughout the day.

To begin, go to the volunteer signup page for our event: https://my.firstinspires.org/Volunteers/Wizard/Search/2?EventId=47076

If you have not previously registered with FIRST, you'll need to sign up / register and activate your account first. Then you can go back to the link above and indicate your preferences. We truly need your help and look forward to working with you to create a great tournament for our students. We hope this event will showcase SEM as the premiere home for future scientists and engineers.

All our Thanks,

Karim Virani and Cathy Lux

Location

Tournament day is very involved for the teams and volunteers. Here is a typical schedule of the day:

• 7:00 Doors open for volunteers
• 7:30-8:30 Teams arrive, register and load their robots and gear into the pit areas
• 9:00 - 10:30 Teams present their robots to Judges for the awards competition. They also get their robots inspected and approved for the robot game
• 10:30 Opening ceremonies and then qualifying matches of the robot game begin. Judges are observing teams in their pits and on the competition field
• Noon - Lunch will be provided for the teams and volunteers. Judges share information with each other about the teams they interviewed.
• Afternoon - qualifying matches continue until each team has competed 5 times. There are 4 robots per match and we'll have two alternating competition fields to speed things up.
• Mid-to-late afternoon is Alliance Selection, top teams from qualifying rounds will build alliances to compete in the elimination / playoff rounds. Judges continue deliberating.
• Playoff rounds usually take a bit over an hour
• Closing Ceremonies and Awards
• Pack up fields and equipment

We plan to end the tournament by 5:30pm, but events often run long. All volunteers are encouraged to stay until the end of the tournament - it's at the awards ceremony where it becomes clear how much your service matters. But it's not required if your role is completed earlier in the day.

Task: Begin analyzing our performance at the Allen qualifier

It’s officially been a week since our first qualifier at Allen. Although we succeeded in qualifying there’s still a lot of work to be done before it we’re ready for the regional championship. Before we could begin any preparation for regionals, we needed to start off by analyzing our performance at Allen. To do this we created a SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities, threats) analysis.Today was simply a short-term version of this analysis and there will be a separate post detailing our comprehensive post-mortem analysis as well as other post-mortem posts for our build and code subdivisions.

We started off by analyzing our performance at judging. In the past, timing is an issue we’ve struggled to nail down during judged presentations. As such, this year we worked to make our presentation as concise but thorough as possible. During the actual presentation, while we hit the 5 minute mark there were other areas in which we could have been improved - particularly, our robot demonstration and our ability to explain our build decisions with calculations. To solve this, we plan to design a research poster for regionals which explains our mathematical reasoning for every aspect of the robot. The poster will allow us to allude to our calculations during both presentations and pit visits. As for robot demo, it is more a matter of being prepared with working controls which is an issue we will cover in our long-term post-mortem.

On the short-term, we also plan to better organize our bill of materials which will streamline our process of building our new robot. For reference, TomBot is our current robot. Before regionals, we plan to build a similar circular-chassis based robot but with more custom built parts which we plan to design using our new CNC mill.

On the issue of drive practice our solution is simple, effective and fully on-track with the Iron Reign way: double it and try not to break the robot. In all seriousness, the only way to resolve lack of drive practice is doing more of it. Part of this includes documenting our driver practices with statistics for us to better analyse our progress (or lack of thereof).

The final issue we discussed during today’s post-mortem talks was how we plan to organize our schools qualifier on December 14 . Although this isn’t related to our performance at the Allen Qualifier, our experience at the tournament allowed us to better understand what needs to be done to get all 4 of our teams ready to host a 31-team qualifier. Part of this includes all members registering for roles as well as ensuring that we have monitors, playing fields, and enough adult volunteers to pull off the whole event.

Next Steps:

Over the course of next week’s meeting, we will finish our post-mortem talks and will continue our preparations to host the Townview Qualifier. In addition, we will also detail our SWOT analysis on this blog when our post-mortem talks are finished.

Task: Plan for upcoming tournaments

So our Allen qualifier was a success! Iron Reign won the Inspire Award, which we are so honored to have been given. We did a detailed SWOT analysis to identify our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Strengths

• Preparation
  • Earlier preparation of the engineering journal
  • Productivity greatly increased under pressure
  • Everything was up on blog
  • Content was organized well
  • Functional robot
  • Judging box was prepared and had everything we needed
• Judging
  • We were effectively able to communicate the reason behind our robot's unique shape
  • Good transitions between ideas
  • We were able to talk fluidly about our robot despite not having speeches prepared
  • Able to redirect judges to specific highlights
  • Storytelling abilities kept judges engaged
• Robot Performance
  • We passed inspection the first time around
  • Physical build was solid
  • Focused on building/improving even throughout the competition
  • Great teamwork - everyone was coordinated and on task
  • Batteries were charged
• Scouting and Pit Engagement
  • Good at queueing one another during pit visits
  • Demo worked better than at presentation
  • Scouters got to all the teams

Weaknesses

• Preparation
  • Workspace is realy disorganized which made it hard to find tools and equipment that we needed
  • No drive practice until the morning of the tournament since gripper was only mounted then
  • Not enough people for load out
  • Control Award submission
  • Missed items on the checklist for materials
  • Lack of rest
• Judging
  • Redirected to topics that don't have a lot of substance
  • Not enough calculation based posts to talk about
  • Lack of driver statistics documentation
  • Hand off between different speakers could be smoother
  • Did not clearly discuss our focus on sustainability of the MXP
  • Robot demo did not work since chains fell off
• Robot Performance
  • All drivers need to learn game strategy
  • Poor wire management
  • Compact design was also the reason behind the turn table knocking chains off of wheels' sprockets
  • Set screws came loose often
  • We had no autonomous at the beginning of the day
• Scouting and Pit Engagement
  • Need to be more systematic about checking team's claims
  • Did not get video of all of our matches personally
  • Not enough people at the pits to represent the team
  • Unable to seed questions
  • Lacking in enthusiasm
  • Pits were a mess with backpacks thrown all over

Opportunities

• Preparation
  • Taking up more afterschool and Sunday practices
  • Allocating more time to preparation in the weeks before competition instead of days
  • Preparing a pit design to optimize organization and places to put up banners
  • Create business cards for handouts
  • Post-event follow through: plugging in phones, charging batteries, etc.
• Judging
  • Be more aware of what a judge is looking for/what award they are judging
  • Make our binder stand out - aesthetically and by creating helpful guides such as a robot manual
• Robot Performance
  • Allowing time for driver practice
  • Making sure that everyone gets enough sleep the night before competition
  • Test grippers
  • Better collaboration with alliance partners
  • Control swivel mount on gripper
  • Fully automatic gripper with distance sensors
  • Turn-table needs to stay in position while robot turns
  • Completely CNCed robot (base - polycarb with aluminum sides)
  • Dampen swing on gripper
  • Make model for gripper before build
  • Articulations - more accurate presets specifically for elbow
  • Create a bill of materials with links
• Scouting and Pit Engagement
  • Design pit layout ahead of time
  • Dress up our pit with tent and banners
  • Have a laptop ready with important info
  • Detailed accounts for each match we do/play by play
  • Have someone assigned to watch matches so that we can personally gauge other team's strength, weaknesses, opportunities for collaboration, etc.
  • Take the chance to talk to other teams
  • Make use of a scouting app

Threats

• Preparation
  • Not getting focused until it is too late
  • Busy schedules
  • Not being able to prioritize
• Judging
  • Rushing through important ideas because of the time limit
  • Judging panel is always an uncertain variable
• Robot Performance
  • High performing teams
  • Time management
  • Acquisition of all parts
  • Enough time for modeling all the robot parts
• Scouting and Pit Engagement
  • Sitting around looking at phones looks like disengagement even if we are researching stuff
  • Lack of robot data and statistics to present potential allies with might drive them away

Next Steps

We're at the point now where we are prepping for our regionals tournament. Thankfully we will have another opportunity to test out TomBot at the ____ qualifier. Between the work we do now and up until the regionals tournament, we hope to achieve a full autonomous with greater stacking capabilities.

Task: Prepare Townview for the upcoming qualifier

Tomorrow, December 14th, Iron Reign will be hosting the 2019 Townview Qualifier. 31 teams will be competing and we expect several hundred people to attend the event. We have recruited volunteers from Imperial, Iron Core, and Iron Golem, along with PTSA volunteers from our home schools, SEM and TAG. For our competition, we required over 31 individual tables for each team, 4 queuing tables, and about 6 other tables for snacks, equipment, and inspection. Three fields were also set up, two were brought in as competition fields, set up in the main cafeteria, while the third was provided by Iron Reign as a practice field in the far corner of the cafeteria. Two large monitors were provided by the schools to display match information during matches, along with live results, while the other was used to display inspection status and ranking. The competition fields were setup to the east of the cafeteria with several rows of chairs for spectators. Behind the fields were 4 queuing tables, two per field. We initially placed 4 chairs at every team table, however, more were available along the walls for teams to use. On every team table, we placed 2 signs with the team numbers of the team assigned to that table. Teams were organized by team number to make queuing easier.

A tournament also required judging rooms. Because the tournament was on the first floor of the building, we transformed 5 classrooms into judging rooms. This usually meant moving many of the tables and chairs off to the side to allow teams and judges to move easily about the room. We posted maps around the building and marked every judging room with the judging room number.

Next Steps

Although we finished most of the preparation, there are still a few things left to do. We will need to construct a map of the pits, transport volunteer supplies (like snacks and water), and provide training for volunteers.

Task: Run the Townview Tournament

On Saturday, December 15, Iron Reign hosted 31 teams and 300 students at the Townview Magnet Center, our home school's campus. With 31 teams, this was one of the biggest qualifiers in the North Texas region. A video play-by-play of the matches can be found in a separate entry here. This entry serves more as a description as to how we got to the point of hosting the qualifier and what to consider when hosting one.

To start off, a full-fledged qualifier requires a large number of volunteers - both student and adult. While there are certain roles that are limited to adults only, many roles need a good number of younger volunteers - especially queuing and judging assistance. If the host team is not participating in the qualifier, then a good way to meet this cap is to recruit from a school's robotics program. In our case, student members from the Iron Reign Robotics program filled in positions such as game announcer, emcee, disc jockey, concessions, and around 10 queuers and runners. Prior to the start of match-play all our members helped with judging assistance. This includes ensuring that all teams are queued up on time outside their judging panels and ensuring that all teams have gone through field and robot inspection. This helps ensure that all teams are on schedule for the start of match-play. Below, you can see what specific roles which Iron Reign members helped fill during the tournament:

Townview Qualifier Member Work Log

A good qualifier also needs adult volunteers. We had 2 judges in 4 judging rooms and one room with 3 judges. In addition, we also had 6 referees and one scorer. All of these are adult roles which meant we had to seek volunteers from a variety of sources including prior FTC Tournaments, alumni from our team, and even our own families. All adult volunteers must go through background checks as well as complete other training certifications on the FIRST website so this proccess must start at least 3 weeks in advance to recruit enough volunteers. To do this, we posted a request for volunteers on this blog for any visitors to our website to sign up.

Fresh off of the Allen Qualifier, we knew the pressure that teams felt at a qualifier - whether its caused by a lack of driver practice, tools or just undulated anxiety, we wanted to alleviate this stress. So, we ensured that a practice field set up away from the pit area for teams to practice right before their matches. We also kept a spreadsheet with inspection results on 2 monitors in the pits so that teams could be updated, and made pit maps so teams could find one another. These maps are also helpful to runners who need to find teams to queue them for their matches or for their judging panels. With so many members of our team floating around the pits, we were also able to provide any build or code assistance to teams who might need it. Finally, one trait all FTC team members share on the day of qualifier is the perpetual need for sustenance so we collaborated with one of our school's, TAG, PTSA to set up a concessions stand while the DISD STEM Department ensured that all volunteers received lunch.

Next Steps

By the end of the qualifier, we were able to advance 4 teams to the North Texas Regional Championship, and another 4 to the Wildcard Qualifier on February 1st. The qualifier could not have gone as smoothly as it did without the help of all our volunteers for committing so much of their times on a weekend to promote FIRST and STEM. We'd also like the DISD STEM Department for proving all our volunteers with breakfast and lunch, to The School of Business and Management and our sponsor, Mr John Gray, for supporting the event. Finally, we'd like to thank our coach Mr Virani for managing all of the logistics for the event, including its set up and the qualifier itself.

Thank you to all our volunteers!

Thank you to all the volunteers that gave up their Saturday to contribute to the FTC community in North Texas. Because of you this tournament was a rousing success. We served 31 area teams and 300 students. We advanced four teams directly to the Regional Championship in February and gave another four a second shot at the Wild Card tournament. More importantly, all teams received a fair chance at competing with excellent Judging and Refereeing - and we are certain that all of them learned how to improve. We really could not have done this without our volunteers carrying the load.

We extend our deepest appreciation to all volunteers, to the business school and our sponsor for supporting the event, to the TAG PTSA for providing concessions, to the leadership of SEM for hosting and to the STEM Department for feeding our volunteers and Dallas ISD students.

-Karim Virani, Dr. Catherine Lux, and the students of Iron Reign, Imperial Robotics, Iron Core and Iron Golem

For those interested, the full standings are up on The Orange Alliance and awards should follow soon.

We also were doing a test of streaming for future tournaments in our region. Because we had little time to set it up, there were issues with quality on one camera and a complete lack of audio for about half of the tournament. But most of the matches are visible (with the exception of the final match) and most of the awards ceremony was audible. We know what to improve and can hope for a better stream at some following tournaments. Here is what we got:

Task: Detail the FIRST in Texas Grants and understand how it will improve our business plan

It's the last day of the decade! With a new decade, comes new money, and similar to last year, Iron Reign is supporting 3 sister teams, Imperial Robotics, Iron Core and Iron Golem, the latter two being veteran teams with rookie members. This programmatic growth also comes with a financial curve to overcome. As such, we've applied to the FIRST in Texas grants to find funding for all 4 of our teams. This allocates a total of $2000 for the Iron Reign program, but if Iron Core and Iron Golem are considered rookies due to their new members, then our program can receive around $4000.

This, alongside the $3200 from University of Texas at Dallas for hosting the Townview Qualifier, the $200 GoBilda Product Grant and the the $4000 from DISD STEM Department, which covers our season registration fees, 4 REV FTC kits, and a full practice-field. This brings our total funding up to $11,400 for the Skystone Season . There is no end to how this funding can help with finding new parts, and investing in any machinery like our new CNC Mill. Additionally, since Big Thought our programmatic partner who owns the MXP vehicle, has agreed to invest in building a second, bigger vehicle for the program, this funding can also help us in improving our outreach efforts.

Next Steps

We have also reached out to other companies in our area for increased funding and we hope to expand on our business plan as the new year progresses. In the meanwhile, we here at Iron Reign wish everyone in the FIRST community a happy almost new year!

Task: Plan for the DISD STEM Expo

Next week, a week after our second qualifier, Iron Reign along with members from our 3 sister teams, is participating in the DISD STEM Expo for our fourth year. As we have done for the past 3 years, we are bringing the Mobile Learning Experience Lab to the event area in Kay Bailey Hutchinson Center. The purpose of this event is to connect with children in the DISD Area by helping them a foster an appreciation for engineering and the sciences. With the support of the Dallas City of Learning, a non-profit organization operated by Big Thought which helps schedule The Mobile Tech Xperience (MXP), Iron Reign will have a featured exhibit within the MXP. To maximize event productivity, we will be working alongside volunteers from Microsoft and Best Buy who will help us ensure that the exhibit runs smoothly.

For reference, every year that we have held this event, Microsoft, Best Buy and Big Thought provide volunteers to help teach kids on 3D-modelling and block-programming, the two key highlights of the MXP program. As the youth voice for this program, we teach these volunteers on how to teach the activity to younger students with little to no STEM experience. For the first time in our years organizing a booth, Iron Reign has been recognized as a vendor on the student passports which will be given to all participants!

As part of the exhibit, we will have events similar to those hosted as part of our summer outreach events. This includes the LEGO Mindstorm Sumo Robots Event as well as our 3D Printing keychains activity. We will also be bringing our field sets, so both us and our sister teams can demonstrate our robots to participants.

It is worth mentioning that this may be the last year we run this event with the current version of the MXP. Since Big Thought has approved plans for funding a new, larger vehicle, we hope that we will be able to present the new and improved MXP next season, in time for the STEM Expo.

Next Steps

At the end of the day, modeling and coding are two of the many aspects encompassed in STEM, and more importantly, FIRST. In introducing these activities, we hope to promote a student initiative in FIRST Robotics. And who knows - tomorrow, we might just meet the future members of Iron Reign.

Task: Compete in Qualification and Finals matches

Today Iron Reign competed at our second qualifier at UME Preparatory Academy with TomBot which could have been better in terms of autonomous, driver practice, and build. But regardless of this, we were still able to be in the winning alliance and the following are descriptions of the match play that made that happen. For reference, we have a separate post underlining the analysis of the qualifier that does not include match analysis. This post merely details how each one of our matches went, and we will have a future post discussing our drive issues at the competition.

Match one was a little bit of a disappointment even though we won 26-19 because we made almost no points from auto (which we didn’t have) or the tele-operated period. The 25 points we did make in the endgame were made because we moved the foundation out of the build zone with the foundation grabber, which didn’t line up very well.

With the driver practice from match one, we entered match two, stacked two blocks, and tried to move the foundation again but the grabber kept getting stuck. And it didn’t help that In this match our partnering team did not contribute very much which led to the overall score of 8 vs. the opposing alliance’s score of 55.

We won this match 52-15 because of 40 points form the opposing alliance’s penalties and only 12 from what we accomplished. Those 12 points mostly came from moving three stones under the bridge and placing two on the foundation. We didn’t get very many other points because we still can’t move fast enough and sometimes when we place a stone on the foundation we knock it off shortly after.

We lost this match by 77 points. This was mostly because we were against 7172 Technical Difficulties and because we still weren’t able to quickly or accurately move blocks onto the foundation, with only one block in the end. We also were still having difficulties with the gripper and the foundation grabber, which kept getting stuck.

Things actually started to come together in this match and we won 72-16 because the drivers had a better feel for the robot and we fixed the foundation grabber. In the end, we were able to get 3 stones on the foundation and stack two of them. The other points came from parking and our partnering team’s auto which scored 15 points.

Contingent on the fact that we would place a capstone on their tower, 7172 decided to make us their second choice alliance partners. Together in the match, we scored 92 points even though, our capstone got stuck in the gripper. This meant that we contributed almost no points to the final score which was sad.

In this match we had the same strategy as the last one, sit around with a capstone and place it at the end of the game. The only difference between the placement of this capstone and the other one was that this tower was 2 blocks higher. And even though the tower’s height caused us to mess up and knock the whole thing over, we still won 51-89.

Next Steps

Overall, the match play of this qualifier did not go plan. Between the awkward flexibility of the gripper’s attachment point, the jamming of the foundation grabber, the lack of driver practice, and the severe absence of a functional autonomous, we only made up to 20 points per match. And if we want to have any hopes in robot performance at regionals we need to do better in all of the aspects mentioned starting with driver practice and autonomous, the two factors that contributed the most to our overall performance.

Task: Compete at the UME Preparatory Academy Qualifier

A solid month or so after our first qualifier, Iron Reign walked through the doors to our second qualifier at the UME Preparatory Academy with our three sister teams. Compared to last season, we had gotten significantly more driver and presentation practice, but we still weren't as organized as we could have been and in a robotics qualifier, this is a bit of concern. Nevertheless, we were optimistic (though wildly unprepared) for the day ahead.

Inspection

Just like at our first qualifier at Allen, we passed inspection the first time around! While this was a minor victory, it served us well later on in the day.

Presentation

Having practiced more the second time round, our presentation ran relatively smoothly. We did lack enthusiasm, however, and as one of the earlier teams to go through judging, this was not ideal. Unlike last time, though, our robot demo worked significantly better. Still, our questioning period could have worked off better and the transition from each question is something we will be focusing on improving before regionals.

Robot Game

First off, the turret on our robot had to be entirely dismantled the week of qualifier, and there had been a storm the previous night, and since robots and rain don't generally make a good combination, we didn't have too much driver practice. We had practiced in the couple weeks leading up to the qualifier though, so needless to say, we were in much better shape than previously. For reference, this post will not discuss our robot performance at UME and merely serves as a summary of our day in each sub-category. There will be another post detailing our match-play soon.

Match-Play

With a win-loss record of 3-2, our qualification rounds weren't the best. But somehow, we managed to scrape through to be ranked 8th! Our sister teams Iron Golem, Imperial Robotics and Iron Core had placed 6, 10 and 12 respectively, an impressive feat, especially considering that 2 of these 3 were rookies. Though our rank wasn't as stellar as it could have been, we were able to demonstrate TomBot's Tall-Mode and its capping abilities to the 1st seed team Hockabots and them and their alliance partner Technical Difficulties picked us during selections! Additionally, for the first time in the history of our robotics program, all 4 of our teams were selected during alliance selection for the semi-finals match.

Semifinals & Finals Matches

Ultimately, our alliance's performance in the semi-finals served us well into our advancement to the finals... until it didn't. Nearing the end of finals, our attempt to cap Technical Difficulties' tower ended up knocking over the stack. Fortunately, our alliance still ended up winning, but finding accuracy in our stacking, especially with regards to capping is something we plan to work on going into regionals. Currently, we have gone through 3 different capstones and capstone-droppers but those still require more testing in order to ensure our capping abilities improve by regionals.

After-Judging and Awards Ceremony

While we didn't have high expectations for our success, we did manage to garner several visits from judges to our pits. A good measure of judging success is if the judges come back to talk to you, and at UME, we had four separate groups of judges come up to us and ask us about each component of our team, from business, to outreach, to sustainability, to our robot design.

In the ceremony, every single member of the SEM Robotics program waited. With all 4 of our teams having made it to semi-finals, this was by far our most successful qualifier match-play wise. Since Iron Reign had already advanced at the previous Allen Qualifier, we were ineligible for the Inspire Award but we were still relatively hopeful. At the end of the day, we were finalists for the Design, Innovate, and Connect awards, closing off our day with 1st Place for the Think Award!

Next Steps

Although only one team from our program has advanced to the regionals, this season was successful both on a program and individual-basis. All three of our sister teams performed impressively well at the qualifier, and although their match seasons might be over, their robots still have a while to go. Next week Iron Reign is helping organize and coordinate a booth at the DISD STEM Expo, where all three of our sister teams will be demo-ing their competition robots to students with little to no STEM experience. As the season progresses, Iron Reign is looking forward to recruiting new members from our sister teams, 2-3 at the least. While this may have been our last qualifier, we still have a lot of progress to make leading up to the North Texas Regional Championship. Our post-mortem analysis detailing our performance at UME and preparing for our next tournament will be on our blog soon.

Task: Expand the Iron Reign Robotics Team

One of our biggest challenges this year was learning to adapt our robotics program to the large influx of new recruits. Last year, most of us current members on Iron Reign were the new recruits, so to see the sustainability progress from a whole other outlook this season was at first jarring. However, just like last year, we expanded our robotics program to support 3 teams - Imperial Robotics, Iron Core and Iron Golem, bringing up our program count to a total of 30 active participants.

Each of these three teams have underwent their own successes and failures through the Skystone Season. However, moving on from our program's last qualifier of the season, it's time to take a look back at our highlights. From competing at a grand total of 2 scrimmages, 2 qualifiers, and hosting one tournament, our program as a whole has progressed to a different, higher level. Moving on from here, our next step is to discuss recruitment for Iron Reign specifically. For reference, our team serves as the varsity team in our robotics program and everything you've seen in this journal thus far is specific to our team. With our regional championship being 3 weeks away, recruitment for our current 9-member team is a question we have yet to answer. As of now, our team comprises of mostly underclassmen - 7 to be exact. Based on this count, and our sub-team specific needs, we have decided to recruit 3 new members from our sister teams as we go into the next level of competition - Shawn Halimman, Mahesh Natamai and Anisha Bhattaru.

Next Steps

While we don't have any immediate plans to increase our team count further, we're confident that our 3 newer members will make a strong addition to our program as the season flies. All of us on this team were recruited from one of Iron Reign's sister teams, and being able to expand our team alongside our program will help SEM Robotics remain sustainable for years, if not decades to come.

Task: Operate an exhibit at the DISD STEM Expo

DISD STEM Expo has been our busiest event this year. Many kids, ranging from elementary school to high school visit the expo to learn more about STEM and the great things it has to offer. This is our 4th year bringing the Mobile Tech Xpansion Program to this event, but this will be the last year we bring the MXP as it is. For reference, Big Thought received a grant of $150K last year to expand the program, and the MXP is almost at the end of its pilot stage. This is also the first year we have been named as our own exhibit at the STEM Expo! We accumulated well over 1000 students to our exhibits. Being able to interact with an audience of students this big, many of whom have little to no STEM experience, gave us a great opportunity to not only introduce them to robotics, but also to meet the next generation of engineers. The purpose of this event is to spread STEM programs to students in the Dallas area who otherwise would have no access.

Although the season has ended for most of Iron Reign Robotics’ teams they were still invited to help us run the exhibit. This gave them the opportunity to get a head-start on their journals for next season by providing an amazing community outreach opportunity. For reference, although all 4 of the teams in our robotics program participate in events like the expo, Team 6832 takes the lead in the MXP events, as Big Thought's programmatic partner for the program, and as the varsity team.

Preparing for the STEM Expo was a little tricky because the MXP had to be parked in the convention center on Friday night, meaning we had to get all the materials onboard on Thursday. This wasn’t too difficult because most of the learning materials stay on the vehicle. On Saturday morning, we had to setup the practice field, tables, prepare 20+ laptops, reconstruct several sumo-bots, and prepare 4 3D-Printers for the hectic day that was to come.

Once preparations were complete, iron Reign had to educate the volunteers on how to run the Sumo-Robots session. The Sumo activity required many volunteers, many of which were from Dallas City of Learning or BigThought. We also set up a practice field for our sister teams to demonstrate their robots for our visitors. Inside the MXP, several Iron Reign members hosted a 3D-Printing activity that allowed kids of all ages to build a small keychain and print it on their own. Outside, the vehicle, the rest of us worked with Big Thought volunteers to teach students on how to code an EV3 robot, the kind used in FLL, so that students could experience their first foray into FIRST. Being able to work with Big Thought's volunteers in teaching these students is what sets the expo apart from our other outreach event - apart from the expo being our biggest event of the year, the opportunity to work with these volunteers also gives us a chance to help Big Thought operate the MXP, a role which we hope to continue next year. In addition, since Big Thought approved the purchase for the new, bigger MXP vehicle this year, our team will be helping design the actual vehicle this season as the student voice of this program, and working with Big Thought at events like the expo helps us further solidify that role.

The great thing about the MXP program is that usually, the participants in these events like the STEM Expo have not had any experience with robotics, and they tend to perceive the concept as something that is beyond them. Being able to show kids that robotics is something that anyone, regardless of age, can understand and enjoy, helps lead them towards considering pursuing a career in STEM. As such, the Expo was a huge success because we were able to reach many students of all ages and technical experience. We met with many VEX IQ and FLL teams and gave them demonstrations of our robots to show them what FTC is about and excite them about their FIRST future.

Next Steps

This STEM Expo will be the last Expo with the MXP in its pilot stage. BigThought has officially agreed to purchase the next vehicle with $150K they received in the past year and and move the program out of the pilot stage. We are truly grateful for all of BigThought’s help in maintaining the MXP along with all the help we received today at the Expo! Next year we'll have a bigger and better vehicle which will allow us to reach even more STEM-minded students and show them what they can achieve through FIRST.

Task: Analyze what went wrong at the UME Prep Qualifier

It has officially been one week since the UME Prep Qualifier and we are now 4 weeks away from the Regional Championship. This is not great but it does mean one thing - a post-mortem talk! A post-mortem talk allows us to analyze our performance in full detail and take a closer look at our strengths, weaknesses, potential opportunities and threats in a cumulative SWOT analysis. The analysis itself is detailed by each of our subteams and on our performance throughout the day, and in our preparation efforts. You can see the analysis down below:

PREPARATION

Strengths

• Earlier preparation of the engineering journal
• Turret needs a better history - in an earlier post?
• Driver practice
• Robot Demo
• Content was organized well
• Functional (semi) robot
• Judging Box - more cohesive

Weaknesses

• Disaster zone that is a flurry of parts and tools who knows where
• Pit needs to be better organized
• N A T U R E
• There weren't very many match videos that were taken
• Packing List
• Need a rack for bags
• Resizing images
• A lack of people staying late on Friday
• Presentation
• Last minute preparation the day of (logistics)
• Lack of Autonomous
• Gripper mounted too late
• Not enough people for load out
• Control Award
• Karina and Ben did all the packing the day of

Opportunities

• Afterschool & Sunday Practices
• Allocating more time to preparation in the weeks before competition instead of days
• Tent, banners, business cards (for handouts)
• Post-event follow through: plugging in phones, charging batteries, etc
• Research posters
• Control map needs more hype

Threats

• Laziness
• Busy schedules/low priority

JUDGING

Strengths

• We won Think 1st place!
• Nominated for all awards except Motivate
• Had a good explanation for robot shape (mentioned center of gravity, turn table)
• Find a better way to show outreach separation
• Transitions at slides
• Very good at redirecting
• Storytelling
• Pit visits:
• Good at getting queues from one another
• demo worked better than at presentation

Weaknesses

• Choices for content that doesn’t link to awards
• LACK ENERGY
• Don’t redirect to topics that don’t have a lot of substance
• Conclude better?
• Didn’t redirect
• More calculations based posts
• Document specific driver calculations
• Referring back to their questions
• Clarity about past achievement: We present a lot of information about outreach and prior accomplishments in our presentation but because of the sheer amount of information that we share, judges get the idea that our current team isn’t completely responsible.
• Hand off between presenters needs to be smoother
• Having our broom H A T S
• Having more people at the pits to rep team
• Did not seed questions
• Discussing our focus on sustainability effectively (MXP, etc)
• Needed people placed at pits to talk to judges

Opportunities

• Be aware of what a judge is looking for
• Emphasize that circle helps with strategy
• Make our binder stand out - create robot manual
• Create a table for our swivels - qualitative research with Nylon, Ninjaflex
• Polycarb?, Aluminum swivel, CNC-ed robot

Threats

• Not being able to communicate to judges effectively

ROBOT PERFORMANCE

Strengths

• Inspection passed the 1st time
• Advertised well to 1st seed
• Physical build was solid
• Focused on building/improving throughout competition
• Teamwork

Weaknesses

• Learn game strategy, learn to wave
• Less gripper wobble - fix dropper, improve placement
• Wire management
• Set screws

Opportunities

• Driver practice - allocate time and practice match play
• CNC Bot:
• - Create a base plan + turntable
• -Gripper less jank: the ninjaflex part could use nylon
• - Jiggle test?
• LEDS MAKE BOT LIT
• Joystick compensates for distance - being able to change heights for extend to tower height
• Gripper less jank - measure elasticity
• Slow down arm movement - precision mode
• Test grippers
• Collaborating with alliance
• Fully automatic gripper with distance sensors
• Completely CNCed robot (base - polycarb with aluminum sides)
• Articulations - More accurate presets specifically for elbow
• Dampen swing on gripper
• BoM with links

Threats

• High performing teams(I would have never known!)
• Time Management(ok…)
• Acquisition of all parts
• Enough time for modeling all the robot parts

SCOUTING & PIT ENGAGEMENT

Strengths

• Hand off between presenters needs to be smoother
• Having more people at the pits to rep team
• Did not seed questions
• Discussing our focus on sustainability effectively (MXP, etc)
• Enthusiasm
• Organizing pits (backpacks at pits - keep them in car)

Weaknesses

• Follow through on checking other teams claims is anecdotal, not systematic
• Did we get video of all of our matches?
• Having more people at the pits to rep team
• Did not seed questions
• Discussing our focus on sustainability effectively (MXP, etc)
• Organizing pits (backpacks at pits - keep them in car)

Opportunities

• Be aware of what a judge is looking for
• Make our binder stand out - create robot manual
• Design pit layout ahead of time (Ben and Paul responsible for this)
• Dress up our pit with tent and banners
• HAVE LAPTOP READY WITH IMPORTANT STUFF
• Center of Gravity for our hats
• Business cards - have robot
• 3D printed tiny robots?
• Detailed accounts for each match we do/play by play
• Watching other teams’ matches to see how good they are
• Take the chance to talk to other teams
• Scouting App

Threats

• Sitting around looking at phones looks like disengagement even if we are researching stuff
• Having one person REIGN during pit visits
• Lack of data - stats
• Dominant autonomous teams

Next Steps:

We will work to implement the opportunities mentioned as well as rectifying all of the aforementioned errors before regionals. As we get closer to regionals, we will have to update this list, but as of now, it serves as a to-do list for the next following weeks.

Task: Reach out to companies and their branches in the local Dallas area

Previously this season, Iron Reign has reached out and presented to various companies and individuals in the Dallas area. So far, we have been able to communicate and present our team to the political, non-profit and engineering sectors, including Representative Colin Allred, Big Thought, Best Buy and the Dallas Personal Robotics Group respectively. The one facet with whom we have not yet gotten in touch with , however, is a multinational corporation. As such, this year, we emailed a representative from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, one of the world-wide "Big Four" accounting services, with a request for sponsorship and a meeting.

This week, we received an email back from Deloitte's Dallas Branch and they've agreed to meet with us! While Deloitte isn't an engineering company, we are specifically meeting with their Bot-Development team and members of the Dallas Branch with an interest and appreciation for robotics. During the meeting, we plan to deliver our usual judging presentation, alongside an introduction to FIRST Tech Challenge and Iron Reign. We also plan to bring TomBot and demonstrate its capabilities. As such, this meeting will focus more on the technical aspects of our team, but we will dedicate a portion to discussing our business plan, specifically the MXP and its expansion, as well as our plans for the rest of the season, moving into, and hopefully beyond regionals.

Next Steps

We are incredibly thankful to Deloitte's office for giving us the opportunity to discuss FIRST and our robot with them. As one of the biggest multinational corporations in the Dallas region, we believe this meeting can help us further expand our robotics program nation-wide and further, as we plan to do with the MXP as it moves out of its pilot stage. We look forward to meeting with them this upcoming week.

Task: Create a presentation for the Dallas Personal Robotics Group Meeeting Next Week

In a week, we will be giving a presentation to the Dallas Personal Group, or DPRG. The DPRG is an engineering-based organization in the Dallas area that has monthly meetings to discuss robotics. DPRG has been involved with Iron Reign for years now, and they have volunteered at our annual Townview Qualifier as well as hosted an exhibit with us at Moonday at the Frontiers of Flight Museum this season. They are one of the biggest engineering groups we have connected with this season. In addition, we have been giving them an annual presentation about our build season for the past 4 years, this year being our fifth time. Through our presentation, we hope to gain engineering-based feedback on our robot but also with regards to our overall presentation. Below, you can see DPRG’s preview of our presentation at their monthly meeting.

Part of the preparation for this presentation includes drive-testing TomBot and getting it ready for demoing. Last year, when we presented our season to them, they provided us feedback with our robot and our vision capabilities, which was pivotal to our accomplishments through the season. As such, alongside the demo, we will also be bringing our judging box, engineering journal and create a separate deck of slides for our code and vision progress this season.

Next Steps

The visit to DPRG will be a good opportunity to practice our presentation in front of an actual audience and ask for feedback on our robot and journal. We have been considering a custom binder cover for our journal made out of engraved aluminum, and we also hope to receive feedback on whether we should proceed with this new design or keep our existing binder for regionals. The article about how the presentation went will be detailed in a later post.

Task: Improve Robot Driving

Since the qualifier at UME, we have been focusing on tuning controls to make driving smoother. Our first set of improvements was changed turret controls. The turret driver now could turn slowly with the joystick and quickly with the triggers. This allows the turret driver to quickly move the arm when the base is driving and still be able to stack precisely. Next we noticed that manually moving the arm from a tower to a safe position was faster than our preset recall. We sped up this process to speed up our transport time. Drive practice has increased our capabilities with the robot a lot, and we hope it can make us competition ready.

The biggest improvement to driving was the addition of the Snapdragon gripper. The gripper allows us to align over a block and slap down to grab. This reduces the precision necessary to grab a stone, and reduces the time it takes to close the gripper. This gripper makes a lot of noise so as soon as the base driver hears the snap he or she should start heading towards the foundation. The increased speed of the turret allows the turret driver to move the arm out of the way while the base moves to the foundation. The use of progressive joystick movement makes precise placement of the base and arm much easier and gives our robot a smoother look in matches.

We have also made some adjustments to the extend presets for intaking stones. We have added a medium and long distance extension to allow the arm driver to quickly approach the stones, and quickly reach the safe zone from a distance during endgame. Practice with the arm has greatly sped up our cycle time and stacking ability.

Next Steps

We plan to continue training our primary drivers as well as secondary drive teams. We plan on playing practicing matches using the other teams' robots to practice moving around a busy field. We also need to make stacking at higher heights easier for the driver.

Task: Meet with Deloitte's Bot-Development Team to discuss

Today, we presented to Deloitte LLC's Bot Development Team in their Dallas branch office to introduce them to our team, our robot, and FIRST. Deloitte is a multinational consulting company and we had reached out to them around 3 weeks ago, with a request for a meeting with their Bot Development Team and they agreed to meet with us last week!

We gave them our judging presentation but a more extended version of it. Since we were presenting to professionals in bot development with an interest in engineering and robotics, we also spent a significant portion of our presentation demoing our robot for them and answering their questions about this year's challenge, and how our robot's design stood out in solving this challenge. Before we begun our presentation, we also showed them this year's reveal video, giving them more context into our robot capabilities and needs.

We were also able to discuss the possibility of corporate funding from their office to our team. Especially since this year, we want to construct a new version of TomBot, corporate funding could bring our scope for innovation to whole new level. Once our presentation ended, we had a short Q & A session with the participants, all of whom were very interested in hearing about TomBot's potential and about how we had conceived the idea for its construction and capabilities. ONe feedback we received was that our focus on TomBot's turntable reflected our innovation with regards to our build season strongly. As such, this will be one point which we will be sure to hammer during the actual presentation.

We even met one professional who had connections to a gecko tape research program at a bio-mimicry lab in Villanova University, and who mentioned she would be able to reach out to the lab to answer any of our questions about potential gripper materials. Since, we are currently looking into implementing gecko tape for our gripper, this was great to hear. Then, we were taken on a tour of their branch, where we were able to see the large variety of tech and virtual media they had implemented across their offices.

Next Steps

We would like to thank Deloitte for giving us the amazing opportunity to present at their Dallas branch. We really enjoyed being able to bring FIRST and our robot to their office, and we are incredibly grateful for their interest in our robotics team (and their generosity in providing us with cookies at the end of our visit!). We plan to reach out to them after Regionals, regardless of our qualification status, to find out about the possibility of partnering with them.

Task: Present to the Dallas Personal Robotics Group about robot vision and Iron Reign

We reached out to the Dallas Personal Robotics Group to present. The DPRG are an organization in Dallas who have monthly meetings for robotics projects In past seasons, we've given them presentations about our seasonal progress in build and code. This year, we wanted to present again on computer vision, as this is something that they were very interested in, but we also wanted to give our actual presentation as practice for Regionals. Our presentation was advertised here.

We presented to an audience of around 15. The initial agenda is hosted on our website, but briefly put, we started off by showing them this year's reveal video, gave our judging presentation, demonstrated our robot, and gave them a presentation on our codebase, particularly vision and our usage of the control hub. You can read about the vision presentation in the Post 94 of our Engineering Section. We recieved and answered questions about everything spanning our design, our approach to this year's game challenge, and on our code decisions. The entire presentation went a little over 2 hours. You can find the link to a video of our presentation here. We're going to upload the video here soon. We also asked for feedback from the listeners, especially with respect to our codebase, and our journal organization

The main feedback we received for the journal was to keep our introduction at the very beginning of the engineering section shorter and more summarizing of the current robot design. We also recieved feedback with regards to over decision to CNC a journal cover - especially to use either a plywood, acryllic or something more metallic for an edgy feel. In terms of vision, we recieved feedback as to crop our skystones based on the contour of the image. A more detailed summary of how our vision presentation went can be found in post 94 of the engineering section.

Next Steps

We are incredibly grateful to DPRG for giving us the opportunity to present and showcase our robot at their monthly meeting, and for giving us substantial feedback about our robot and engineering journal. Overall, our presentation to DPRG was a great experience for us to gain insight from a group of engineers on how to improve our robot performance and other factors of our overall standing at NTX Regionals. Regardless of how regionals goes for us, qualification-wise, we plan to reach out to DPRG later on as we move into the next stage of TomBot's build, which is creating a second, CNC-cut version of all of its subsystems.

Task: Put the budgetary and technical plans for the second MXP in motion

A long, long time ago, - well, 4 years ago really - alumni members of Iron Reign converted an old 90’s RV into a fully equipped Mobile Learning Lab with 3D-printers and FLL robots. Today, this vehicle is operated by Big Thought, funded by Best Buy and other donors, and taken to outreach events, by our team, Team 6832, where we introduce children with little to no STEM experience to robotics, and FIRST. We call this program the Mobile Tech xPerience and it’s been in service for around 4 years now! For reference, in the outreach events we take the MXP to, both our team and our sister teams participate, however, Iron Reign 6832 takes the lead in these events , from the set-up, to interacting with younger participants, and training Big Thought’s volunteers, to whom we show how we teach younger students block programming and 3D-modelling.

Our team specifically and Big Thought, a Dallas-based company, are programmatic partners of the MXP program. Through the success of this program, Team 6832 has proven that the concept of a STEM classroom works, and this has inspired other organizations, like the Girl Scouts of Desert Southwest, who have reached out to us about creating their own version of the MXP.

With the influence the MXP has had on students in underserved areas of the Dallas community, Big Thought was motivated to make the decision in 2019 to upgrade to a second, bigger version of the vehicle, and as their programmatic partner, our team has been heavily involved in the process, from creating the floorplan to actively seeking out sponsors like congressional representatives and multinational companies like Deloitte. However, this week, we are pleased to announce that Big Thought has voted to begin the budgetary and physical planning of the second vehicle and Iron Reign - 6832 has been provided a budget of $400,000 to map out the utilities and technology of the second vehicle. Additionally, we have been tasked with the responsibility of creating a virtual blueprint and model for the second vehicle in CAD, which Big Thought’s professional engineers and architects will use to complete the physical construction of the vehicle. The new vehicle is expected to have a digital media aspect, with a green screen wall and voiceover booth, and the floorplan will include a wheelchair access lift and 2 slide outs.

The senior director for the Dallas City of Learning - a Big Thought program which encompasses the MXP program - has created an official title for 6832’s members as the Mobile STEM Ambassadors for the second vehicle. The first MXP was just a concept - a pilot program. The second however will be bringing this concept to reality and it is expected to be unveiled in the summer of 2020. Unlike the first, the newer one will be staffed year-round, meaning that while our team members are off doing non-robotics based activities, like school, Big Thought’s team for the MXP will be filling our roles, keeping the vehicle as sustainable as it can be in one season. The idea is still the same - bringing STEM and FIRST robotics to students who haven’t yet seen its potential - but the quality of execution will improve significantly, with our team, Team 6832 Iron Reign, still taking the lead on the MXP program during its larger outreach events.

Next Steps:

Once the new vehicle is unveiled, we expect to go on more deployments as opposed to our normal count in the summer. In the meanwhile, we look forward to planning out the virtual model of the second MXP and discussing how best to use the $400,000 budget big thought has authorized for the planning, going into and after regionals.

Task: Compete at the North Texas Regional Tournament

Preparation

Breaking our packing-the-night-before streak, we managed to start the night before. It helped that we had the day before the big day off, and had a decent sized packing list. Over the course of our preparation, we had our side-shields machined, presentation practiced, journals prepared, and autonomous in feverish motion. More detail on our last-minute robotics onslaughts will be detailed in a separate post, but to summarize, we were (mostly!) ready to go.

Inspection

We passed! This is one streak we haven't yet broken which is bit of a relief.

Pit Decorum

Unlike last season, our pit was much better organized and planned this year, decked with Roman Galea, 4 posters, and of course, Ducky. The clean outlook of our pit drew several visitors, including teams who wanted to get a chance at trying on our helmets.

Judging

Compared out last two qualifiers, we had much more practice at our presentation this time around, and we tried to maintain a decent amount of energy during the real deal. Unfortunately, after being accustomed to longer presentations from our visits to DPRG and Deloitte (which you can read about in earlier posts!), we were cut short. However, we were able to address most of the things we couldn't cover in our first 5 minutes during the questioning period, and the dmeoing of our turret on TomBot - our most unique subassembly. The overall outlook we presented, however, could have been more charismatic, which was our main concern after the session.

Pit Visits

However, we were able to bring back more energy during our pit visits. We recieved three panels of judges for what we guess were Connect, Motivate and Innovate panels. We were able to direct our visits to the posters in our pits, and something we recieved a lot of attention for was our financial and technical plans for the second MXP, which you can read about in T-50.

Robot Game

We will have a separate post detailing our match play-by-play and the technical and human errors in each one. Overall however, our match performance could have been better. During our first 4 rounds we experienced losses, finally scraping through and pulling a victory during our final two. However, from both an awards and rank perspective losing a match is never great since part of the picture is the consistent functionality of at least one sub-assembly. We did not employ the functionality as well as it could have been, with regards to our autonomous, tele-op and endgame and this is something we will be focusing on extensively going into the build of our second robot.

Awards Ceremony

By the time the ceremony started, our energy levels were not stellar, especially considering a lack of sleep from the previous night. However, our energy quickly skyrocketed when we first received a finalist for the Control award! Following this, we also recieved the Connect Award, which was exciting especially considering that our plans for the MXP and its expansion were put into drive this season. Then, we were nominated as a finalist for the Think award! And finally, as Inspire nominations were beginning to come up, we heard the announcement, "Inspire 3rd place goes to Team 6832 Iron Reign!" It was safe to say at that point, that Houston, we did indeed have a problem.

Next Steps

This season being our 3rd moving into the World Championship, we couldn't have done it without our partners and sponsors, the DISD STEM Department, Mr Andrew Palacios, our principal, our sponsor Mr John Gray ,and the VIrani-Lux family! It's worth mentioning that this is the first time where 3 DISD teams, in addition to our own, are moving onto Worlds! Our main goals moving into Worlds will be preparing for our next competition, the UIL Competition for Texas, and in solidfying the creation of the second version of our robot. We will be detailing our post-mortems and these preparations in the upcoming few posts. Until then, see y'all in Houston!

Task: Compete in Qualification and Finals matches

Today Iron Reign competed at the North Texas Regional Championship with TomBot which was a mess, to say the least. But regardless of this, we were still able to win a few matches and qualify for worlds, which we should be able to do much better in. But regardless of this, we were still able to be in the winning alliance and the following are descriptions of the match play that made that happen. For reference, we have a separate post underlining the analysis of the qualifier that does not include match analysis. This post merely details how each one of our matches went, and we will have a future post discussing our drive issues at the competition.

We lost this match 51-148 because our robot contributed almost nothing to the alliance’s total score. What we did contribute consisted of two stacked blocks and parking. The other points in the match came from the other robot which stacked 4 blocks into a tower that later fell. However, their auto did the most for the outcome, racking up a total of 12 points. Overall, it was a pretty disappointing match that set the tone for the rest of the day.

At this point, most of us were thinking “this couldn’t get worse, could it?”. But we were very wrong. The reason why we lost this match 20-64 was that we were prevented from running the calibration sequence before the match. This plus a Vufora fail at the start of the match made our arm stuck at a 45-degree angle for the whole match. And on top of that, the other robot in our alliance disconnected. The only points we made were from moving the foundation out of the building zone and parking in the end game.

Continuing on the downward slope, somehow we managed to do worse with a functional arm. Losing this match 14-67, this may have been the lowest point of the day. Some of the faults with our robot in the match were being the only team without an auto, taking more than 10 seconds to pick up a block, repeatedly dropping blocks, and not parking in time.

After seeing us stoop as low as we did last match, the head judge, Freid, decided that he needed to talk to us and try to get us to do better. He gave us an inspirational speech about how we are going to have to live with the results of the competition for the rest of our lives and when we look back we would regret it if we didn’t give it our all. This helped us pick up our act and things started to get better. However, our robot disconnected mid-match and we lost 15-77.

Somehow the combination of 8 matches worth of time to prepare for the next match and Freid’s talk picked us up enough to win this match. With a lead of 9 points, we won our first match of the day 65-56. However, as seen by the low margin, this doesn’t mean our robot is never going to lose another match again. There were still many problems like how our auto still didn’t function and how the gripper still took to long to pick up blocks.

This was our last and most successful match of the day. We won 75-64, however, once again it should not go without mention that our alliance partners scored most of these points and stacked over half of the 6 stone tall tower. But it is also important to mention that our robot, and more importantly our drivers, preformed way better in this match than any of the other matches so we were clearly making progress.

Next Steps

After reading a short summary of the disappointing match play we had at regionals, it would be easy for one to point their finger at a particular team involved in the physical build and design of the robot. However, these results are a result of a failure to collaborate between teams and preform within teams. For example, it was common to see builders and coders need the robot at the same time. The solution to this problem was building a second version of the robot so that coders have their own robot and builders have their own robot. This will reduce friction between the two teams and overall, increase the efficiency of the overall team which will put us in a better spot for worlds, where we will hopefully not lose 4 matches.

Task: Get back to work after Regionals

Alright kids, back to the usual grind now. As Iron Reign came back from regionals taking a lot away from it, we immediately got back to work because we still had a lot to do before being ready for UIL or Worlds.

Because one of our main weaknesses at regionals was autonomous, our coders came back even more ready than ever to start working again. They worked collaboratively to continue calibrating the code for the most efficient and consistent function of the autonomous and also continued their work in Vuforia so it could systematically detect Skystones. They will continue to code autonomous and calibrate each and every part of it for consistent function in the next couple of weeks and hopefully by UIL we’ll have a really fresh auton.

Since Tombot hung out with the coders majority of the time for auton testing, the builders mostly had a chill day, brainstorming new ideas on how some parts of the robot could be improved, so that when they build the new robot, it can be really clean. Some people even helped out by trying to organize different parts that were found all over the Iron Reign Headquarters so that in the future when building picks up again, people wouldn’t have to flip the premises upside down just to find a single part. Doing this also helped free up some space inside the house and it was here where we realized how much room it actually had.

The modelling team worked on the finishing touches of the build plate for the new robot so that it can be CNC'd ASAP. They also worked on modelling the other parts of the robot, making frequent visits to where Tombot resided for accurate measurements of the parts.

The editorial team worked on really reflecting on how our presentations went at regionals to analyze what the team can improve on. They also worked on figuring out what really worked for the award blurbs in the journal and what weren’t too clear because after all, the judges shouldn’t feel overwhelmed by the thick journals.

Next Steps

Overall it was a pretty productive meeting considering that it was the first after regionals and we look forward to making rapid progress in the next couple of weeks. Although Houston feel like a long time away, we know they’ll arrive quicker than anticipated.

Task: Reflect on what went right and wrong at the regionals tournament

Iron Reign is so excited to be advancing to the World Championship. But there's no denying that across the board, we did not perform as well as we were expecting. Following the long day, first we feasted as per tradition. But then at a later time, we all sat down to discuss where things could have gone wrong, and found that in the weeks leading up to the regionals tournament, our team was already showing signs of underperformance. This is more of a long term issue that needs to be adressed, starting with in depth retrospection and a frank conversation among ourselves.

Preparation

Strengths

• We had more than two people packing
• Journal was printed and tabbed and color-coded and everything the night before
• We kind of had a packing list going
• The gamer station we made proved to be worthwhile

Weaknesses

• We did not check off of a packing list as we loaded the vehicles (we could have missed something)
• Very little dedicated drive practice and so coordination between the two drivers was lacking
• We goofed on printing the timeline that shows events we have gone to, professionals we have met with, progression of the robot, etc.

Opportunities

• log drive practice hours and scores
• Aim to have a code freeze so driver don't have to deal with unexpected changes
• Split the robot manual into two different documents: one that shows and summarizes each subsystem and one that lists step by step how to build TomBot
• Fix the loose broom heads on the hats (but this is definitely not a priority)

Threats

• Not having everything with us due to travel restricted packing

Judging

• We got 3rd place Inspire, 3rd place Think, and 1st place Connect which we can probably say was due to the engineering journal and our presenting skills since our robot performance was not stellar
• At this point we've had a lot of practice
• Handing judges materials from our presentation box at the right times
• Manual demo of the robot was successful
• We got across all of our more important presentation material before the 5 minutes were up
• Anything that we didn't get to during the five minutes we were able to cover in questioning

• Since we were tired, we sounded kind of low energy and unenthusiastic
• At the same time, we were talking super fast trying to get through all of our content
• There was not much interest in our robot demo

• Rework our presentation to focus on the most important information (at this point we have realized we will not have enough time to talk about everything we have done this season)
• Make good use of the questioning time - invite the judges during the initial 5 minutes to ask questions about our team's highlights after the 5 minutes are up

• The 5 minute time restriction
• Lack of sleep bringing down our energy levels

Pits Presentation and Conduct

• Our pit setup was super clean with everything hidden away under table covers, and our posters and aquila
• We had people stationed at the pits at all times to receive any judges who had questions
• Some people were drawn to our pits because of our hats!
• People also came to our pits when we displayed match results on our monitor

• We didn't have a good scouting strategy and the scouting team was also lacking sleep
• Not everyone got an opportunity to speak during pit interviews
• As far as we understand, we did not get any pit interviews from design focused judges (we need to sell this more during judging)
• Though displaying match results attracted people, it also created traffic in our pit area

• Have a working rotation of people at the pits, scouters, people watching matches, etc.
• Have a more active scouting team
• Redesign some of the older cross banners
• Still display match results but find a way to minimize the mess created by this

• Not having scouting
• Not making conversation with other teams/forming connections
• Poor pit organization
• Team members being off task in the pits

Robot Performance

• Physically, the robot worked alright
• The foundation grabber worked
• Parking also worked

• We did not do a good job demonstrating the components that did work
• We had to slap Snapdragon down multiple times on a stone before it would snap closed over the stone
• The polycarb base plate is heavily cracked and needs replacement
• While a lot of our autonmous functions worked in theory, they were untested, and so naturally they did not work
• In one of our matches we lost functionality of the arm because a wire came loose
• Capstone was never deployed
• The mounts for distance sensor was bent
• Drivers were unfamiliar with autonomous set-up

• Design a new 3D printed part for the gripper that triggers the snapping motion more effectively than the bent metal strip we have now
• Cut and bend a new polycarb base plate
• Better wire management
• Adding LEDs - make TomBot look more snazzy
• Add more sensor-assisted capabilities, such as stone retrieval

• Having to overcome the bad impression we gave at Regionals for the World Championship
• All the teams who have a super fast wheel intake

While there is a fair amount of time before the World Championship in Houston, we don't want to get too comfortable. We will be using the list above as a broad guide as to we should accomplish for the championship. We will be increasing the amount of afterschool meetings we have to develop autonomous and practice driving TomBot. The UIL tournament will serve as a good place to practice in a very realistic setting. Additionally, we are excited to be creating TomBot V2 for the World Championship, and seeing if we can create as iconic a reveal video as the previous year's.

Introducing MXP 2: Electric Boogaloo

As we have explained in earlier posts, Iron Reign is currently involved in the process of creating a new version of the Mobile Tech xPerience vehicle, a mobile STEM classroom which we, along with our programmatic sponsor Big Thought, take to various outreach events around the greater Dallas area. Given the success of the MXP through its lifespan, we are currently moving into the stage of creating a new vehicle, for which our team will be creating a virtual design plan as well as a financial plan.

We'd like to make it clear that this 2020-2021 season, our team is not claiming any credit for the construction or events associated with the original vehicle but instead for the creation of the blueprint of the second vehicle. Now that schools all over the country are restricted to virtual learning, the best way our team can bring STEM to students across our community who lack the access to it is to move ahead with the virtual design for the new vehicle in hopes of bringing STEM in mobile fashion to them when the current COVID-19 pandemic has cleared. As such, we created a virtual model as created above of te exterior of the new vehicle. Using this student-designed plan for the new MXP, the board of directors in Big Thought were able to get a sense of our ideas for the new vehicle. Using this design, Big Thought has moved into the next stage of design, which is allowing their graphic design team to use our 3D-modelled version of the MXP to create a sketch for the design on the exterior of the vehicle . For a better sense of what this design can look like, you can refer to the image below of the design scheme for the pilot stage of the MXP.

Next Steps

Although our scope of action is limited under quarantine, access to STEM education and the technology associated with it has allowed us to move forward in designing the MXP. As such, our main focus will be narrowing down the quality of our current virtual design, and possibly move into designing the virtual floorplan. Similar to how many teams in the FIRST community have taken action to bring their knowledge of STEM to improve the quality of life in their community, our collaboration with companies like Big Thought to find a way to bring STEM to more students is our response against the current pandemic, and we hope to re-double these efforts over these next few weeks. From us here at Iron Reign Virtual HQ, we hope that everyone in the FIRST community stays safe!

Task: Help design a CAD Challenge game, make a reveal video for the game, judge submissions, and give feedback

Over the summer, we collaborated with FTC teams 3658 and 6964 to host the first annual Caravan CAD Challenge. The idea of a CAD Challenge is to come up with a game to release to everyone participating. From there the participants will CAD a robot, just like they would for an actual FTC robot, and submit a brief summary of how the robot should work, if it were to be physically built. The game we came up with was Rafter Rave, which involved shooting pucks and climbing a rafter. We had a total of 29 teams sign up and 14 submissions. Following the deadline for submission, we judged each robot, ranked them based on several categories, and gave out awards. This was all revealed in a premiered judging video.

One of the challenges of this past season was that we didn't get an opportunity to close it off properly owing to the pandemic. Hosting a CAD challenge in coalition with other FTC teams allowed us to not only connect with other teams who may have experienced the same abrupt ending, but also allowed us to provide an opportunity to all participating teams to acclimate to the likely virtual season by modelling a robot. If the season does end up being virtual, this is something a good number of teams would need to have under their belt if they were unable to meet in-person just as our team could not. A CAD Challenge not only speaks to the design elements of an FTC season, but also the necessity to plan ahead and be flexible with a virtual environment as well as the need to connect with other teams in the FIRST Community.

Next Steps

We hope that this CAD Challenge allowed all teams to better envision and address their engineering plans in this upcoming season as well as gave all teams an opportunity to form new connections with other teams around them. We wish all teams best of luck for the new season ahead!

Reaching out to Motus Labs September 08, 2020

Task: Reach out to potential sponsors in light of the 2020-2021 season

Earlier in the summer, we learnt of an engineering group whose focus lies in innovative robotic gear drive designing and manufacturing. Prior to the start of this year's game season, we had sent Motus Labs an email in an effort to present our robotics program, team and robot to them and better understand how a professional robotics company operates (especially during the current pandemic). This week, we recieved a response back!

In the email response, a representative from Motus Labs conveyed their interest to meet with us and discuss opportunities for sponsorship and to try out their new gear like the M-drives. As the younger generation for robotics, we are interested to meet with professionals in the field - particularly since they are a Dallas-based group like our team is. We have currently planned to schedule a time with them in January of 2021 to discuss any potential opportunities for mentoring.

Next Steps

We are incredibly thankful to Motus Labs for giving us the opportunity to discuss FIRST and our robotics team with them. As an up and upcoming robotics company in the Dallas region, we believe this meeting can help us further expand our robotics program from robotics groups to corporations as well. We look forward to meeting with them in these upcoming months, whether that may be virtually or in-person.

Task: Watch the FTC Challenge Reveal event live

Today was a significant day; the FTC 2020-2021 challenge was unveiled. However, this year was very different from previous years, where we would attend a local kickoff event. Due to global circumstances, only a couple of members met in person while the rest of the team had to meet online. We joined a video call and watched the live event as a group.

One of the major issues we foresee is ensuring accuracy in the launching mechanism. The clearance for the highest goal is significantly smaller than that of the lower 2 goals. We will prioritize launching the rings into the highest goal since it awards 2 more points than the lower goal. Because of the small clearance, if the driver or robot made an error and the ring fell into the goal below it, the other team will be rewarded those 4 points. Accuracy will also be necessary for knocking down the power-shot targets during the endgame since each target will award 15 points. Missing one of these targets would be a waste of precious time during the game's final moments.

We also discussed how we would aim the launcher. One method would rely on a targeting system that would automatically horizontally and vertically align the angle of the launcher based on the robot's position relative to the goal. This would be done through code and would be controlled through a preset. A second method would be based around the GPS location of the robot. When a button is pressed, the robot would go to the shooting line directly across from the goal. By doing this, the launcher's angle could be predefined and the only action that would have to be done is launching the rings. The GPS position where the robot would have to travel would be calculated at the start of the game based upon the robot's starting location. The driver would have to go the approximate position and a preset would take care of the rest. The launcher could either be attached to an arm to angle the robot, or we could utilize our “superman wheel” which has been developing over the past 2 seasons.

This season also comes with some unique challenges, one of which is the playing field's size. With our current setup, we can only fit the field and cannot accommodate the goal and human players. Luckily for us, remote events will only take place using half a field.

Next Steps:

Our next steps will be to conduct experiments with the rings to determine how we could construct a launcher. While we don’t currently have the foam rings, we can 3D print a prototype. We will also have further to discuss strategy and model different types of launchers.

Task: Prepare for our presentation to Dealey International School

On Saturday October 10 we received an email from the robotics coach at Dealey International School. Dealey is a public school in North Texas that is a primary feeder into our high school, making this an important long-term recruitment opportunity. This year they have started 2 FTC teams for the 7th and 8th graders and would like our team to join a Zoom meeting and discuss what our team does, explain the FIRST philosophy of Gracious Professionalism, and answer any of their questions.

We decided it would be best to give a presentation about our team and FIRST then answer questions. Over the course of the week we have been discussing what we specifically wanted to present and put together a PowerPoint covering those topics. The presentation will cover how the Gracious Professionalism FIRST Tech Challenge operates robot competition, engineering journal, and both community and professional outreach. We will talk about the various award categories and what they mean, how to write an engineering notebook and what the team/engineering sections need to contain. We will then present an overview of the previous season’s outreach to Deloitte, Colin Allred, and DPRG. Then, we will discuss Iron Reign’s prototyping process and how we go from ideas to creating a CAD model to manufacturing with 3D print and CNC. We will then transition to the programming pipeline. The programming team will explain how all the components are connected, how they are coded, and how we use vision. The presentation will be concluded with a statement about the 10-year history of the team and how we hope they will be joining our program in the future.

Today we joined a zoom call after school to distribute slides, practice presenting a few times, and troubleshoot and camera and microphone issues. Each subteam will present their respective specialties and each person will present around 2-3 slides. We aimed to keep the presentation under 25 minutes to allow enough time for questions. After practicing the presentation a few times and rearranging the order to be more consistent, we felt we were prepared to present to Dealey tomorrow.

Next Steps:

Each person will review their slides again tonight and before we present to ensure they are prepared. They will also make sure their cameras and microphones are still functional and ensure they have an appropriate background. We will also have to keep an eye out for the meeting instructions tomorrow.

Task: Give a presentation to rookie teams at Dealey International School

Today we gave a presentation to rookie FTC teams about FIRST and our team over Zoom. We began by introducing ourselves individually by saying our name, subteam, and Townview school and then jumped into the presentation. The presentation took about 30 minutes and went well overall with some minor rambling. Afterward we split our team into breakout rooms with 1 programmer, 1 modeler, and 1 builder and evenly distributed the rookie team into those breakout rooms to ask questions. This was done to give each team member more time with each rookie member and allow them to ask more questions. After 20 minutes we ended the breakout rooms and answered any more general questions.

We also wanted to discuss followup opportunities to help the team in the future. We talked about a possible mentorship relationship where some Iron Reign members would go to the Dealey lab and help educate the team on different things like 3D modeling and printing or programming. This would be especially helpful to them because they recently got new 3D printing technology. We also discussed ways to do virtual mentorship through Zoom, which would also include educating them on different aspects of the engineering process. We agreed to let them discuss it as a team and let us know what would be best for them.

We felt that the meeting was very successful because the presentation was great and they had lots of questions and showed a lot of interest. We also spent some time getting to know them. In the end, we were able to reach about 20 of their members and had a few follow-up emails from the members.

Next Steps:

We would like to eventually have some follow-up meetings with the team and discuss their progress and hold some programming, modelling, and journal classes.

Task: Plan for sustainability goals

Owing to the ongoing pandemic, our recruitment goals are not similar to that of previous seasons. One of our bigger concerns is that it will be harder to teach rookie members about our program and FTC in a virtual setting - especially if we support 3 teams like last season. So, in order to ensure that our program remains sustainable, we opted for a new recruitment strategy where we consolidate our 2 rookie and 1 JV team into a single Junior Varsity team.

Structure-wise, Iron Reign will remain the varsity team, and as such, will be responsible for tutoring and assisting the other teams, as well as other organizational decisions. Then, Imperial Robotics, Iron Core and Iron Golem will now be consolidated into one JV team, and be the intermediate training ground. We believe that this team will serve as a good platform for the younger members on the SEM Robotics program to understand what it means to be on a FTC team. As of now, we anticipate that there will be 12 members in this team. So far, all of our recruits are motivated and show great potential for the future of our robotics program.

We will deliver tutoring updates and joint outreach events on this blog, as well as our usual content. Everything claimed in this engineering notebook will be Iron Reign (6832) only, and we will hold the same standard of separation to the other teams.

Next Steps

For ongoing tournaments and eliminations, we will recompose new teams of the most promising members. Our goal has been to ensure that the Iron Reign Robotics program is sustainable for years to come and with our 2 teams, we are confident that we will be able to achieve this. By next season, we hope to either be out of the pandemic or have adopted a good ryhthm for working virtually and hope to expand our recruitment design.

Task: Practice the presentation prior to the PvC Scrimmage on Saturday

Iron Reign will be participating in our first competitive event of the year at the PvC scrimmage. One of the submissions we needed for this scrimmage was a recorded version of our judged presentation. A stark contrast to previous seasons, the virtual nature of this year required us to be less extemperaneous at least when it came to presentations like this. We started out by building the actual presentation for this year and then assigning slides. Another difference was that our robot wasn't actually complete - since we were more used to building presentations for qualifiers, we usually do not anticipate the need to create a presentation with an unfinished robot (but there's a first time for everything!). As such, we needed to focus our presentation on the iterative nature of our design and on our future plans as the season progresses.

Next, we needed to gather the whole team to run the presentation. Another significant difference was how we actually ran the presentation. In past years, we would meet in-person to practice the presentation but this year, all we needed was to find a time to meet virtually to make it happen. One downside to this is that usually, we provide our judges prototypes of our earlier designs and unorthodox materials considered for the final design (oven mitts, ice-sube trays, etc.) but with the virtual format, this is no longer a possibility. On the other hand, this means that our live robot demonstration is no longer limited to the constraints of a judging room. Since we have access to our field while we present, we can show our audience our robot in action by making full use of the game elements such as the goal posts.

Next Steps

Overall, we were able to successfully record our presentation. While timing is something we need to be mindful of, we expect to fine-tune this as the season progresses along with our actual presentation itself.

Task: Present our flywheel launcher to the Dallas Personal Robotics Group

Every year, Iron Reign presents our robot or standout subsystems to the Dallas Personal Robotics Group (or DPRG) - a group of professional robotics enthusiasts based here in Dallas. The DPRG are an organization in Dallas who have monthly meetings for robotics projects In past seasons, we've given them presentations about our seasonal progress in build and code. In an earlier post, we detailed the introduction of our ring launcher - the Flywheel Launcher. Initially, we had only gotten past the CAD design for the launcher, as well machining the plates and 3D-printing its nylon (which we needed to improve the 'gription' of the launcher. But today, we were able to begin the actual assembly and testing of launcher - and we were able to do all of it live on a virtual meeting with DPRG! A link to this presentation is here.

We presented to an audience of around 18. We started off by giving them an introduction into this year's FIRST Tech Challenge game, as well as what goal specifically we were intending to attain with the flywheel launcher. For reference, the flywheel launcher consists of a spinning wheel sandwhiched between two custom-machined plates and as it the robot intakes rings, the spin of the wheels ejects rings with enough force to get it into the goal post. We started off by explaining how the CAD of the design progressed. Considering the multi-staged nature of this subsystem, it required 3 CAD sessions total and we were able to show DPRG each of these stages as well as how we went about the custom-machining of the parts.

Next, we were able to discuss the ballistics calculations that this design inspired. In our previous two posts, we discussed the iteration of an equation we developed to model the inital velocity, muzzle velocity, RPM, and rotations/seconds of a ring launched from this flywheel, taking into account its circumference in order to determine the ideal angle of launch as well as how the PID values of the HD HEX motor on the flywheel needed to be tuned. Below is the slide from our presentation containing these values. Our ideal range for the horizontal distance of the robot is between 2-2.5m; this being said, we calculated all our values based on this range. Our equations were: Vertical: v0 = (0.47 - 0.5(-a)(t^2))/sinθ(t/2)) and Horizontal: v0 = (xF - 0.5(-a)(t^2))/cosθ (t/2)) While we couldn't perform a sanity check of these calculations at the time of their presentation, we found values from the average velocity of a frisbee to test the accuracy of our values.

Finally, as this was ongoing, Paul and Cooper were able to assemble and perform the first-ever launch of our flywheel launcher! Since this subsystem had already been pre-modelled with all the necessary plates pre-machined, they were able to complete its assembly and test within the 40 minutes of our presentation. While the actual video of the first launch can be found on DPRG's video of the presentation, a video of a launch recorded soon after our meeting can be found here:

At the end of this presentation, we were able to get tons of valuable feedback from DPRG - particularly about how to improve our testing process of the flywheel launcher. We anticipate that the equation we modelled earlier and those values are subject to change as our robot design becomes more sohpisticated and as we add more sources of error to the machine itself - in order to eliminate these confounding variables contributing to the launch and isolate the one that has the most effect (which we predict is the angle of launch itself), DPRG suggested that we use a Design of Experiments chart. A Design of Experiments chart is a system of organization that can be applied to virtually any machine to reflect the different variables that might affect its efficacy. More specifically, it identifies which variable had the greatest impact on a function and rank the variables in order of their influence. Applying a DOE to our flywheel launcher calculations would streamline our ability to identify which variable could have the greatest impact on our launch as we vary it by distance of launch, angle of launch, type of motor used, etc.

Next Steps

We are incredibly grateful to DPRG for giving us the opportunity to present our team and flywheel launcher to them for feedback. Our immediate next steps include continuing the testing of our flywheel launcher to see just how much we can improve driver control. Part of this includes fine-tuning our calculations and as we get deeper into the testing phase, we can check whether these equations work as well as they do in theory by using the DOE to identify any confounding variables. We plan on sending DPRG an updated version of our equation and calculations as we continue to periodically test and fine-tune our launcher.

Task: Present our flywheel launcher to the Dallas Personal Robotics Group

2 weeks ago, Iron Reign presented our Ringslinger 9000 - our launcher, for brevity - to the Dallas Personal Robotics Group. For reference, Dallas Personal Robotics Group, or DPRG, are a group of robot enthusiasts and engineers who host weekly meetings to discuss personal projects in robotics. This meeting, Iron Reign had the opportunity to present our progress in build, code and documentation to DPRG based on the feedback we receieved from them from 2 weeks ago. You can find a link to our post detailing our first presentation with them this season here.

We presented to an audience of around 20. We started off by giving them an update of our trajectory calculations. The last time we presented, we showed DPRG the initial version of our calculations which were meant to depict the trajectory of a ring launched from the Ringslinger 9000 when it was a certain distance away from the goal posts. Both the changes to our initial calculations as well as our takeaways from the first DPRG meet are in an earlier post in the Engineering Section of our journal. Using feedback from DPRG on our initial equation as well as what we could do to make it more accurate, we were able to generate a new set of calculations and equation, both of which we could show to DPRG. We also provided them with links to the corresponding blog posts which you can find here.

Next, we focused on showing them the code and build changes that occurred over the week. Since the last time we presented, we could show DPRG the assembly of our launcher as well as its very first launch, this time, we could show them multiple test shots of the launcher we had recorded over the week in slow motion. You can see one of the videos we showed to DPRG below. DPRG members provided us with suggestions to improve the trajectory of our launcher including checking for ring damage and showing our equation and calculations to an expert in the field for review. One of the more fun takeaways of this meeting was that we were also able to put our various ideas for a launcher name up for vote and we settled on the Ringslinger 9000 thanks to input from DPRG. All references to our launcher will, from this point onwards, be referred to as the Ringslinger 9000.

Next Steps

We are incredibly grateful to DPRG for giving us the opportunity to present our team for feedback. Our immediate next steps include continuing the testing of our flywheel launcher to see just how much we can improve driver control. Part of this includes ramping up our testing progression as we get closer to the qualifier. We plan to meet with DPRG after our first qualifier to present our progress and performance as we seek to improve our robot and launcher capabilities.

Task: Decide plans for expansion and recruitment strategies

For the first time in 11 years, Iron Reign had a no-recruitment year, owing to the pandemic, and the difficulty of introducing new recruits to an event which is not usually remote. However, now that all of our members are upperclassmen and since this upcoming season - Freight Frenzy - will be the final one for most of our team members, we have to ramp it up (puntentional). So, this summer, we have been discussing new methods to increase recrtuitment and the following participation as our school year transitions from remote to in-person.

For all of its lifetime, Iron Reign has been a school-sponsored program. This is a tradition we intend to keep and we've specifically been looking at recrtuitment efforts in our home school - School of Science and Engineering - as well as our sister school - School for the Talented & Gifted. Over the summer, TAG is having a club fair which we currently have plans to participate in. Following this, we plan to go the traditional recruitment route with posters galore. Mainly, we want to ensure that before our graduation, we are able to set up a proper feeder system to keep our program running past our (high school) life-time.

One major difference is that this year, we plan to go with only one feeder team - FTC 3734 - rather than 3 feeders, which has been our practice in yearss where we are pressed for recruitment. This mostly has to do with how sustainable we can keep our group - fewer teams means we are less concerned about resources and instead can work to individually improve our two teams and expend energy on smaller elements of each time. This does mean, however, that we will be taking on fewer personnel and therefore, our "tryouts" process could be more competitive based on how much interest we've garnered. This process generally consists of putting new recruits into a smaller "group" (not necessarily a team) and looking at their ability to work one another and/or their willingness to learn new skills.

Next Steps

With school starting in a week, our primary goal is to get the robot in working condition for robot demo for the TAG club fair this week, and then build up an interest form that we will put on our website and display to school-based websites the underclassmen use. Based on how the form fares, we will make a more concrete decision on how many members we want to take and what kind of sub-skills we need for both the growth of this season and the next one. Our ultimate goal (puntentional part two) is to ensure that our team can be sustainable past our generation. As our time on the team and program ends, we want to ensure that we are adequately set-up to welcome and help acclimatize new members so FIRST Tech Challenge and our program is as fulfilling for them as it was for us.

Task: Meet with the team Wattever and give insight

This Saturday, all of Iron Reign met with team 16296, Wattever, to discuss how the Iron Reign robotics program works and give them a detailed insight into how they can improve their own operations. The members of Iron Reign gave them a quick tour of our space from the first floor to the second and then had a long conversation on the base floor shortly after. We answered questions and offered insight into how we operate. Our main advice consisted of making sure that every team member gets a chance to have a voice in the journal, to prioritize custom parts, improve operations in CAD, etc. We tried to help them in ways that might not have been available for an online meet, seizing the opportunity of meeting in person. We gave them insight into how our program works. That meant that they got to see what works and what doesn’t which gave us an opportunity to show good examples of Iron Reign’s ability to innovate and quickly prototype but also show them how we are a bad example of organization and time management. With this, they could imagine what the “perfect” FTC team looks like and better make decisions to become ever closer to it.

Of course, any in-person meeting is a fantastic opportunity to bond and share common interests and this inevitably happened. The conversation in the main room of the workshop was as engaging as it was insightful. The teams talked together for what seemed like minutes but was in fact, several hours. From this meeting, Iron Reign certainly strengthened its relations with Wattever and had some fun, improving team morale and helping a relationship that contributes to team sustainability.

Next Steps:

With this being a pre-season event, there isn’t a straightforward next step. We would like to have another meeting with Wattever at some point and continue to grow our relationship with them. In addition, our summer projects need to continue so that we can be better prepared for the new season when it starts. Other than that, the watters ahead look clear!

Task: Welcome New Recruits!

Thank you for your interest in Iron Reign robotics! Please fill out the following interest form. Check out the rest of this article for more on our robot!

Task: Getting in some serious drive practice at Woodrow

This past year, we connected with a lot of professional engineers that helped us optimize our robot performance and capabilities. We got a lot of helpful advice from professionals in our field as well as opportunities to learn more about the field itself. This way we have some insight as to what we will be able to do in the future, when we’re no longer in FTC.

Dallas Personal Robotics Groups

21 adult mentors, 4 hours total
In the first zoom session, on December 6, 2021, we identified the gap in time between when the swerve wheel changes direction and spins. This was also the first live demonstration of the robot as well as the expanding mode, or the “reach”. In the second zoom season on February 8, 2022, we discussed solving the tipping over problem through the usage of counter-balances, training wheels and limiting wheel acceleration.

Texas Instruments

1 test engineer mentor, 1 hour total
On November 24, 2021, we showed the first drive of our hybrid differential-swerve robot and we discussed tensile tests to improve our robot’s durability.

NVIDIA

1 adult mentor, 1 hour total
NVIDIA is a computer systems design services company. On January 17, 2022, we discussed image processing, radar and object detention to improve the distance sensor feature on our gripper with them. The distance sensor feature auto-dumps the bucket.

Monash Nova Rover

2 adult mentors, 1.5 hours total
Monash Nova Rover is a college robotics program based in Monash University, Australia. On January 31, 2022, we discussed unpressurised wheel/tire designs. Their wheel design inspired our current gothic interleaved arch design which is made entirely out of custom 3D-printed parts.

US Congressional Representative

32nd District TX Rep. Colin Allred
On January 27, 2022, we discussed FTC and Iron Reign’s work in STEP education and we urged for the passage of a bill which improves access to STEM programs in rural education districts. This bill was passed this year and Iron Reign was attributed as one of the reasons Representative Allred voted to pass.

Bell Helicopter, Lockheed Martin, Design Connect Create

4 adult mentors, 3 hours total
On July 31, 2022, we worked with engineers from these companies and delivered a joint presentation about avenues to STEM careers through school to 40 high school girls.

Deloitte

2 adult mentors, 0.5 hours total
On February 23, 2022, we discussed our game strategy and sustainability plan for the current season. This was also the first time our rookie members communicated directly with engineers through our program.

Our Last Meeting Before UIL!

This marks our final competition of the Freight Frenzy season.

Getting in our final drive practice

Trey, Georgia, Ben and Gabriel got in their last couple hours of drive practice at the RoboDojo. Knowing this was our last time we would be able to practice in our home field, we made sure that we knew exactly what we would be doing at UIL. Mahesh was cleaning up the code, tuning up the arm and getting it so that when you press dump, it goes up and then goes down so it doesn’t run into the shipping hub.

Yesterday's meeting

Yesterday, Trey and Georgia got a lot of drive practice. They tested the robot with the sizing cube to make sure that it fits within the regulations. Trey also installed a grasp rivet on the bucket which allows the distance sensor wire to go through the pivot point so it doesn’t tangle and so the bucket’s auto dump works. The bucket’s auto dump wasn’t working because the distance sensor’s wire couldn’t be plugged in without getting tangled. The grasp rivet helped the wire go through the pivot point without it breaking, so we could use the distance sensor seamlessly.

Packing for UIL

We had to pack up all the necessities for the UIL trip. We worked on ensuring that we were fully prepared for success at the UIL competition and we tried to foresee any unexpected circumstances and prepare for them. We were fully ready to stock up the bus tomorrow morning before heading for Houston.

Task: Connecting with the communoity through the Frontiers of Flight

This morning, Iron Reign demoed at the Dallas City Learning event at the Frontiers of Flight Museum, which had over 550 attendees. This fair featured STEAM activities from local organizations and the museum, along with local industry professionals.

At this event, we demonstrated our previous year’s robot, The Reach, and its capabilities on the field to the public and industry professionals from Waymo. Waymo is a subsidiary of Google that focuses on autonomous driving in order to transform lives in a safe and effective manner. We were able to talk to them about our robot and get small bits of feedback on its design and code. Here, we are both able to motivate the community while also connecting with industry professionals.

Additionally, we also engaged in a LEGO Mindstorms robotics activity with young children where they were able to build and code LEGO robots and then battle each other’s robots. This should help spark interest in children about the world of STEM and possibly motivate them to consider it in the future.

Task: Recruit new members at the TAG Flight School

Earlier this afternoon, at TAG's flight school event for new freshmen, Iron Reign had a club booth for all the new freshmen to check out. There was a quick recruitment presentation for all the people who showed interest. Potential members also received information about the first meeting at our offsite location. Recruitment efforts like these are important to fill up our sister teams Iron Core and Pandemonium and help ensure the sustainability and longevity of the Iron Reign program. With a decent amount of the current iron Reign team being incoming seniors, it is important to keep recruiting potential members who can move up the ranks and eventually replace those who graduate.

Next Steps

The next steps would be to have all the new members attend the informational meeting offsite and be divided among our sister teams if they do commit to the program. Further recruitment efforts at SEM would also be welcome.

Task: Give a presentation at the FLYSET Workshop

At the FLYSET Workshop, hosted by team 8565, Technicbots, and team 20313, Mustang Robotics, we were tasked with introducing our remote controlled excavator, Mechavator, to the advance track attendees.

Gabriel was tasked with making the presentation and script for the workshop, in which we would also include teasers about our video, Duck Hunt. Each of us were given certain slides to memorize and learn everything about, so we would all have enough experience to answer any and all questions about the Mechavator. The Mechavator was our project over the summer, and we were very excited to introduce it to the FTC community.

Reflections

As we reflect back on our presentation earlier, we have come to the consensus that the delivery was alright. However, we recognized that we didn't make our presentation for the audience. Since we were presenting for the advanced track, we should have gone more in depth with more technical aspects of creating the Mechavator, such as coding the Mechavator and the GPS RTK system. We only had 15 minutes for a presentation about a concept that hasn't been tried within FTC before, so we had to condense our content and this was the best outcome we could have hoped for. Nevertheless, most people enjoyed the presentation, because it was introducing a fresh idea of how robotics could be implemented. The presentation overall went well, and we connected the content from slide to slide seamlessly.

Next Steps

Our next steps are to post the videos where we showcase our Mechavator, as well as a parody of the FTC reveal videos. Unfortunately, we no longer have the Mechavator, but it's legacy will forever be a part of Iron Reign Robotics.

Our Interest Meeting at TMC

To gain more members for our sister teams, Team 15373, Iron Core, and Team 3734, Pandemonium, we held an interest meeting at Townview Magnet Center earlier today. It was crucial to get more members so we could continue the Iron Reign legacy for the future years, as our members are all from our sister teams.

Our new sponsor, Mr.Florczak, kindly let us use one of his rooms to host our interest meeting. We had an incredible turnout from all the grades, and we're all looking forward to forming new relationships with the new members of our team. We gave a presentation on what FTC is about and what an incredible opportunity joining this robotics team will be. We explained how our team works and showed them our accomplishments, including the Mechavator. The new recruits were very curious about Iron Reign Robotics, so we happily answered all their questions. We also presented our robot from the most recent season, The Reach, and demonstrated the innovative design. After we had finished everything scripted, we all split off to get to know all our new teammates.

Next Steps

The official kick off for the new game, Power Play, is happening this coming Saturday. The first thing we have to do is organizing the RoboDojo so it's robot-ready, and making sure the team, including the new members, are prepared for the new season.

The Season Reveal of 2022-2023's Game: Power Play!

Today was the season's official kick off the 2022-2023 game, Power Play! However, Gabriel, one of our members, gave a wonderful keynote speech, taking inspiration from Steve Jobs, for the reveal of our Mechavator.

Initial Thoughts

Our first thoughts when we saw the new game, which is about capping yellow poles mounted on springs throughout the game field, was that we would have fewer options when it came to innovative designs. We also knew we would need to read the game manuals very thoroughly, memorizing small details so we knew exactly what the rules were and so we wouldn't have any issues with inspection in competitions. One of the main challenges would be getting a mechanism which would be able to grab the game pieces and place them onto the tallest poles, which are 30 inches in height. This is 12 inches more than the tallest height our robot is permitted to be at the starting position, meaning we would have to make a collapsible mechanism, such as a linear slide. We also need a method of picking up the game pieces which doesn't require too much precision so our drivers have more freedom. We are experimenting with beaters as well as different shapes of claws so we have a variety of options.

Next Steps

We will begin working on making a robot for Robot in 2 Days, which will be a base robot we will build on and adapt so it will be usable throughout the season. This is a way for us to brainstorm our ideas into a functional robot and see it in action.

Our First Ideas: Robot in 2 Days!

Our Ideas with Build

As a base robot, we started with an 18 inch cubic frame. This was the frame we'd most easily be able to modify and build upon as we progressed further into the year. For an initial brainstorming session, our Robot in Two Days would let us get some ideas into place which we could then bring up to our standard and innovate on.

First, we noticed that our motor placement would make it harder to retrieve any of the cones. We knew we would need a mechanism to bring the cones up at varying heights to deposit on top of the poles, so we decided on using a gripper and linear slides. We moved all the motors back to create space in the front for our linear slide and gripper. We also had to clear up any obstructions, such as beams, control hubs, our expansion hub and battery to make some more space. We attached the control hub, expansion hub, and battery to the back of the robot. We fixed inconsistencies in the frame, such as misalignment in beams, to improve the stability and quality of construction. Working on wire management was cumbersome, but necessary, so our robot would be able to get as many points as possible without getting tangled up in wires.

System for Intake

Because the highest beams are 30 inches, we designed a linear slide which can reach a maximum height of 30 inches. This means it will be able to score on all the poles: low, medium, or high. The linear slide was attached to the middle of the robot, in the space which was just cleared out. We also made a pair of tweezers which would help grab game elements from the top and latch on inside the game elements. These were then attached to an angle control servo, which would make it easier to grab the cones and also increase the reach height slightly.

Because we needed more accuracy, we used a flexible material to make a funnel to better intake our game elements. We had to fix and align the funnel a few times for greater efficiency. Next, we got to wiring up the motor for the actual lift. We realized that the linear slides stick out of the sizing cube by a 1/2 inch, but we purposefully ignored the problem because we'll have more time to get the technicalities correct by our first league meet.

Finally, we covered all the sharp corners of our robot with gaff tape and added the LED panels we're using for team markers.

First Implementation of Code

Our team has a lot of new coders this year, so we spent most of this time getting used to the interface and re-examining and interpreting code from past years which we could then use as a template. However, we got all the motors and servos to work, as well as coding the Mecanums to navigate the game field.

1. Game strategy 2. Tombot as sparring partner. 3. Gripper Designs. 4. New recruit build teams.

Game Strategy

With the season coming up quickly and the first league meets scheduled for about a month away, we needed to prepare robots for competition and help the recruits begin.

Fixing up Tombot

One of the critical action points was fixing up Tombot, one of our older competition robots that utilized a linear-slide crane to score pieces at high altitudes. Tombot could potentially be used as a competition partner to simulate gameplay better and improve drive practice. However, TomBot had a couple of issues that needed to be resolved. Specifically, the Omni wheels at the ends of the chassis were getting caught in the junctions, so we raised them to allow for cleaner movement. We also fixed a loose chain that kept coming off and practiced driving around the poles and over the junctions.

New Recruits Progress

Next, the new recruits started working the chassis for their root, using a mecanum-based drivetrain and vs-shaped chassis. They also split into two teams and started building prototypes of their cone gripper. The first prototype(shown below) uses a conventional gripper that wraps around the cone from both sides and picks it up. Driven by a single servo, it uses two gears to move the two gripper parts.

The second prototype currently only has the two sides of the gripper, which use metal pieces and rubber bands to wrap around the cone. The new recruits also started working on the chassis for their robot, which uses the metal REV rails and a mecanum drivetrain. They were able to conceptualize it and started cutting the REV rails to the correct lengths for assembly.

Iron Reign Gripper

Iron Reign began modeling potential grippers for testing, including designs that packed up the cones from the top song with a few to grab the cones from the side. A greater variety of options will be helpful when creating the robot. In addition, work began on a cone-adjusting mechanism to right fallen cones and adjust the position of picked-up ones to score them properly.

Code Development

A few recruits interested in coding were taught the basics of programming the robots with Java, and our senior coders created basic mecanum and tank drive code for the teams to use. This should help us get a head start on coding and better help the rookie teams later in the season.

Next Steps

The next steps for the rookie teams would be to start building the chassis, attaching additional components, and continuing to develop their grippers. For Iron Reign, our next steps are continuing to design and prototype the gripper iterations and optimizing TomBot.

Tasks:
1. Working on path following with Code
2. Creating prototypes to optimize the Build design
3. Gaining experience with 3D Modeling using Fusion 360

Code

Our main coders, Vance and David, have continued working on reqriting the code base to make it easier to understand. We have many new recruits on our sister teams who are interested in learning how to code, so a lot of time has been spent on making the code base more user-friendly.

One major issue we were having is that there was a lag between operating the robot and the robot function. While scouring the code to find and address the problem, we noticed that there was a 1 second loop time. By eliminating this loop time, which may have initially been added to add a buffer period, our robot began to work much faster and was far easier for our drivers to operate. We also added custom PIDs for the turret and crane, giving us smoother movement with controlled speeds.

The coders are also working on using different methods of path folowing, such as straight orthogonal line following versus Pure Pursuit, to determine which would be the optimal method. Straight orthogonal line following would be far simpler to use and code and is already well aligned with the field set up and game design for Power Play, while Pure Pursuit is more often used in collegiate-level robotics and is a common path following algorithm. Once you get it right, it is very reliable and can be manipulated well.

We hope to get the path following and code base overall testable as soon as possible so we can work through specific motions and rotations as well as making it easier for our drivers to get in more practice before the first league meet.

Build

One of the major components of our robot is the extension of the arm, which enables us to reach even the tallest of poles with no difficulty. However, the set screws on the pulley system, which control the arm extension, were very loose, caused the axle to come off and render the whole arm useless. The first thing we did was tighten the set screws and work on many of the other regular repairs which were needed to keep the robot in optimal working condition.

Our robot uses a coiled extendable wire to operate the servo which controls our gripper system. However, due to the length of the wire, it got in the way of a lot of robot function and was just inconvenient overall to work around. We created a simple cardboard prototype to set our extendable wire so it wouldn't inhibit the rest of the robot and would allow all functions to occur freely.

So we would be able to automate the process of depositing cones, we installed a webcame which allows us to see how far the arm is extended.

Our gripper system needed a way to conveniently attach to the arm, so we had to create a component which would attach and align the gripper system properly. The gripper system has 4 main parts: a distance sensor, a servo, an expandable bulb and a cone guide. The component, appropriately named the Servo Clamp, was designed to be able to attach the bulb, servo, cone guide, and distance sensor separately while also aligning them so the robot would be able to use the sensor to detect the cone and pick it up using the bulb and cone guide.

Next Steps

There are always more improvements and more progress we can make in code, and we also need to make a separate intake system for the cones because it's more efficient and would allow us to score more points quickly. We also want to rebuild the robot piece by piece to make it more resilient and fix each individual aspect.

Task: Drive Practice and Getting Code to Work

Today was mainly focused on getting proper drive practice and getting the path following for the April Tags to go to the correct locations. As such, in between commits, our drivers Leo and Georgia were able to get some familiarity with the controls, while our coders Vance and David worked on PID tuning and autonomous corrections.

We ran a few practice matches of just teleop to measure and improve the skills of our drivers. This consisted of 2 practice matches each for both Leo and Georgia under the 2 minute timer. Leo scored 2 cones the first match and 3 cones the 2nd match, while Georgia scored 2 cones for both matches. This highlighted how little we had actually practiced driving the robot, but also sparked an idea in Vance and David.

Upon witnessing how slow going manually picking up a cone and scoring it on the tallest pylon was, the coders begun work on making preset values for picking up a cone and scoring it, implementing a memory element so that the robot would record where it picked up and scored a cone, and specifically return to those locations. In addition to working on the April Tag location to recognition, they also achieved being able to cut our scoring time basically in half, giving us more opportunities to score cones.

Next Steps

Creating a prototype LED battery holder for our panels and getting the April tag locations to work for both Autonomous points, as well as Tiebreaker points for the future.

Screamage at Marcus High School Overview

Today, Iron Reign attended the Screamage at Marcus High School to play a couple of practice matches. This event allowed us the opportunity to better understand the game flow and further develop a strategy, finally get some drive practice, and point out any flaws in the robot and its design to help improve the next iteration of TauBot.

Initially, we were faced with a lot of structural issues regarding the build of the robot. The wire connection on the arm had to be properly secured to ensure that cables did not get tangled or caught whenever the crane extended, and minor modifications to the chassis were required to properly secure the LED Panels to the robot.

Then came the software troubleshooting. The robot struggled to properly drive without drifting and our drivers needed minor modifications to the mapping of the buttons to streamline gameplay. However, we were able to get tons of solid drive practice at the practice field and were able to consistently score multiple cones on all 3 levels of the poles by the end of the scrimmage. We also utilized our memory functions to help automate the pickup and drop-off process and taught our drivers how to best use those capabilities.

Then came the actual practice matches, and let's just say, they did not proceed as smoothly as expected. Our lack of drive practice was evident, as we often dropped cones short of the poles and were barely able to score successfully. At one point, we managed to pick up around 6-7 cones, but only succeeded in scoring 1-2 cones onto the actual pole. Evidently, this is something that will need to be addressed before the first league meet.

Robot reliability also proved to be a major concern and created a lot of issues during gameplay as our robot would often break down during the game, rendering it useless and incapable of doing anything. After ramming our robot into a junction during gameplay, part of the polycarb chassis cracked where the screws were attached to the Rev Rails, which also locked up our front set of Omni wheels that we used for stability. We managed to restore the robot to a usable state, but the cracked polycarbonate will remain until we build the new robot. These issues continued to plague our robot, and during a match, the axle holding up the crane dislodged from the motor mount, which caused the entire crane to shut down mid-match, and led to us replacing the axle and the screws used to secure it.

Next Steps

The first thing we need to do is shave off part of the arm so our robot will fit within the sizing cube. Secondly, we need to redesign the configuration of the LED panel and battery mount, bottom battery wire, and the arm wire holder, so the wires do not hinder the robot's movement and ability to perform. Thirdly, we must find a way to keep the left motor from slipping out of its mount. We also need to adjust the height of the front Omni wheels, using spacers to allow for more movement and prevent them from locking up. Finally, we need to add polycarb plates to the chassis to prevent furthur damage.

Task: Fixing Issues from the Screamage

After the Screamage, many different problems became apparent, including the fact that the robot just barely fit sizing requirements. In order to combat this, we decided to cut off .75 inches off the arm extension from the carbon fiber rod and added a new hole for the mount for the gripper system, which didn’t have an effect on the code or presets. Trey also continued to work on 3D modeling for the new robot.

David then proceeded to work on fine tuning for the presets for picking up and scoring a cone, as the movements were a bit aggressive to say the least, and by the end of the day, while slower, had become much more manageable as testing would prove to us. He also continued to work on the April Tag recognition for autonomous.

Next Steps

Make use of polycarb to create a new LED battery holder than can be mounted directly to the robot and fix the pulley system to keep it from falling off the axel and rendering our robot useless.

Task: Fixing Issues from the Screamage Pt.2

In tandem with yesterday, the main goal of this meeting was to improve upon the robot after the Screamage. This consisted of two main aspects, being a new way to mount the pulley because of the set screw of the motor that kept untightening from the axel and falling off at the most inopportune times, and a new battery holder for the LED panels with better mounting, as it was just wedged into the robot at the Screamage

Fixing the Pulley System

After many failures of the pulley system and antics with threadlocker and set screws, enough was enough. We decided that using the CNC to directly drill into the pulley to attach that directly to the motor was a better idea, and after a careful process, the pulley was directly mounted to the motor and thus far has experienced no further issues.

Making a New LED Battery Holder

The cardboard battery holder was an okay temporary solution, but in no way was meant to be a permanent addition to the robot. Instead, we opted to make a new one out of polycarb and create a place for the wire to filter through, which required measuring the battery and bending a piece of appropriately sized polycarb. It worked well, and looked semi decent but may be replaced in the future

Task: Preparing the Robot for the Upcoming League Meet

General Fixes:

The LED battery holder from the previous meeting snapped, requiring us to rebend and make a new gate for the LED Battery holder from scratch, which took a bit of time. In addition to this, all the set screws on the robot for the shaft collars and the pulley systems, as well as using threadlocker on the right motor mount in order to keep the right motor from shifting out of place and causing the chain to fall off the gear. This also solved the problem of the chain not fully aligning with the gear, causing a gradual stray of the straight pathing.

3D Modeling a New Wire Holder:

As discussed previously, the current iteration of the wire holder for the arm extension made of cardboard isn’t practical, and so Leo worked on a 3D model for the new version of the wire holder. This version addresses the wire getting caught upon on the corners of the holder as well as a more durable design as cardboard is not good at keeping it’s shape, and will more easily fit over the 2 motors.

Task: Finishing Code for Upcoming Meet and Drive Practice

We fixed the turret heading PID so that it does not spin uncontrollably when the angle changes from 359 to 0, and adjusted and tuned ticks per inch. We integrated memory of drop off and pickup positions with the crane so our drives don't have to spend a lot of time precisely aligning the arm with the cones and poles, enabling us to quickly score more cones per match. In addition, we created a basic auton program that reads the AprilTag on our custom team sleeve, then parks in the correct location accordingly.

The drivers practiced pick up and drop off using the new presets, then ran timed matches to see how many cones they could score, averaging 3-4 cones per match. We also practiced positioning and setting up the robot before beginning auton.

Next Steps

Due to oscillation of the arm after calibration, the camera occasionally cannot read the April Tag, so we need to fix this before the meet. Additionally, we need to do more drive practice before the meet this Saturday, inorder to improve the number of cones we score each match.

Task: Finalizing the Robot the Day Before Competition

The day before a competition always sees arguably the most productivity from all the teams in a rush to finish up what they hope to accomplish the next day. For Reign, this was getting autonomous working, final drive practice for Georgia, and the printing of the team beacons.

Finishing Auton:

The first few hours were filled with commits from both David and Vance in an attempt to get the April Tags basically perfect. The camera was able to read the tags only some of the time due to the oscillation of the arm after calibration, which would be frequent at low voltage levels. Fortunately, this was solved and the rest of the night was spent on simplifying the calibration sequence and PID tuning for the arm.

Drive Practice:

A few practice matches were run which included both autonomous and TeleOp with a timer to see our limits. The average performance saw autonomous working and around 3-4 cones scored, but some outliers saw no autonomous points and no cones scored, which was certainly worrying. In the end, further drive practice was sacrificed in order to get the autonomous code working.

Making and Dying the Beacons:

The final thing we finished that night was the beacons for additional scoring. This was modeled as a loose sleeve that fit around the cone initially, but then we cut around it and made just a tab protruding from the base in order to meet sizing requirements, as well as dying them red and blue respectively and writing the team number on them.

Tasks:
1. Review 1st League Meet
2. Analyze 1st League Meet Performance
3. Discuss Possible Fixes + Next Steps

Play By Play

1st Match - The first round went horribly wrong, as Gabriel touched the phone after randomization, netting a minor penalty. While autonomous did read the April Tags, the arm was outside the tile, so regardless we didn’t score the 20 points for autonomous. In an attempt to get the robot started and not have to do calibration, the sequence was skipped which caused the turntable and arm extension to fail completely. Our score was 2 points scored by our alliance partner, and was a loss.

2nd Match - The 2nd this time, the autonomous program worked, but yet again the arm was outside the confines of the tile, meaning no autonomous points. The new calibration sequence, which required a button press, was not completed, and so yet again, failure in the arm and turntable, and an additional crash of the robot. The score was 37 points scored by our alliance partner and a loss.

3rd Match - The 3rd match autonomous finally worked, netting us 20 points. The presets for cones, however, was not working and so had to be done manually. The score at the end was 38 points and resulted in a win.

4th Match - The 4th match autonomous succeeded yet again, gaining 20 points. Unfortunately, the calibration sequence again wasn’t completed, meaning we couldn’t score any elements. The match resulted in a 34 point win, a win that was barely gained, as we scored 1 more point than the opposing alliance.

5th Match - The 5th match was by far our best performance. The April Tag recognition worked again, netting us 20 points. The presets for cone scoring finally worked, and with it, our driver Leo was able to score 9 cones, one of which had a beacon on it, getting our alliance 93 points, the record for that meet, of which we scored 74 points.

What Went Wrong + How To Fix It

This past Saturday marked the first League Tournament for the University League and our first competition. Unfortunately for us, it did not go as we had hoped, but was instead more grounded in reality. There were a lot of problems that only reared their heads during the competition.

The beginning of the competition was the most problem intensive, with everything from the calibration sequence infinitely rotating the turntable, the belt slipping off the arm extension, and the presets for cone scoring going awry. Luckily for us, the end of the competition resulted in a fix to some of these issues which lead to us placing in 4th ranking wise, and getting the high score for point total in conjunction with our alliance partner. However, this does not mean that there were no persisting problems after the fact.

Starting off with build issues, our mount for the current iteration of our bulb gripper was able to shift slightly to both the left and right with enough force applied. The constant smacking down of the gripper onto cones was a likely culprit in the shift meaning its an issue that has to be further addressed by tightening the carbon fiber bar more. The belt for the arm also managed to slip off at one point, but luckily it was in between matches. It serves as a good reminder to replace old rubber bands, which do not age well at all. The robot was also getting caught on the pylons, even when they didn’t have cones on them, meaning that its a combination of the chassis being a bit too big even though it fits standard sizing and more drive practice needed. Also, while it didn’t present too big of an issue at the competition, our current wire holder for the arm extension is just impractical and arguably cardboard should never appear on a robot at a competition.

Moving onto code issues, the start of the competition began with a big scare. During the calibration sequence, the turntable would rotate uncontrollably and would persist through infinite rotations. Fortunately, Vance and David were able to address this before any of the matches actually started. The issue of presets also became apparent because of calibration. Once autonomous finished, the Teleop program had to be initialized and recalibrate itself, which for one reason or another, completely messed up the presets, which are designed to remember the locations that it picked up a cone, and where it dropped off a cone.

Next Steps

Our robot needs to be thinner in order to navigate this year’s field more effectively, which is currently being addressed with the modeling and future construction of basically a version 2 of our current robot. The cardboard wire holder is going to be replaced with a 3D modeled version, which hopefully will look sleeker and serve its function better than the current iteration. There is also the idea of custom wheels as last year set a standard that we should keep alive.

Tasks:
1. Fix Issues from the Last Meet
2. Build Upon our Current Strategy
2. Continue to Develop TauBot 2.0

The League Meet was a rude awakening for all the things we needed to improve upon and start. This includes a better autonomous, as other leagues are already having regular 30-40 point autonomous programs, documentation as even though League Meets don’t require them, the Tournament is slowly encroaching on us, and it needs to be solid by then and the modeling of a version 2.0 for the current robot to further improve cone scoring.

Building Upon our Current Strategy

In order to be a competitive team, we need a stronger autonomous. The current strategy for this is just the April Tags, which nets us 20 points. However, since April Tags still leaves around 14 seconds of autonomous to be filled, Vance has been working on a pre-load cycle, which would read the April Tag with the preload, drive to the destination, score the preload on the tallest pylon, and then continue to take from the cone stack and continue to score, which could easily elevate us to a 30-40 point autonomous run. We also need to start thinking about capturing more pylons, as this early in the season it’s been noted that each team generally stays to their quarter of the field. In order to capitalize on this, we plan to change our strategy to capture all the pylons within our quarter of the field, as each junction/pylon captured is an additional 3 points, which would then be followed by scoring on the tallest pylon.

Version 2.0 of TauBot

Currently, there is a second version of Taubot being 3D modeled in order to accommodate a smaller sizing as well as a separate intake system. More details about this will be discussed in a future blog post.

Next Steps

Continue to build upon the autonomous program and learn a new drive strategy for the League Meet on December 3rd.

Task: Drive Practice and Improving Code

We fine tuned the PID and speed, as well as the pickup and drop speed and staging. We also fixed the odometry, which calculates the position of the robot based on how many times the wheels have turned. We changed the staging of the crane memory system to be more accurate and fix the angle of the shoulder before it extends, so it won't hit the poles or cone stacks when changing position.

Our drive team ran practice matches to improve precision and accuracy while also scoring as many cones as possible. We focused on picking up cones from a long distance, utilizing our crane's reach and scoring from afar. The arm tended to overshoot when fully extended, making it more difficult to score, so our drivers had to practice taking this into account when aligning the crane and turret with the cone and poles for pickup and scoring.

Next Steps

We need to finish our auton code so the robot will pickup and score cones from the cone stacks and drop them onto poles during the auton period. We also want to finish and tune code for grid drive. And, of course, more drive practice!

April Tags

Crane Memory System

One unique feature of this robot is the crane's memory system. The crane remembers its position where it picks up a cone and where it drops the cone. This memory allows the crane to take over positioning the gripper for picking up a cone and dropping it off. The driver now only has to finetune the pickup and drop position and initiate the pickup and drop sequence.

Grid Drive

One helpful feature that would make the robot more reliable is grid drive. Since the field this year has all the objects placed in a grid, the robot can navigate between the pylons relatively easily however we found that drivers could not be as precise driving than the robot’s odometry and as such we developed a system where the driver tells the robot where they want the robot to go and the robot creates and follows a path to get to its target location. This system decreases transit time significantly and makes driving more precise. This system can also be used with the crane to pick up cones from a specific location and drop them at a certain pylon of the driver's choosing.

Field Class

Task: Build, Modeling, and Drive Practice for Upcoming League Meet

We spent today's meeting fixing minor build problems, then ran timed practice matches. Additionally, we started modeling the prototype for the nudge stick.

The arm and mount, specifically the set screws and shaft collars, will often become loose, so we used threadlocker to secure these and reduce its chances of becoming too loose during a match. We redid the connection for the LEDs because a wire had snapped out, then rewelded the mount for the LED panels, as it was beginning to split down the center and was revealing the inside of the panel.

We did lots of drive practice, running many timed practice matches. We managed to score the auton preload, along with about 3-6 additional cones and beacon. Unfortunately, auton was somewhat unreliable, as Taubot did not always score the preload cone on the pole and fully park in the correct space.

Next Steps

Our next step is to fix our auton code so Taubot consistently manages to score the auton preload cone and fully park in the correct spot. We also need to finish the nudge stick prototype so we can begin testing and finetuneing it.

Task: Code and Build Before League Meet

We partially remade the joint that connects the extension part of the crane to the turret, as we found that under high stress the gears were prone to slipping. We also changed the gear ratios on the shoulder to increase the torque produced at the cost of the speed of the crane. We did this because under most situations we were hitting the torque limit of the motor but we almost never hit the speed limit of the motor. This will make the crane much more controllable, especially when the crane is at maximum extension. Additionally, we began building the nudge stick for the crane.

As for code, we created two new methods. The first method takes in the robot's current position on the field and, using an IMU that is attached to the turret, calculates the position of the center of the turret. This is method is needed for inverse kinematics to work because the center of the robot is not aligned with the center of the turret. The second method takes in the desired X, Y, and Z coordinates that the turret should target. It first takes the turrets's position then uses that position to calculate the heading that the base needs to target inorder to align itself with the proper X and Y coordinates. It then calculates the horizontal distance needed to get to the target position. That distance, along with the Z target height, is then used to calculate the angle and amount of crane crane extension required to achieve the target position.

Next Steps

We need to finish building and coding the nudge stick so we can test it and practive scoring with it. As for the differential distance sensor mount, we need to finish modeling it and then build and test it.

Task: Prepare for Our Second League Meet

Today we worked on finishing the nudge stick and auton code, along with doing driver practice and other preparations for the upcoming meet.

We finished working on code for the nudge stick so it will rotate to the left or right of the pole in order to help the driver align the cone with the pole more easily and quickly. The stick is mounted to a servo which allows it to move to either side of the arm. Next we worked on code for auton and tuned it to be more reliable.

Our drivers spent lots of time practicing seting up the robot and diving it. We scored about 4 or 5 cones per match plus auton and a beacon.

Task: Improving code

We implemented inverse kinematics with driver controls, auton, and the memory system. ​​We changed the driver controls to use height and distance rather than angle and shoulder. This makes it faster and much easier for the drivers to fine tune adjustments when dropping and picking up the cones. We also implemented this system in auton to make it easier to specify a target that the robot should aim for during auton.

Next Steps

Now that we have inverse kinematics working we can begin a scoring pattern code, which will allow the robot to memorize the field and move to score without driver input. This will make scoring quicker and easier for the drivers.

Hosting the Townview Tournament

What we learned

This was a great opportunity for us to learn how judging would work this year and truly see how a tournament would function ahead of time. It also gave us a chance to see some of the more than impressive robots and their unique designs and innovations, as well as some potential new strategies to test out for ourselves.

Overall, we had a great time hosting this event in collaboration with a lot of First representatives and alumni and we're very thankful to all the teams, volunteers, and judges that showed up and for having a great competition. We wish the teams good luck for the rest of the season!

Task: Present TauBot to the Dallas Personal Robotics Group

Today, we virtually presented our robot to the Dallas Personal Robotics Group(DPRG) to showcase our progress for this season and hopefully get advice on our robot's design, code, and presentation. DPRG is a group of engineers and robot enthusiasts who meet multiple times a month to discuss robotics and share their personal projects in the field of robotics. These meetings allowed us to practice our presentation skills and receive valuable advice from mentors and professionals.

The meeting started with us briefly explaining Power Play to the members who tuned in and then transitioned into our initial Ri2D efforts and how that influenced our current design. We shared our initial idea of creating a "tall bot" that could drive over the poles and how that quickly shifted into the current robot focused on minimizing movement across the field.

We went over the critical subsystems of our robot, which included the bulb gripper, arm, turret, and chassis, and explained how all of these worked together to accomplish our game strategy. Then we transitioned into the code aspects of things and shared how we managed to automate much of the gameplay with our memory functions, inverse kinematics, and anti-tipping code while also stating how we planned to integrate OpenCV and grid drive in the future.

After that, we discussed our plans for the future iteration of TauBot and some of the significant changes we planned to make to the chassis to improve its efficiency and ability to score points. Finally, we presented a show demonstration of the robot driving around, scoring cones, and running the auton code. A lengthy question and answer session ensued, and we got lots of valuable feedback from the DPRG members that we will use to improve both TauBot 2.0 and our presentation.

Regarding the feedback we received on the robot, DPRG suggested that we consider the distribution of mass and a potential counterweight to prevent tipping(which happened a decent amount during the demo), as well as possible code changes to help better control the autonomous path of the arm during movements. They also pointed out the oscillation of our gripper and suggested we add a degree of freedom to prevent that. Finally, one of the biggest pieces of advice they gave was to consider utilizing a movement system that allowed us to “fly the gripper.”

On the presentation side of things, the main advice given was to consolidate our information, focus on the most impressive parts of our robot, talk slower, and create a correlation between our strategy and the implementation of our robot.

Next Steps

We are incredibly grateful to DPRG for letting us present and connect with professionals to improve our robot. We hope to meet with them in the future, possibly in January, as we develop our robot. Our next steps are considering their advice when designing and assembling TauBot 2.0, further automating our robot, and preparing our presentation and portfolio for the tournament in January.

Task: Driver Practice!

Recently, Vance implemented a new control scheme : scoring patterns. This required some changes to the way the cone is “transported” throughout the field when the driver operated, and we found it was best to “fly the gripper” by controlling the 3 dimensional position of the cone on a cartesian space superimposed on the field. Basically, we control the x,y,z, which is a big change compared to the old controls, which controlled extension, turret angle and shoulder angle independently of each other. We're down to 3 weeks from our next meet and the goal is to get affluent with these new controls, which will (hopefully) help us score more cones.

Next Steps

There's still some fine tuning to be done with the controls, especially at long distances. The robot is still prone to tipping and crashing, but as a proof of concept, scoring patterns are looking promising. There was also some progress done on the CAD for the new robot (epic reveal coming soon), and we're looking to start manufacturing some of our designs on the CNC in the coming week, stay tuned.

Task: Build and CAD

Today we focused on building and modeling our second iteration of Toubot. After designing and cutting out the parts for the underarm on the CNC we began assembly.

As for modeling, we worked on the shoulder drive for Toubot2. We are redesigning our motor mounts because we need the extension on the arm to be stronger. We are changing the design for the shoulder drive by using 8 mm axles and using four 30 tooth gears instead of the single 30 tooth gear currently being used. We are also using “bridges” to mount our motors, because they are stronger than the standard REV rails.

Next Steps

Our next steps are to print the motor mounts and continue build. And more drive practice!

Task: Documentation and CAD

Today,we focused mainly on documentation and the continued CAD for the next iteration of TauBot. We worked on the outreach and Motivate sections of the Engineering Portfolio along with a few of the preliminary slides. Furthermore, we also made sure that the blog was all up to date.

On the CAD side of things, we finished the shoulder drive on the CAD model and began 3-D printing a few motor mounts for the next iteration of TauBot.

Next Steps

Our next steps are to continue finishing the CAD model of TauBot2, continuing to assemble the parts we have completed, and to continue working on the Engineering Portfolio in preparation for the Tournament on January 28th.

Task: Present a status update to Dallas Personal Robotics Group

You can watch our full presentation here. Today was our second meeting with Dallas Personal Robotics Group , or DPRG, this season. We updated the engineers at DPRG with our build and code progress. First, we ran through our newly assembled parts and subsystems. Then we showed our work in progress CAD in Autodesk Fusion 360 directly, and our main coder ran through our code. Finally, we had time for a small Q&A session with the engineers, where they asked us questions about our robot design and how it would achieve the goal put forth by the playing field.

Build

Newly Assembled Parts and Subsystems

We had 3 main things to discuss when it came to newly assembled parts and subsystems: the new wheels and the underarm/chariot, which included the lasso gripper. Gabriel introduced the new wheels, which are made out of carbon fiber, nylon and ninjaflex. We also demoed the new wheels, which had just been attached to an axle. Because the bearings weren't aligned properly, the wheel was slightly wobbly. However, it was a good demonstration of how the wheel would work when it would be attached to the second iteration of our robot, Taubot. We changed to a custom wheel because it would give us more control and would also be slightly smaller than the old wheels, allowing us to optimize the design.

Leo, who was the main designer behind all aspects of the underarm/chariot, was responsible for introducing it to the judges. Our underarm is designed to slot into the front of the robot, replacing the omni wheels with driven omnis which drive out the chariot. Our underarm is entirely made out of custom carbon fiber parts, and will be the intake system for Taubot: 2nd iteration. The chariot drives out, using the driven omnis, to the cone stacks and the substation. The underarm uses the lasso gripper to grip around a cone and passes through itself to hand the cone off to the main arm.

New CAD For Future Assembly

After displaying the custom parts of the robot which we had already assembled, we showed the parts of the modeling which were still in progress. I started by introducing the shoulder and turret assembly, which was still very much not completed. I talked about motor placement and gear alignment, and why we changed the design of the shoulder and turret. We wanted to stop using the standard REV rails and replace them with aluminum plates, which would be stronger and designed specifically for our purposes.

Trey showed the changes we would be implementing with the arm. We changed the linear slides to a lighter model so it would be possible for us to add a 4th stage. This would make it possible for the robot to move minimally and still reach the entire span of the field. We are using a belt system and a motor at the base of the arm to extend the arm. Trey then showed the base and the chassis of the robot. He talked about how we changed the design, and how we would be using carbon fiber for the base as opposed to polycarbonate, because of how much stronger carbon fiber is and because of the issues we were having due to the polycarbonate cracking when it hit the walls of the playing field.

Leo showed the model of the underarm and the chariot so the engineers could get a better understanding of how it would extend and operate. He also talked about how the battery would be in the moving section so we could counteract the tipping problem due to the weight of the arm.

We also touched on our manufacturing process, and how we turned modeled parts into physical parts which would be used on our robot.

Code

Vance took the lead on showing what he'd been working on with code. The auton wasn't fully tuned up so everything was slightly off. In an ideal autonomous game, we would have gotten around 3 cones. Currently, reliability is a bit of an issue because of cone placement, because cones are very close to the wall. This makes the margin of error we have very little. The robot tipped over while we were trying to demonstrate autonomous, but it was an easy fix, along with a reset.

Scoring Patterns

The first thing Vance demonstrated was the scoring patterns. They were a very new addition, and they were good for drivers because it meant the drivers would only have to make a few micro adjustments to the arm placement instead of moving the arm the whole way around the game field.

What is a scoring pattern?
A scoring pattern is an array of field positions that the arm targets.

1. The arm goes to a substation.
2. The arm automatically goes to a different pole every time a new cone is picked up.

While we were demonstrating scoring patterns, a pulley on the robot fell off. This took a while to fix, but the show must go on!

Feedforward for PID

The PID brings the shoulder to the correct angle at the correct speed and time. Our robot now uses feed forward, which calculates how much torque is on the arm and how much torque is needed for the motor to hold position or counteract the torque of the arm/gravity. This is entirely based on the current angle and position. If we fully extend the arm using PID but not feed forward, the arm would always slip down slightly. However, now the arm holds position, even when it's fully extended.

Q&A

The last portion of our meeting with DPRG was the Question and Answer session. The engineers asked us questions about our design and the game itself.

Q. Why do you score during autonomous?
A. We get double the points for every cone we score in autonomous, because it counts during both autonomous as well as driver control. We also get 20 additional points for parking the robot, which is quite reliable.

Q. How many of you design the robot?
A. There are 7 total people on the team. 3 of us model, and we mainly communicate through Discord and TickTick to divide the work. We also have design meetings to find mistakes in our models and discuss what needs to be fixed. Subsystems and different assemblies are organized into folders, and we each take responsibility for one main part. To sum it up, it's organized chaos.

Q. What is the scoring estimate/target with the new pattern?
A. We don't have one with the current pattern, because we don't have any testing. We got 8 - 9 cones with the old pattern.

Task: Review our performance at the 3rd League Meet and discuss possible next steps

Today, Iron Reign and our two sister teams participated in the 3rd League Meet for the U League at UME Preparatory for qualification going into the Tournament next week. Overall, we did solid, going 4-2 at the meet; however, we lost significant tiebreaker points in autonomous points due to overall unreliability. At the end of the day, we didn’t do as great as we would have liked, but we did end the meet ranked #2 in the U League in #5 between both the D and U Leagues, and got some valuable driver practice and code development along the way.

We entered the meet with brand new autonomous code that allowed us to ideally score three cones in autonomous and park, equating to about 35 points.

Another main issue that plagued us was tipping, as our robot tipped over in practice and in an actual match due to the extension of the arm and constant erratic movement, which we will elaborate on in the play-by-play section.

We also want to preface that much of our code and drive teams were running on meager amounts of sleep due to late nights working on TauBot2, so a lot of the autonomous code and river error can be attributed to fatigue caused by sleep deprivation. Part of our takeaways from this meet is to avoid late nights as much as possible, stick to a timeline, and get the work done beforehand.

Play by Play

Match 1: 46 to 9 Win

In the autonomous section, our robot missed the initial preload cone and fell short of grabbing cones from the cone stack because there was an extra cone. Finally, our robot overshot the zone and got no parking points. Overall, we scored 0 points. In the tele-op and endgame sections, because of a poor quality battery that was overcharged at around 13.9 volts, our entire shoulder and arm stopped functioning and just stood stationary for the whole period. In the end, we only scored 2 points by parking in the corner. However, due to the extra cone on the cone stack at the beginning of autonomous, we were granted a rematch. In the autonomous of the rematch, our preload cone dropped to the side of the tall pole, but we could grab and score one cone on the tall pole, missing the second one. However, it did not fully move into Zone 3, meaning we didn’t get any parking points. Overall, 5 points in auton. In the tele-op and endgame, we scored two cones on the tall poles and one on a medium pole, which equates to 20 points in that section, including six ownership points. Total Points: 29

Analysis: We need to ensure that our battery does not have too high of a voltage because that causes severe performance impacts. More autonomous tuning is also required to score both cones and properly park. Our light battery also died in the middle of the second match due to low charge, which will need to be taken care of in the future since that can lead to major penalties.

Match 2: 68 to 63 Loss

In the autonomous section, our robot performed great and went according to plan, scoring the preload cone and 2 more on the tallest cone and parking, equating to 35 points. However, in the tele-op and endgame, the robot’s issues reared their ugly heads. We did score one cone on a tall cone and one on a medium cone. However, after our opponent took ownership of one of our tall poles, we went for another pole instead of taking it back, and that led to us tipping over as the arm extended, which ended the game for us. We did not incur any penalties but had we scored that cone and taken back our pole, we would have won and gotten to add a perfect autonomous to our tiebreaker points. We ended up scoring 9 points in this section. Total Points: 44

Analysis: Excellent autonomous performance marred by a tipping issue and sub-par driver performance. The anti-tipping code did not work as intended, and that issue will need to be fixed to allow TauBot to score at its entire range.

Match 3: 78 to 31 Win

In the autonomous section, we missed the preload cone and couldn’t grab both the cones on the stack, and we also did not park as our arm and shoulder crossed the border. As a result, we scored 0 points total in this section. In the tele-op and endgame section, we scored a lot better, scoring two cones on the tall poles, one on the medium poles, and two on the short ones. This, including our 15 ownership points, equates to a total of 35 points. Total Points: 35

Analysis: The autonomous does need tuning to at least park because of the value of autonomous points. Our lack of driver practice is also slightly evident in the time it takes to pick up new cones, but that can be solved through increased gameplay.

Match 4: 40 to 32 Win

In the autonomous section, we scored our preload cone on a tall pole, but intense arm oscillation meant we missed the first cone from the stack on drop-off and the second cone from the stack on pickup. We also overshot parking again, bringing our total in this period to 5 points. In the tele-op and endgame section, we scored two cones on the tall poles. So with ownership points, our total in this section was 16 points. We did miss one cone drop-off, though, and our pickups in the substation could have been better as we tipped over a couple of cones during pickup. Total Points: 21

Analysis: Parking still needed to be tuned, but the cone scoring was a lot more consistent, but still requires a bit more work to achieve consistency. Other than that, improved driver practice will help cycle times and scoring.

Match 5: 51 to 24 Win

In the autonomous section, our arm never engaged to go and score our preload, and the robot did park, meaning we scored 20 points in this section. In the tele-op and endgame section, we scored two cones on the tall poles, one cone on the medium poles, and missed three on drop-off. We also scored our beacon, bringing our total point count in this game portion to 30 points. Total Points: 50

Analysis: Pretty solid match, but the autonomous still needs tuning, and driver practice on cone drop-offs could be better.

Match 6: 74 to 50 Loss

In the autonomous section, our robot missed the drop off of 2 cones but parked, bringing the total to 20 points for autonomous. In the tele-op and endgame section, miscommunication with our alliance partner led to them knocking our cones out of the substation and blocking our intake path multiple times. We scored three cones on the tall poles and missed two on drop-off. In the end, we scored the beacon, scoring 30 points in this section. Total Points: 50(we carried)

Analysis: Communication with our alliance partner was a significant issue in this match. Our alliance partner crossed onto our side and occupied the substation for a while, blocking our human player from placing down cones and blocking our intake path. This led to valuable seconds being wasted.

Overall, our main issues revolved around autonomous code tuning; although our autonomous performance did improve, poor driver practice we chalk up to fatigue, along with minor tipping and communication issues. However, we plan to understand what happened and solve our problems before the next week’s Tournament.

Then, for a quick update on TauBot2, parts of the manufacturing and build have begun, and we hope to incorporate at least part of the new design into the robot we bring to the Tournament on the 28th. Currently, parts of the Chassis and UnderArm have been CNC’ed or 3D printed, and assembly has begun.

Next Steps

Finish up the design of Tau2 and start manufacturing and assembling it, tuning our autonomous and anti-tipping code, and attempting to get more driver practice in preparation for next week’s Tournament.

Task: Narrate the events of the D&U Tournament

Today, Iron Reign and our two sister teams competed in the D&U League Tournament at Woodrow Wilson High School, the culmination of the previous three qualifiers. Overall, we did pretty well, winning both Inspire 1 and Think 2, which means we will be directly advancing to the Regional competition in about a month. There will be a separate blog post about the tournament Post-Mortem, and this post will cover the play-by-play of the matches.

The robot we brought to the tournament was a mix between TauBot V1 and V2, with the V2’s Chassis and UnderArm and the V1’s Turret, Shoulder, and Crane. Unfortunately, there were some robot performance drop-offs, as we slipped from 5th to 9th in the qualification standings, going 2-4 overall at the tournament.

Play by Play

Match 1: 84 to 17 Win

In autonomous, due to arm wobble, we missed both the preload cone on drop-off and the cone on the stack during pickup. However, the robot was still about to get parking. Then in the tele-op and endgame, our robot scored three cones on the tall pole and one cone on the medium cone. However, rushing during cone drop-offs led to us missing a couple, and a decent amount of time was wasted during intake and arm movements. Finally, we also scored a beacon. Overall, this was a solid match, but there could be improvements. One important thing to note was that the UnderArm almost went into the substation while the human player was inside due to an issue with the distance sensor that regulated chassis length. This is something that we will have to diagnose and fix quickly.

Match 2: 86 to 48 Loss

In the autonomous section, our robot almost collided with an opposing robot when attempting to score the preload cone. In the end, we did not score any cones and lost parking when the UnderArm did not fully retract and traveled past the edge of the area. In the tele-op and endgame, our robot scored two cones on the tall poles and one on a medium cone. However, poor gripper positioning on intake led to time-wasting as cones kept getting tipped over, and we missed a low cone on drop-off due to rushing. In addition, the LED battery went out during the match, which could have caused a penalty and is starting to become a recurring issue. Finally, we lost due to the 40 penalty points that we conceded by pointing at the field during gameplay four times, which was a major mistake and should serve as a valuable lesson for the drive team. Overall, this match was messy and a poor showing from both our drive team and robot.

Match 3: 74 to 33 Loss

This match did not count toward our ranking since we were filling in. Regardless, we didn’t view this as a throwaway game. In autonomous, the robot got off track when driving toward the tall pole to drop off the preload, meaning the entire autonomous section got thrown off. We didn’t score any points or park at all. Then, in the tele-op and endgame section, a major code malfunction threw off the arm for a while. We missed multiple cone intakes by overshooting the distance, and the arm was frequently caught on the poles. Our human play was also quite sloppy and there were a few times we got close to being called for a penalty for the human player being in the substation at the same time as the robot. In the end, we only scored 1 cone on a tall pole in this section, and luckily this game did not count towards qualification rankings, but it did reveal a code issue that we quickly corrected.

Match 4: 97 to 18 Loss

In autonomous, our robot got bumped, missed both cones, and did not park because the arm and shoulder ended up outside the zone. Then, in the tele-op period, quickly into the start of the driver-controlled proportion, the servo wire on our bulb gripper got caught on our alliance partner’s robot. This caused the plate on which the arm was mounted to bend severely and left us out of operation for the rest of the match. Immediately after, we had to switch to the arm and gripper for TauBot2 that we had assembled but not yet attached, and this required slight modifications to the shoulder to allow all the screw holes to align. Thankfully we were able to get it working, but we faced issues later on with the movement of the new gripper limiting our cone intake.

Match 5: 144 to 74 Loss

In autonomous, the arm wobble caused our preload to drop short, but we parked. We also accidentally “stabbed” our opponent’s preload cone out of their gripper when they were about to score it. Since this was in autonomous, we were not penalized, but it was quite funny. However, in tele-op and endgame, we missed multiple cone pickups and drop-offs and went for the cone stack instead for intaking at the substation, which was a major tactical blunder and increased our cycle times. We did score two cones on the tall poles and one cone on a small pole that allowed us to break our opponent’s circuit at the very end, but we still lost. Overall not a bad game, but we had a questionable strategy, and the pains of a newly assembled robot did show.

Match 6: 74 to 66 Win

This match was a great way to end the qualification matches, as we escaped with a narrow and intense win. Because our left-side start code was broken and our alliance partner heavily preferred standing on the right side, we started our robot on the right and stood on the left, which was quite a novel strategy. It did come with drawbacks, as during the start of tele-op, we wasted valuable seconds crossing the field with our robot. Anyways, in autonomous, major arm wobble led to us missing the preload by a mile, the stack intake code was off, and we did not park. Tele-op and endgame were quite an intense competition, and we scored three cones on the tall poles, including a clutch beacon cone in the last 10 seconds of endgame to win the game. Overall this was a great game, although we still had autonomous issues, and it was a good ending to an overall poor run in qualifications.

We ended the qualification portion with an overall standing of 9 and a record of 12-3. Thanks to good connections with our fellow teams, we were picked by the 3rd-ranked alliance as their 3rd pick. Therefore, we did not play the 1st match of the semifinal, which we lost, but we did play the 2nd match.

Semifinal 2 Match 2: 131 to 38 Loss

In autonomous, the arm wobble led to us missing the preload and the cones from the stack, and we did not park either. Then, during tele-op and endgame, we scored one cone on a tall pole. Unfortunately, though, our alliance partner’s robot tipped over during intake, which led to ou5t gripper getting stuck to their wheel and causing yet another entanglement. This led to the shoulder axle loosening, and the entire subsystem became unusable after the match. This isn’t that bad since we plan to replace that with the new, redesigned Turret, Shoulder, and Arm, but it wasn’t the best way to go out.

Overall, though, we did okay, considering we were running a new robot with a partially untested subsystem in the UnderArm and still won a few matches and made the semifinals. In the end, though, our portfolio and documentation pulled through as we won Inspire. However, this tournament exposed many flaws and issues in our robot, which will be discussed in the Post-Mortem Blog post, and we will need to fix these issues before Regionals next month.

Task: Onboarding New Recruits, Organization, CAM, and Connect

Today we onboarded most of the new recruits and continued to work on fixing our broken shoulder from the last tournament. We also organized a lot of the RoboDojo and brainstormed more ideas for how we can reach out to professionals to better prepare for the upcoming Regionals competition.

We welcomed a couple of new recruits from some of our JV sister teams, Iron Giant and Iron Core. Today's new recruits were Alex, David, Jai, Sol, and Tanvi. We helped them get acclimated to the Iron Reign environment and taught them things like how to write blog posts, our organization system, and everything else they need to know to be a contributing member. This came with its own set of changes to the website to include them. Their performance over the few weeks leading up to Regionals will decide future team composition as we prepare to deal with our current seniors graduating.

As far as TauBot2 build progress, we began CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing)on the shoulder, which controls the arm and its extension. CAM allows us to create custom pieces to fit our use case effectively. We also made progress on the secondary turret on the UnderArm, which should help increase our intake speed and score more points through a "handshake" between the grippers, although it still remains a daunting task.

We also organized much of the RoboDojo prepping for Regionals and any future competitions, specifically most of the screws and building materials. This should make building and robot maintenance much easier in the future as TauBot2 is built and developed.

Finally, we drafted a couple of emails that enabled us to set up calls with professionals. We hope to get some responses so that we can get some expert guidance on how we can improve our robot's code and design, as well as improve our connections with professionals for our portfolio.

Next Steps

Our next steps are to continue to teach the new members what they need to do and to continue the assembly of TauBot2 in preparation for Regionals. Additionally, we would like to expand our outreach to both our community and corporations.

Task: Explore Possible Connection Opportunities at the DISD STEM Expo

Today, Iron Reign presented at the DISD Stem Expo in the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. Here, we both demoed TauBot and hosted a STEM activity for young children which involved building LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robots and then battling them SUMO style in a battle hexagon.

While this event was a great opportunity to motivate and interact with the community as a form of outreach, with the 100+ STEM exhibits and multitude of universities and corporations, it was an amazing opportunity to connect with professionals in order to receive valuable feedback on our robot.

Although with the hustle and bustle of the actual EXPO, not much assistance could be received as we also had a booth to manage, but we viewed this as a great time to go around, meet some professionals, build connections, and hopefully schedule future sessions where we could properly present and explain the robot.

First off, we were able to talk to some students from both the Texas A&M Engineering Program and SMU’s Lyle College of Engineering. Both programs seem quite interested in our robot, we are hoping to be able to get a meeting with a professor and some graduate students in order to present our robot to them, but those are still in the works.

In terms of corporations, we met a local startup called Strawbees, which focuses on developing STEM Building kits for children. They told us that they could potentially get us in touch with their lead “inventor”, who designed most of the product line. Since these projects incorporate both mechanical, electrical and software components, this could be a great opportunity for us.

We also were able to talk to representatives from Jacobs, Lenovo and NASA. Jacobs is a local engineering and architecture firm that is headquartered in Dallas, while Lenovo and NASA are both well-known organizations that could provide relevant hardware and software advice.

Next Steps

Our next steps will be following up with the people we talked to at the Expo in order to possibly schedule a session where we can interact with professionals, present our robot and receive feedback.

Task: Motivate the community at the DISD Stem Expo

Today we hosted a booth at the Dallas ISD STEM Expo at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center. There, we taught kids coding, introduced them to robotics and the FIRST community, and demonstrated TauBot to the public. Not to mention, we also got some decent driver practice in, which is always a plu. For the coding section, we used LEGO Mindstrosm EV3 Sumo robots to teach kids about block coding and spark interest in robotics and STEM in general. Overall it was a hit and a lot of kids enjoyed the activity.

At the Sumo Bot portion of our booth, we set a up table with laptops, Sumo EV3 robots, and two sumo rings. We taught kids basic block coding and allowed them to expirement with their code and see how the robots execute their code. They then got to use the robots in Sumo showdowns against each other.

Alongside our Sumo Robotics station we had an FTC competition field set up, in which we gave kids a demonstration of the Iron Reign, Iron Giant, and Iron Core robots. We allowed the kids to drive them and get firsthand experience with a robot, which they really enjoyed. We also answered a lot of questions about our robot, betterng both our understanding of the robot itself and our presentation skills, which will come in hand at Regionals.

Our team talked to both parents and children about how to get involved in the FIRST program, explaining how it works and the opportunities it creates, and why we love participating in the FIRST program. We talked about our experiences in robotics, joining the Iron Reign program, and shared personal stories about how we got into robotics. Not only did we share information about our own program, but also how to get into FLL, FTC, FRC, and other robotics programs based on their age and interests.

Overall, it was quite a rewarding experience and we got to interact with a lot of people of a lot of different ages. We also were able to connect with some professionals in a somewhat limited manner, but there will be a seperate blog post about that coming soon.

Task: Help the Sudie Academy FLL teams prep for Regionals

Today, Iron Reign attended a meeting with multiple local FLL teams from Sudie L Williams TAG Academy to help them practice their presentation for upcoming Regionals competition.

The three teams, 43326 The Tin Men, 46425 Electric Spuds, and 51997 Lithium Ions all advanced to the FLL Regional Competition that will be taking place this Saturday, 2/11. To help them prepare for this competition, we hosted a virtual session where they could practice their presentation and a few of our members could listen in and offer feedback.

Overall, the kids did a really good job, showing us not only their innovate project but effectively describing their robot and hitting all their talking points in regards to iteration and design. They also talked about their core values and how they managed to work efficiently as a team to complete all their objectives. Finally, they managed to do all this while also tying it back to the overall FLL theme of renewable energy.

However, their presentation still had some things they could iron out and improve on, and our members made sure to constructively point these out. The kids could definitely do a better job of spreading the speaking around, as we felt that occasionally one person would come to dominate the entire thing while the others just stood around silent. They also could prepare more for the core values questions that we asked that sometimes led to an awkward silence. Finally, with all the great technical knowledge the teams had about their robot and their project, we felt that they could do a better job integrating that with the purpose and impact that their project had.

Overall though, it was great helping out these FLL teams, and there are a lot of good things that they did that could serve as a takeaway for some of the new recruits that joined in our preparation for Regionals.

Task: Attend to TauBot2 and transfer knowledge to the new recruits

Today was another day of onboarding recruits. For the next few weeks, along with regional preparation, we will be focused on the transfer of knowledge from seniors to recruits. Today the recruits shadowed the senior Iron Reign members, Trey and Gabriel.

Gabriel was working on TauBot 2. Trey was working on soldering a new cable harness for the arm. Tanvi shadowed Trey and practiced soldering; Sol shadowed Gabriel and learned the mechanics of previous Reign robots and TauBot while also helping Gabriel work on the UnderArm. 2.

While learning to solder, Tanvi learned the specific applications of this tool and the different materials used, as well as safety precautions. She practiced soldering with a spare plate and insulated wire. With further practice, she hopes to solidify her skills with this tool. Sol and Gabriel fixed the double motor tester today, and Gabriel reconfigured the Tau 2 UnderArm. Another recruit, Alex, studied the Iron Reign code base to become familiar with it. He hopes to further his coding knowledge by working with Vance.

Overall we helped the recruits learn skills needed to be efficient on the Iron Reign team, and continud the build of TauBot2 in preperation for Regionals, which is in 2 weeks.

Next Steps

We are working to further our recruit's knowledge and to further our progress on TauBot2. Throughout the next few weeks, our recruits will become acclimated to the Reign environment, and this will be crucial for us in order to complete the variety of tasks required to optimally prepare for Regionals. Specifically, we need to begin the code of the UnderArm and observe how the two subsystems interact to ensure that we have adequate control of the robot when it comes time to drive it. We also have to assemble the new Turrent and Shoulder and attach those to the new Chasiss. Finally, Motivate and Connect could always be improved to refine our award-winning ability.

Task: Continue to assemble TauBot2, work on portfolio, and prepare for Regionals

First off, we began assembling and wiring the UnderArm system. In the process of putting the UnderArm together, we ran into a couple of hurdles. The alignment on our parts was incredibly difficult to get right, and in the process of aligning them, we discovered that one of our servos was stripped. After tons of trial and error, we wired the servos that control the joints of the underarm. This was incredibly exciting because this was the first bit of functional mobility that our UnderArm system would be capable of. We strung the wires for connecting the servos, the new power switch, and the camera wire in a wire sleeve. We color-coded a lot of our wire management so that it's much easier to organize and understand for further replacement and continual maintenence.

Then, a seperate team worked on assembling the newly designed Shoulder and Turret. Our new Shoulder and Turret are custom-made and improve our robot in many ways. They make our robot lighter through the use of carbon fiber over aluminum. However, this mechanism is very similar to the initial iteration of TauBot. We switched to using an 8mm axle on the shoulder drive because our original shaft was too fragile and would bend under the pressure of the arm. We also worked on sourcing the right-sized bearings for our shoulder. During this meeting, we managed the slip ring wires and attached the slip ring to the carbon fiber base of the turret.

We also attached the nylon 3D-printed motor mounts for the motors that drive both the angle of the shoulder and the extension of the crane and began assembling the new motors with their required gear ratios. Preliminary work on the linear slide system also began as we 3D-printed the requisite spacers and cut the slides down to their proper length. We hope to have both these redesigned subsystems on TauBot2 as quickly as possible.

We continued to cut custom carbon fiber parts using our CNC machine, such as our belt tensioner and one of the motor mounts. In the process, we talked a lot of our new recruits through the CNC process and trained them to be proficient in using the CNC. This will help make our work with custom parts much quicker, as more people are capable of doing it. In doing this, we practiced a lot of problem-solving as we learned the hurdles that came with using a CNC machine. One such problem stemmed from the fact that step motors can't retain their positions. This led to the machine constantly losing where it was and slipping, which called for lots and lots of head-scratching and problem-solving.

Next Steps

Our next steps are to continue to train our new recruits to help make them more valuable assets to the team. With their help, we want to fully assemble and code the UnderArm system, the new Shoulder and Turret system and the new Crane. Once that's done we'd like to test the code and optimize it with the drive team so that we're ready to go for Regionals.

Task: Implement Inverse Kinematics on the UnderArm

Inverse kinematics is the process of finding the joint variables needed for a kinematic chain to reach a specified endpoint. In the context of TauBot2, inverse kinematics, or IK is used in the crane and the UnderArm. In this blog post, we'll be focused on the implementation of IK in the UnderArm.

The goal of this problem was to solve for the angles of the shoulder and the elbow that would get us to a specific field coordinate. Our constants were the end coordinates, the lengths of both segments of our UnderArm, and the starting position of the UnderArm. We already had the turret angle after a simple bearing calculation based on the coordinates of the field target and the UnderArm.

First, we set up the problem with the appropriate triangles and variables. Initially, we tried to solve the problem with solely right angle trigonometry. After spending a couple hours scratching our heads, we determined that the problem wasn't possible with solely right angle trig. Here's what our initial setup looked like.

In this image, the target field coordinate is labeled (x, z) and the upper and lower arm lengths are labeled S and L. n is the height of the right triangle formed by the upper arm, a segment of x, and the height of the target. m is the perpendicular line that extends from the target and intersects with n. We solved this problem for θ and θ₂, but we solved for them in terms of n and m, which were unsolvable.

After going back to the drawing board, we attempted another set of equations with the law of sines. More frustration ensued, and we ran into another unsolveable problem.

Our Current Solution

Finally, we attempted the equations one more time, this time implementing the law of cosines. The law of cosines allows us to solve for the side lengths of non-right triangles.

Using this, we set up the triangles one more time.

Our goals in this problem were to solve for q₁ and for α.

We quickly calculated a hypotenuse from the starting point to the target point with the Pythagorean Theorem. Using the radius and our arm length constants we determined cos(α). All we had to do from there was take the inverse cosine of that same equation, and we'd calculated α. To calculate q₁, we had to find q₂; and add it to the inverse tangent of our full right triangle's height and width. We calculated q₂ using the equation at the very bottom of the image, and we had all of the variables that we needed.

After we solved for both angles, we sanity checked our values with Desmos using rough estimates of the arm segment lengths. Here's what the implementation looks like in our robot's code.

Work on build, code, and presentation in preparation for Regionals next week.

With the Regional competition coming up quite soon, we needed to get to work finishing up the build for TauBotV2, optimizing the code with new inverse kinematics for the double-jointed UnderArm, finishing up some subsystem blog posts, and practicing and preparing our presentation.

Presentation:

With a heavily below-par performance than the Tournament presentation where we skipped the entire Connect and Motivate section, we needed to stress practicing the performance this go around. We condensed the information into quick lines for each slide, but also expanded the overall amount of content to allow us flexibility.

After that, we got in valuable presentation practice to ensure that we don’t run over the 5-minute mark and miss out on sharing valuable information to the judges. At around a medium-ish pace, we finished the entire presentation in about 4:15. Pretty good, but that does mean that a few more slides of content could be added to maximize the time.

Build:

The new shoulder, turret, and linear slides need to be fully assembled and attached to TauBot2. We made the decision to move the entire shoulder assembly up a centimeter because of size restrictions and requirements, which meant we needed to reprint most of the motor mounts for the extension and rotation motors. We also finished assembling together all the linear slides and their carriages.

Code:

This is where most of the progress for today was made. Because of the double-jointed nature of the UnderArm crane, we needed new inverse kinematics equations in order to derive the proper angles for both sets of servos. From a given (x,y) point and the constants a1 and a2, which each refer to the length of each section of the crane respectively, we should be able to calculate the requisite servo angles. Through both right triangle trig and the law of cosines, we could find angle ɑ, the angle for the servos mounted by the turret, and angle β, the angle for the servos mounted between the two sections. This should allow us to move the crane to any position we desire simply with a set of coordinates.

We plugged both equations into Desmos to find the acceptable movement distances for the entire crane and added these calculations to the codebase, although we were not able to test them tonight. This is sort of a brief overview, but there will be a more detailed blog post covering the inverse kinematics of the UnderArm soon.

Next Steps:

With Regionals next week, we need to finish the full build of TauBot2 and begin coding the UnderArm so our two “intakes” can work together effectively in union. The UnderArm is still heavily untested, and there is a chance it fails miserably, so we need to start working on ironing out its issues and getting the entire robot to a functional state where it can cycle and score a few cones as intended. Our portfolio still needs to be converted into landscape and additional content added to fill up the vast amounts of empty space that remain. We also need to start working on possibly designing a custom binder out of carbon fiber to house the entire portfolio. With only a week left, we need to start acting now in order to finish everything before Regionals. The presentation is also a little bit low on content and slides, especially for pit interviews and Q&A, so we will be transferring more of the portfolio content to the presentation. To be competitive at Regionals for an award and advancement, we will need to tier documentation, which means sorting out any potential issues and lots of effort and practice. Overall, we made lots of progress, but there is still a lot of work left to be done.

Task: Regional Prep, Portfolio Development, Underarm Wiring and new Shoulder and Turret Assembly

To start we began to bring the wiring for the UnderArm through our wiring sleeve. The current UnderArm wiring situation was less than ideal and it needed to be reworked. About half of our UnderArm’s wires were in a wire sleeve and today we added the rest to it. We need a flexible wire sleeve that can collapse in and extend out so the underarm system can extend properly without being limited by the wires and prevent tanglement. This particular design of sleeve with interlocked fibers provides that functionality and with some extra attachment points that were added today it effectively holds the wires in place during UnderArm extension. However, there was a slight mishap with one of the servo wires coming loose from its plastic case, so we had to take a quick detour and fix that, but we were able to fully finish rewiring the UnderArm.

Currently in terms of our portfolio we have been redesigning the layout to switch from a portrait to landscape orientation to hopefully better present out robot and create some buzz. In addition, we made some additions to the portfolio to increase its thoroughness, detail, and remove extranous blank space. We also made some changes and updates to the TauBot build guide to improve its quality and detail when it gets added to our Engineering Notebook for Regionals. Much of the new Shoulder and Turret assembly was not there, so we added the instructions along with a couple helpful pictures. Finally, we completed many more blog posts to catch the blog up to date in time for the Regional competition.

In terms of build, we attached our new motor mounts that we printed overnight and are a lot closer to finally finishing the whole Shoulder and Turret assembly, although both axles still require significant work.

Next Steps

Our next steps are to continue to train our new recruits to help make them more valuable assets to the team. We also need to finish TauBot build as well as to finish code testing and preparing for Regionals in both presentation and portfolio, as well as start thinking about our Regional booth.

Regionals Prep: Work on Build, Code, and Presentation

With regionals just 4 days away, we had a lot to work on for TauBot2. Today, we focused on implementing a new Joint class in all of our joints in the UnderArm, soldered wires for the new Shoulder and turret assembly, and continued to wire the robot.

Code:

One issue that we had run into before was that whenever our Servos were given angles or positions that they couldn't reach, they would run themselves as fast as they could, often into other parts of the robot, which caused a lot of damage and undid a lot of our progress. Our solution to this was to run the Servos through another Class layer that did all of the calculations for Servo position given a target angle in degrees. Most importantly, it gave us the ability to control the speed of each individual Servo, which would make testing a lot less risky.

Build:

We also soldered the wires onto the slip ring and used heat shrinks to hold the wires together. This made it so that the slip ring can rotate, thus giving our robot the ability to rotate. However, the wires were incredibly thin, which led to constant failure in the soldering of the slip rings. After many many tries, however, we were able to finally get the wires fully soldered onto the slip ring. We continued to wire the UnderArm, and used heat shrink to secure wires on the Shoulder and Turret assembly. These were both exciting developments in the build progress of the new Shoulder and Turret assembly of TauBot2.

Next Steps:

With Regionals coming up soon, we are making good progress, and we need to continue to build, code, and test the robot, as well as work on our presentation.

Review the events of the NTX Regional

Today, Iron Reign participated at the NTX Regional Championship in Flower Mound. Even with major robot performance issues, we were still able to advance to both the UIL State Championship and the FTC State Championship by winning the Motivate award after a strong presentation and portfolio showing. We ended up with a record of 1-5, which ranked us 39th out of 40th. Obviously, given the late night and lack of planning and preparation, this was partially expected, but there needs to be significant progress made in order for us to remain competitive at State and have a chance to advance to Worlds.

First, we will review the documentation events, specifically our presentation and our pit interviews. We had a new custom-designed portfolio using a ninja flex hinge, an aluminum body, and a carbon fiber cover, which was definitely unique. Our presentation was a lot smoother and more concise than the Tournament and we were able to impress the judges and involve the entire team. Our pit interviews also went decently well but could have been better, as we accidentally turned down an Innovate panel over time concerns, something that almost cost us an opportunity to meet with them. At the end of the day, our outreach and presentation ability was enough to win Motivate, allowing us to advance on from State.

Now we will go over the play-by-play for all of our matches, which did not go very well in terms of a robot performance perspective.

Match 8: 80 to 63 Loss

In our first match, we did not score any points in autonomous, instead focusing on maneuvering our robot to a spot where it could score optimally and grab cones from the same position. We are able to score one cone on a high pole. Our alliance partner parked and cycled multiple cones, but they received two major penalties for handling multiple cones at once, which led to us losing the overall match. Our robot also did become dysfunctional in the endgame as part of the arm got caught on the nudge stick attachment, preventing us from moving our crane. After the match, we removed the nudge stick guide since we were not using the nudge stick at this competition.

Match 20: 93 to 10 Loss

In the next match, we were able to fix the nudge stick problem, but then a massive code issue during gameplay and a minor mechanical issue essentially shut down the robot for the entire game. Our alliance partner also did not show up at all because right before the match, their linear slide broke. This led to one of our worst performances, as we scored 0 points and got 10 from an opponent penalty. Our robot essentially stood there for the majority of the match, unable to move its crane. We later found out that there was a shaft collar issue, which we promptly fixed, but this was quite frustrating and disheartening.

Match 30: 152 to 63 Loss

The next match went slightly better, but we still ended up with a loss. Initially, we did not score any autonomous points, and it took a while for us to get into position, which shaved valuable seconds off. We missed 2 high cones for scoring, but our alliance partners were able to score on both the low and the medium poles. We ended up not scoring at all, but this was not due to code or build, we just needed more driver practice. Our opponents were scoring very fast, and our alliance partners’ circuit attempt was not enough to subdue them. They almost even tipped trying to circuit. The loss wasn’t very bad numerically, but it stung that we couldn’t score anything.

Match 38: 152 to 63 Win

In the next match, we just parked for autonomous. Our alliance scored two high cones and parked as well. During the driver-controlled section, we had a problem with the robot and had to reinitialize the robot, while our partners cycled. While our partners fought for possessions, we managed to score 1 cone on the middle pole and got our element on a cone for the low pole. At the end of the day, we won the match comfortably, mainly due to the efforts of our partner alliance.

Match 48: 171 to 138 loss

In our 5th match, our autonomous ran, but we stumbled over a ground junction during parking, so we weren’t lined up. For TeleOp, we had to spend lots of time getting in position, but we scored on a middle and tall pole. For one cone, we tried to score while the opponent was already trying to score on it, resulting in a penalty. We got another penalty because our gripper flipped and wrapped on a pole, which was deemed a major penalty. There was, though, a penalty on the other team for moving the cone stack during their intake. After all the penalties were determined, we lost the match, which was unlucky, but the gripper issue will be something we look into.

Match 55: 112 to 68 loss

For our last match of the day, we managed to get positioned for scoring during autonomous, but missed by a hair, then parked along with our partners. Our opponents scored up to three high cones and double parked. During TeleOp, we once again spent considerable time positioning ourselves. While our partner struggled to score, we scored one cone on the nearest high pole and scored on a different high pole for spread possession. We missed a 3rd high cone but scored a cap on an opponent-possesed pole during the endgame. We even had penalty points from an opposition penalty.

Our poor time management was seen in our lackluster robot performance, but our portfolio and outreach was enough to advance us to State. We hope to use the 4 weeks we have gained to finish our robot design and code, while also expanding our connections with professionals and outreach in general.

Task: Meet with the Dallas College STEM Institute

Today, team 6832 met with Jason Treadway, Head of the Dallas College STEM Institute and a former structural engineer. We virtually presented our robot and outreach efforts and were able to both intrigue him and received important input from him.

Overall, Mr. Treadway was quite impressed with our presentation, robot, and efforts to not just “design for ourselves,” but also educate the community on robotics. He was a large fan of the recruitment pipeline we established with Dealey Robotics and our 2 JV teams.

In terms of advice on the presentation, he suggested that we focus on adapting our images to help better highlight the differences between V1 and V2, possibly a side-by-side comparison that would appeal to visual learners and help them better see the evolution. He also found some of the diagrams of the drivetrain potentially confusing, and stated that adding dimensions and more detail would make them clearer and add a point of reference.

Finally, we discussed our outreach and motivate efforts, and Mr. Treadway asked about how we found out about outreach opportunities. As a team, we definitely do a lot of networking and make an effort to talk to people and build strong relationships. We also have mentor connections, utilize cold emails, and personal connections that we do our best to take advantage of. We were also advised to follow up with our Waymo connection and possibly get a tour of their local Dallas location.

Mr. Treadway also offered us a possible later connection opportunity, where we could come to the Dallas College Brookhaven campus to present our robot to college students in early April. Overall, it was a very informative session and we would like to thank Mr. Treadway for his time and advice, and we will definitely take it into account as we head to State.

Task: Plan and strategize for the Road to State

Finally back from a much-needed break after regionals, the team got back together for a more strategy-focused meeting, and we did some preliminary work on code, build, and portfolio.

Planning:

To help us use our time efficiently, we focused the first couple hours of the meeting on planning. We created a spreadsheet with tasks, task descriptions, and deadlines. Learning from our experience at regionals, we decided to have a build freeze two weeks from the state tournament to make sure that our coders have enough time to fully integrate our new subsystems. With Spring Break coming up, we created a Doodle to help us find the best times to meet.

Code:

The main code task for today was creating collision detection for the UnderArm and the main Crane. This would add another layer of safety to make sure that our robot doesn't hit itself while it's controlled by Inverse Kinematics. We initially started by creating a line of no pass halfway between the main chassis and the chariot. We then realized that we needed more maneuverability with the UnderArm, so we created a box of no pass instead. We did this by checking if the field coordinates at the end of the UnderArm were outside the coordinates of a virtual box that we drew around the UnderArm. We also planned for the rest of the code that needs to get done before state.

Connect and Outreach:

For Connect and Outreach, we started with drafting grant applications. We need more funding to keep building the robot and attending the tournaments, and this was our first step toward acquiring some. After this, we reached out to some companies that we had connections with as a team. We talked to some people that were close with our team members so that we could get to them before state. We also emailed and contacted some newer companies with a connection to STEM.

Build:

On the build side of things, we reattached the UnderArm. We also tested new gear ratio motor speeds to find the most efficient one for our robot. We made more progress on the wiring harness for the crane and we created a couple of new custom pieces to help implement it. We also came up with a possible new solution to stagger the movement of each stage of our slide to improve predictability.

Next Steps:

Now that we have a clear plan and we've gotten some good work done already, it's just a matter of executing and polishing on the road to state.

Review the events of the UIL and FTC State Championships

This past week we participated in the FTC state championship and UIL state competition in Belton, Texas. Overall, we were successful, winning the Think Award at State and thus advancing to Worlds despite less-than-ideal robot performance. First, we will discuss judging and then transition into our game-by-game account. There will also be a post-mortem that will be uploaded later.

Regarding judging, all of it was done the week before the competition remotely. This meant we had to ensure that we remained on schedule because robot demonstrations are essential to virtual judging. Unfortunately, we could not show a live transfer, but we did have embedded videos depicting our robot’s functionality. Our main presentation and callbacks went well despite a few mishaps, especially regarding the key points we wanted to hit. Overall though, we were able to show our innovation and iteration processes and how TauBot connected with our game strategy and our team’s story as a whole.

As for gameplay at both events, it did not go as smoothly as we would have liked. We did face some trouble during sizing but managed to get the robot to fit. Here is a game-by-game account of each of our matches. Overall we went 1-11 and managed to transfer and score 3 times in total across both days. Some key notes to mention were that we did not have a working autonomous at all and thus did not run one in any of our matches.

Texas UIL

Match 4: 60 - 47 Loss

In the autonomous period, our robot did not move at all. During the teleop period, our robot hit one cone out of the substation, scored one cone, knocked another cone down, and grabbed the cone in intake, but the transfer didn’t work, and during the endgame, we were not able to score our beacon.

Match 7: 181 - 73 Loss

During the autonomous period, our robot did not move at all. In the teleop period, we had issues controlling UnderArm and determined that our driver synchronization needed to be worked on. In addition, our Crane was acting glitchy, and our flipper gripper wasn’t working. In the endgame, our robot was completely stationary the whole time.

Match 16: 251 - 75 Loss

During the autonomous period, our robot did not move at all. In the teleop period, we picked up a cone, put it back down, picked up a cone, and dropped it. During the endgame, the transfer worked, and we scored a cone. Some additional notes we took include that while transfer worked, it was inconsistent and slow (15-20 seconds for transfer, not including scoring).

Match 25: 144 - 20 Loss

During the autonomous period, our robot did not move at all. During teleop, our Crane was glitching again, and our UnderArm picked up a cone, but the Crane dropped it while trying to deposit it. Our Crane kept glitching in the endgame, but UnderArm worked to some degree.

Match 29: 171 - 83 Loss

During the autonomous period, our robot did not move at all. During teleop, our UnderArm struggled to pick up cones more than usual, and the transfer messed up. During the endgame, the robot demonstrated the same behavior as in teleop.

Match 34: 107 - 55 Loss

During the autonomous period, our robot did not move at all. During teleop, something went wrong in the shoulder of the UnderArm, and the robot stopped operating. During the endgame, the robot was stuck and couldn’t move due to the prior issue.

FTC State Championship

Match 9: 226 - 97 Loss

During the autonomous period, our robot did not move at all. During the teleop, we lost 20 points in penalties (our side). Our alliance partner wouldn’t let us go to the substation for cones, but we picked up a cone from the ground and scored. We picked a cone up from the substation, but the transfer didn’t work. During the endgame, we were not able to score our beacon..

Match 18: 280 - 29 Loss

During the autonomous period, our robot did not move at all. During teleop, the robot took long to recalibrate and transfer and couldn’t fully grab a cone. During the endgame, the turret started rotating. One thing to note was that referees said our sizing wasn’t proper (even though it was). We had to turn our robot 45 degrees, which contributed to the late start of recalibrating, which we later challenged but did not amount to anything.

Match 26: 110 - 97 Loss

During the autonomous period, our robot did not move at all. During teleop, we picked up a cone, the transfer worked, and a cone was scored; a cone got stuck but was transferred after a cancellation, and we scored a cone. During the endgame, the Crane got stuck on a pole.

Match 32: 111 - 79 Loss

During the autonomous period, our robot did not move at all. During teleop, we picked up a cone, but the transfer didn’t work, and this happened multiple times. We pulled from the cone stack during the endgame, but it didn’t land on the pole when we deposited them.

Match 39: 242 - 165 Loss

During the autonomous period, our robot did not move at all. During teleop, the robot wasn’t moving; it was completely stuck. However, during the endgame, the robot was still stuck in position. Some things to note are that we queued late and didn’t have time to run the full calibrate sequence and ended up stopping to stop the robot from breaking itself. We also started without calibration because we were told we would incur penalties. This is definitely something we can improve on.

Match 48: 144 - 88 Win

During the autonomous period, our robot did not move at all. During teleop, the robot got into position, grabbed a cone, and hyperextended the wrist, so we switched to using the Crane as both intake and depositing. Unfortunately, during the endgame, we couldn’t get the beacon. One thing to note is that the wrist went limp and couldn’t be corrected through manual control.

Even though TauBot was not up to par, we hope to spend the next 4 weeks fine-tuning it and truly turning it into a Worlds-level robot. More information on our takeaways and future plans will be discussed in our post-mortem, but we made it to Worlds at the end of the day.

Task: Recruit new members at the TAG Flight School

Today, Iron Reign presented at TAG’s Flight School in order to recruit new members in preparation for the upcoming season to fill out our sister teams, Iron Core and Iron Giant. There was a quick recruitment presentation and a demonstration of basic REV components for interested freshmen. The idea was to generate hype and interest in order to ensure attendance at a more in-depth meeting later during the school year with more logistical information and a live demo of TauBot. Efforts like this are important to ensure the sustainability of the Iron Reign program to help replace our members who graduate with ones who already have FTC experience through our sister teams.

Next Steps

Host a more in-depth informational meeting with a live demo of TauBot and a meeting at our workspace. Additionally, recruitment efforts aimed at SEM students are also a significant priority.

Task: Review our performance at the first scrimmage of the season

Earlier today, we had our first scrimmage at Woodrow Wilson! This was our first proper opportunity to interact with other teams and their robots this season and we got a chance to troubleshoot any design issues with our robot. We entered this scrimmage with our beater bar system in the vague shape of a triangle and a linear slide with a “scoopagon” as our outtake. Overall, because of a lack of driver practice, we experienced quite a few issues without our linear slide and beater bar system, but it was an incredible learning opportunity!

Play by Play

Match 1: 9 to 0 Win

Our auton wasn't enabled. We also had a bad servo configuration on our beater bar so we were essentially a “push bot” for this first match. After the autonomous period, when our drivers went to pick up their controllers, they noticed a driver station issue, rendering our robot useless for this match. We scored 0 points and our alliance partners scored the other 9 points.

Match 2: 13 to 16 Loss

Our auton wasn't enabled again because we thought it would cause our robot to crash. Our outtake wasn't working so we ended up using our beater bar to score. We managed to score two pixels but, because of a lack of driver practice and an unconventional and unplanned method of scoring, we knocked them off the backdrop into backstage. Instead of our initial plan of getting pixels from the pixel stacks, we took pixels from the wing. We wanted to take pixels from the pixel stacks because we wouldn't have to go diagonally through the opposing team's area but it wasn't possible because of the level of precision needed to score from the pixel stacks using a beater bar.

Match 3: 18 to 46 Loss

Once again, our auton wasn't enabled. We continued using our beater bar to score. We were able to score 2 pixels on the backdrop this time and we took pixels from the stacks like we had initially planned instead of from the wings. We got a lot more pixels but in the process of transferring them through our beater system, we ended up loosing quite a few of them. Our opponent got 30 points in the way of penalties, so they won. We haven't found the right balance in speeds for our beater bar's rotations, nor do we know how stiff the tabs should be. We need to do a lot more experimentation so the beater bar can be used properly to both retain pixels, take pixels from both the wings and pixel stacks and possibly score pixels on the randomization lines and the backdrop.

Match 4: 37 to 17 Win

Our auton still wasn't enabled but we had hopes we could get it to work before the next match. We continued using our beater bar to score, and we got 3 pixels on the backdrop and one backstage. By picking up pixels from the wings, we also got some level of precision with our beater bar and human player because we managed to successfully create a mosaic on the backdrop! This was our first mosaic of the season!

Match 5: 19 to 15 Loss

The highlight of the scrimmage was definitely the last match. Our auton was enabled but didn't end up working as we intended and we scored one pixel on the backdrop but we managed to drop it by hitting the backdrop with too hard a force.

Next Steps

One of the biggest issues we had throughout this meet was with our beater bar system. The “tray” we were using to keep the pixels moving through the beater bar is made out of MDF with a chiseled tip so it can lay flat against the mats. However, because of friction with the mats, it kept fraying, meaning it acted as a slight barrier for the pixels entering the beater bar. As soon as possible, we need to replace the MDF with both a thinner, more sturdy and frictionless material. Our outtake is also notoriously unreliable, especially because of how bad our servo configuration and wire management is. Our motor placement for extending the linear slide could also be improved. Overall, we want to work on improving this current iteration of our robot for now instead of completely changing our build.

Task: Review our performance at our first league meet!

Today was our first league meet, which means all our wins, losses, overall points and points gained in autonomous would count towards league tournament rankings. This was a good opportunity to see how we'd hold up against other robotics teams who all had the same amount of time to prepare for this season's game. Overall, it was a good experience and we were pleasantly surprised by our robot's capabilities as well as our luck!

Play by Play

Match 1: 26 to 10 Win

Our auton actually worked! Our robot's auton is designed to move the robot back slightly and deposit a pixel onto the middle randomization line. We scored 20 points for auton! The beater bar was slow to start, so we were at a bit of a disadvantage of our own creation, and the linear slide servo wire came out, meaning we had to rely on the beater bar for depositing our pixels. We ended up with one pixel backstage, and we parked during the end game but we were almost outside the field.

Match 2: 20 to 26 Loss

Our robot moved in auton but the beater bar didn't release the pixel. This was similar to an issue we were having at the scrimmage, where the beater bar wasn't able to get a good hold on the pixels. We scored one pixel using the beater bar but one issue we noticed was that the beater bar was getting stuck on the tape which demarcates the wings. This can be both problematic for our game because it can give the opposite team penalties and it also takes away from our ability to get pixels from the wings. We parked in end game. Some possible solutions we may look at to help with the tape issue is curving the edge of the tray of the beater bar or adding some frictionless tape so it doesn't catch as much.

Match 3: 15 to 39 Loss

Our robot, once again, moved in auton but didn't release the pixel. Immediately after auton, our robot's battery died so we couldn't move it at all. It was also a hindrance to our alliance team because it died right in front of the backdrop. We got some points from a penalty, but it was still a resounding loss. In many of our previous robotics' seasons, our robots' dying has been a major issue. As a team, we need to do a better job of ensuring that we have charged batteries available and the voltages are at the optimal amount for a fully functional robot.

Match 4: 14 to 28 Win

Our auton deployed properly but luck was not on our side; the pixel placement didn't match randomization. We scored 4 pixels on the backdrop, picking up the pixels from the wings and using our linear slide and scoopagon to score on the backdrop, but they didn't form a mosaic. In end game, both of the robots on our alliance parked!

Match 5: 54 to 60 Win

Our auton deployed properly and the pixel fell on the randomization line! Our alliance partners parked during the autonomous period as well. We scored five pixels on the backdrop but two of them got knocked off. During end game, both our alliance teams got parking! Pixels getting knocked off the backdrop are a recurring issue throughout our matches this season. We need more driver practice to make sure the scoopagon hits the backdrop with the correct amount of force to deploy the pixels but also doesn't knock off any pixels already on the backdrop. We also need a strategy to make mosaics instead of placing random pixels on the backdrop because mosaics get far more points.

Next Steps

Our outtake is still not as reliable as it could have been, especially because of the wire management and how wobbly our linear slide is overall. We have made clear progress from our scrimmage, where the outtake didn't work at all, to now, where the outtake works but isn't reliable, but there is still a lot more work to do. We've seen that our “scoopagon” is quite reliable and don't have any plans to change it at this moment, other than to secure our counterweight in a better way. We also know that using the vision pipeline is very possible for our autonomous and we want to implement that by the next league meet. We are also going to experiment with different materials for the tray of the beater bar, with it currently being a very thin sheet of aluminum.

Task: Review our performance at our 2nd League Meet

Today, Iron Reign has its second league meet. It was, in general, a helpful experience and a great chance to compete with local teams. Overall, we went 3-3 and ended up ranked 9th due to our high tie-breaker points. Even though our record was slightly worse compared to the first meet, our robot performance was significantly worse, and multiple helpful alliances gave us our wins. Code bugs and poor packaging made the meet a significant struggle for us, leaving us with a lot of ground to make up during winter break. However, before we look at some of our takeaways, here’s a brief play-by-play of our matches.

Match 1: 118 to 15 Win

We ended up not running an auton due to reliability issues. Our alliance partner scored 30 in auton through a combination of placing the purple pixel in the randomized location, a pixel on the backdrop, and navigating backstage. During tele-op, we started slowly due to a long initialization cycle. Unfortunately, the axes on the field-oriented drive made the robot almost undrivable, and it took a good 45 seconds to cross the stage door. This was a recently added feature that had not been fully tested before the competition. When we reached backstage, the preloaded yellow pixel fell out of the Scoopagon, meaning we had to go all the way back to our wing to pick up a new set of pixels - costing us time. On the way across the stage door, we got caught on our alliance partner and yanked off their drone from their launcher. Despite this, our alliance partner performed well, cycling 2 pixels onto the backdrop and hanging from the rigging.

Match 2: 40 to 31 Loss

Auton successfully placed the purple pixel on the right tape based on our team element, albeit because of a somewhat favorable noise, but we took those. After the buzzer rang, we promptly switched modes, quickly crossed underneath the stage door, and cycled two pixels on the backdrop. However, our driver Krish had trouble maneuvering back through the rigging posts, an issue that could be fixed through driver automation in tele-op. We hurried back for parking in the endgame, but our opponent managed to hang from the rigging, which gave them the win.

Match 3: 38 to 48 Loss

During this match, our robot successfully scored the purple pixel in auton, and our partner parked backstage. We cycled 1 pixel onto the backdrop, but the messed up driving system, combined with a lack of communication during pixel intake, meant that’s all we were able to score. During the meet, we tried to solve the communication issue by creating a simple hand gesture system. Unfortunately, we ended up losing because of a penalty our alliance member incurred for interfering with the pixel stacks.

Match 4: 71 to 51 Loss

Before this match even started, we had struggles with initializing the robot and setting it up for match play. Because our outtake slide was not fully retracted, we also had issues complying with the sizing requirements, which took a bit of time to sort out. A comprehensive “pre-match checklist” that we adhere to could help fix this. In auton, we deposited the purple pixel properly; from there, things worsened. Because of a code bug in the transition between op-modes, we remained stationless for the final 2 minutes. We could not solve the code error during the meet, so this issue continued to hurt us. One potential reason for this was how many code changes we were making at meet, often at the very last minute, which left us unable to fully take the time to test out the changes.

Match 5: 30 to 34 Win

Here, we missed the auton pixel and fell victim to the same code bug that happened before, which left us static for all of teleop. We got very lucky as our alliance partner scored their drone and a couple of pixels, carrying us to victory(we scored no points in this match). We thought we had fixed the code bug during testing on the practice field, but we simply didn’t have enough time to verify that.

Match 6: 37 to 26 Win

In our final match, our auton remained consistent, but yet again, the code issue reared its ugly head. This meet was very much the tale of two halves. A sort of successful first 3 matches led to us pushing new code and build changes to get features such as the lift working, which eventually

We'll be posting another post with our post-mortem thoughts, takeaways, deeper analysis, and some plans for the future.

Task: Give portfolio tips to 9161 Overload

Today, Iron Reign held a portfolio workshop for team 9161 Overload from Aledo, TX. During this meeting, we presented our old Power Play portfolio page-by-page and relayed advice we have from our past experiences and meetings with professionals. We emphasized the importance of the balance between readability and detail along with formatting. We have learned that word usage and the layout of pages can impact how the content is relayed to the reader so we made sure to discuss with the team. Lastly, we participated in a Q&A session to answer all the questions the team had.Thanks to 9161 for letting us work with them!

Task: Help the Sudie L. Williams Academy FLL teams

Today we met with four FLL teams at Sudie L. Williams TAG Academy: the Code-iators (11978), Mechanical Mammoths (43326), Robotic Robloxians (51977), and the Artsy Armadillos (46872).

We split up and had each team give a mock portfolio presentation to us as if we were judges. This not only let us help these FLL teams work on and improve their presentation skills, and give them feedback to further improve their presentation content, but also let us observe presentations to see how we could improve upon our own.

We gave feedback on four categories: Research, Robot Game, Robot Design, and Core Values. After each section presentation, we would ask questions pertaining to the section. For example, for robot design, we might ask “Explain the most Innovative part of your robot and code” if they haven't already answered it. We took notes on how well they answered the question, and anything interesting in their answer.

After we had asked our questions and finished judging, we went to give individual feedback to each of the teams we met with. The first part of this process was asking the teams what they wanted feedback on. Surprisingly enough, the teams had a good understanding of what they needed help with and asked some pretty insightful questions. Luckily, a lot of FLL portfolio knowledge applies to FTC, and we were able to answer their questions thoroughly.

Next, we worked through a judging rubric with the teams, giving them scores, explaining why they earned that score, and explaining what they might be able to work on to raise each score.

Additionally, we talked with the teams about FTC and Iron Reign, and answered their questions and any questions coaches/parents had.

Overall, we had a great time helping these four teams, and we can't wait to meet with them again!

Task: Review our performance at our 3rd League Meet

Today, Iron Reign had its third league meet. It was more successful than our last league meet, with more success with both the drone launcher and our autonomous code. Overall, we went 5-1 and ended up ranked 3rd due to our relatively high tie-breaker points. We ended up perfectly tying with the 2nd place team when it came to autonomous points, and we had a lower score than them for end-game. We saw huge improvements in driving from our previous league meets to this league meet, and learned many valuable lessons about being prepared for matches. However, before we look at some of our takeaways, here’s a brief play-by-play of our matches.

Match 1: 77 - 23 Win

We scored a 45 point auton this round, which is the highest we can score alone. We placed a purple pixel where it was supposed to go, but a bug that started happening with our auton so it could detect placement is that it starts spinning. This can lead to an issue because of how short the autonomous period is, but it wasn’t an issue here. We placed the yellow pixel on its appropriate location on the backdrop and then parked. Driving during the Tele-Op portion started out rocky and we hit the rigging a few times. We were also having issues working together with our alliance partner, as they ended up in front of the backdrop many times as we tried to score and they would be in the wings at the position we needed to be in. One of our wheels was also stuck in a pixel for the majority of the match, which is a problem that could easily have been avoided if we had side shields on the robot. Our alliance team got hung, resulting in our win.

Match 2: 88 - 102 Loss

We got a 28 point auton, where we placed the purple pixel correctly but the yellow pixel was on the wrong section of the backdrop. We also got parking. Our partner was a push bot but they could get the drone as well. We ended up getting a total of 6 pixels on the backdrop by the end of Tele-Op, and we got hang but couldn’t get the drone launched because the drone hit the rigging. Our opponent launched their drone, resulting in their win.

Match 3: 106 - 31 Win

Once again, we got a 28 point auton, where we placed the purple pixel correctly but the yellow pixel was on the wrong section of the backdrop. We also got parking. In this match, none of the other robots had an auton. During Tele-Op, we got a mosaic by placing an additional purple and green pixel. With the help of our alliance partner, Iron Core, we got 6 total pixels on the backdrop by the end of Tele-Op. By the end game, our drone had already fallen off, which was a great missed opportunity for points which remained throughout this entire league meet. The Skyhooks weren’t set up prior to the match, so they were already locked and we couldn’t hang. This showed us how much we need to have a pre-match checklist. We also got 30 points in penalties.

Match 4: 67 - 17 Win

We got a 6 point auton. The purple pixel missed the tape and the yellow pixel fell before it could reach the backdrop. We got parking, however. In Tele-Op, we knocked over the pixel stack so our alliance partner could pick up pixels from the ground. We scored a purple and green pixel in addition to a yellow pixel, resulting in a mosaic. The stage door broke as we went through the center because it was already bent and our robot hit the lowest part, resulting in it bending even further. While we were taking in new pixels, we dropped the drone. At the end of tTele-Op, we had a total of 4 pixels on the backdrop. In the end game, we hung but because our drone dislodged, we couldn’t score the drone. Our alliance partner got parking.

Match 5: 112 - 29 Win

We got a 26 point auton because we scored the purple pixel properly, but the robot dropped the yellow pixel because of the “spin sequence”, which ensures that we are pointing directly at the backdrop but takes too much time. We also got parking. In the Tele-Op portion, we hit the stage door but it didn’t mess us up too badly. Some traffic by the wings also slowed us down. We almost got a mosaic but there was a very small gap between two of the pixels, and all the pixels have to be perfectly touching to be a mosaic. We failed to try for a second mosaic even though there was time. We scored a total of 7 pixels on the backdrop, 1 on the backstage. In the end game, we scored the drone to get a full 30 points and we hung as well! This was our most successful drone launch of the league meet!

Match 6: 85 - 34 Win

We got a 25 point auton, with the purple pixel barely touching the tape. The robot did the “spin sequence” again, but timed out completely so the yellow pixel wasn’t dropped at all. We also got parking. In Tele-Op, we first scored the yellow pixel we couldn’t score because of the weird auton. One of our alliance partners also knocked one of our pixels off the backdrop. Placing one of the pixels resulted in a ricochet so we couldn’t score a mosaic. We had a total of 6 pixels on the backdrop by the end of teleop. In end game, we couldn't score a drone because the drone launcher wasn’t tensioned. This was the second match where we noticed this issue.

We'll be posting another post with our post-mortem thoughts, takeaways, deeper analysis, and some plans for the future.

Task: Help the Sudie L. Williams Academy FLL teams

Today, 3 Iron Reign team members met with three Sudie L. Williams FLL teams to provide feedback on the presentation. Each member was assigned a team to guide throughout the meeting. The teams were Code-iators (11978), Robotic Robloxians (51977), and Mechanical Mammoths (43326).

We focused our feedback on 4 major categories: research, robot game, robot design, and core values. Each team decided which presentation to show us and we acted as mock judges to create a realistic atmosphere. We were each given judging rubrics to note growth points, which we shared with the teams for their future use. This was great preparation for their upcoming meet. The teams did a wonderful job and their dedication to FLL was very clear! Their presentations/projects were very creative and on theme. We did notice a few things the teams could work on, such as making more eye contact and being more familiar with their scripts. To help out with this, we encouraged the kids to understand the gist of their lines more than the exact wording so that they can relay the content without getting caught up with the specifics of the script. After we provided feedback for their presentations, many members of the FLL teams asked us individual questions regarding future FIRST opportunities in FTC. We were able to share our experiences and encouraged them to join an FTC team in the future.

Overall, major thanks to the Sudie Academy for allowing us to help out and we wish their FLL teams the best for their upcoming tournament. We had a fantastic time and look forward to meeting with them in the future!

Iron Reign’s state bound! At NTX Regionals, we proudly got Inspire 3, and were the 5th advancement to FTC Texas UIL and the State Championship! With the State championship coming up in only a few weeks, we have a lot of work to do to get our robot up to par, including buying new parts and increasing our outreach efforts. New motors and servos are expensive, and we want to put more money into sustaining our program past just this season. However, we need your help and support to do so.

While we welcome donations any time of the year, they are especially appreciated as we prepare for this upcoming challenge. Any and all support is deeply appreciated, including warm wishes and DMs on our Instagram account. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out via email at ironreignrobotics@gmail.com or through our instagram, @team6832.

Thank you for all your support and we hope to see you cheering us on at FTC State and beyond!