Today we performed proper field testing of the Launcher subsystem. While we have done many tests in the past...

RingSlinger 9000 Summary

RingSlinger 9000 Summary By Jose

Task: Summarize the key components of Ring Launcher 9000

A ring launcher is more than just a flywheel; it needs a barrel to give the ring a path to move through. A 90 degree...

Materials Test Planning

Materials Test Planning By Bhanaviya

Task: Create a system to test our materials to better understand their grip potential

Here at Iron Reign, we're used to using off-the-shelf materials for our robot. For this season,...

Intake Iterations Summary

Intake Iterations Summary By Bhanaviya and Ben

Custom Flywheel CAD

Custom Flywheel CAD By Jose

Task: CAD a custom flywheel

Instead of using a grip wheel to launch rings we went with the approach to make a custom flywheel. The key concept of a flywheel is to maximize rotational...

Code Planning For The New Season

Code Planning For The New Season By Mahesh

Game Reveal:

Today...

Connecting with Motus Labs

Connecting with Motus Labs September 08, 2020 By Bhanaviya

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...

Co-Hosting the Caravan CAD Challenge

Co-Hosting the Caravan CAD Challenge By Jose

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...

Summer Summary

Summer Summary July 11, 2020 By Bhanaviya, Jose, Anisha, Paul, Shawn, Trey, Justin, Aaron, Ben, Mahesh, and Cooper

Talking Heads: Summary July 11, 2020

Task: Prepare for the 2020-2021 Game Reveal season

Today kicked off our first...

Narrowing Down the Configuration of the New Vehicle

Narrowing Down the Configuration of the New Vehicle By Bhanaviya

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...

Code Changes The Week Before Regionals

Code Changes The Week Before Regionals By Mahesh and Cooper

In order to increase the spice factor for TomBot, we need to custom machine our own side plates out of aluminum using our CNC. The design...

OpenCV Grip Pipeline By Mahesh

During the STEM Expo, while also helping volunteer, we worked on auto. There were a series of cascading events that were planned and completed. The first...

DISD STEM Expo 2020

DISD STEM Expo 2020 By Ben, Justin, Jose, Cooper, Paul, Trey, Mahesh, and Shawn

Task: Operate an exhibit at the DISD STEM Expo

DISD STEM Expo has been our busiest event this year. Many kids, ranging from elementary...

Growing Pains and Reigns

Growing Pains and Reigns By Bhanaviya, Shawn, Mahesh, and Anisha

Today we started testing out our new two controller setup. The goal is to have one driver control just the base, and have the other driver...

STEM Expo Preparation

STEM Expo Preparation By Bhanaviya

Task: Plan for the DISD STEM Expo

Thank you to all the volunteers that gave up their Saturday to contribute to the FTC community in North Texas. Because...

Townview Qualifier 2019 - The Day Of

Townview Qualifier 2019 - The Day Of By Bhanaviya, Jose, Paul, Aaron, Justin, Trey, Ben, Karina, Cooper, Jayesh, Tycho, and Max

Task: Run the Townview Tournament

On Saturday, December 15, Iron Reign hosted 31...

Townview Qualifier 2019 - Set Up

Townview Qualifier 2019 - Set Up By Ben, Jose, Karina, Justin, Bhanaviya, Cooper, Paul, and Trey

Task: Prepare Townview for the upcoming qualifier

It’s officially been a week since our first qualifier at Allen. Although we succeeded in qualifying there’s still...

Capstone Version 3

Capstone Version 3 By Jose

Task: Design a minimalistic capstone that can be deployed by the stone gripper

This version of our capstone is to be 3D modeled and printed as well as be as compact...

Bill of Materials

Bill of Materials By Bhanaviya, Trey, and Jose

While using our untested code and inexperienced drivers at the Allen STEAM Center this weekend, we encountered many...

Build Post-Mortem

Build Post-Mortem By Bhanaviya and Aaron

Task: Begin analyzing long-term build improvements

Moving on from the Allen qualifier, there are a couple issues we need to fix. Aside from the usual wear and tear a robot experiences in...

Last Minute Code Changes By Cooper

3 Different iterations of the passive suspension.

We've decided to design a suspension for our circular chassis for one reason. Under the neutral bridge, there is a 15mm lip...

Coding Before Scrimmage

Coding Before Scrimmage By Cooper, Karina, Bhanaviya, and Trey

Initial Design: Rolling Intake

Tonight we set out to organize our thoughts and projects...

Fixing Mini-Mech

Fixing Mini-Mech By Cooper

Task: Fix Mini-Mech in time for the Skystone reveal

In two weeks, Iron Reign is planning on building a robot in 2 days, based on the 2019-2020 Skystone Reveal Video. We've never really...

Sustainability Goals

Sustainability Goals By Bhanaviya

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....

Letters to Congressional Representatives

Letters to Congressional Representatives By Bhanaviya, Jose, and Ethan

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...

Mayor’s Back to School Fair

Mayor’s Back to School Fair By Bhanaviya, Jose, and Ethan

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

Students learning to model keychains

Iron Reign was given...

SEM Nest Camp

SEM Nest Camp By Bhanaviya, Jose, and Paul

Task: Introduce incoming freshmen to our robotics program

I(Jose) fixed the battery box and charged the robot phones and batteries so that we could charge Icarus before next Saturday....

Frontiers Of Flight Museum Outreach

Frontiers Of Flight Museum Outreach By Paul, Bhanaviya, Ethan, Justin, Jose, Benb, Janavi, Evan, Aaron, Abhi, and Evan

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

Task: Prepare for the 2019-2020 Skystone season

Today kicked off our first meeting for the new Skystone...

DPRG RoboRama Competition

DPRG RoboRama Competition By Jose and Paul

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...

DPRG RoboRama Prep

DPRG RoboRama Prep By Jose and Paul

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...

Discover Summer Fair

Discover Summer Fair By Bhanaviya, Ethan, Karina, and Jose

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

Students drive-test their newly-programmed LEGO robots

This Saturday was the Discover Summer Fair organized...

Worlds Day 4

Worlds Day 4 By Jose, Bhanaviya, BenB, Aaron, Cooper, Paul, Arjun, Justin, Karina, Ethan, Evan, Charlotte, and Abhi

Task: Participate in Alliance Selection and attend the Award Ceremony

Presentation

Our presentation went...

Project Management Post-Mortem

Project Management Post-Mortem By Charlotte

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...

REV Beta Test

REV Beta Test By Bhanaviya, Ethan, Karina, Justin, Arjun, Jose, Benb, Janavi, Evan, Aaron, Abhi, and Beno

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

Founders of REV working with our team

REV...

Control Hub First Impressions

Control Hub First Impressions By Arjun and Abhi

Task: Test the REV Control Hub ahead of the REV trial

Iron Reign was recently selected to attend a REV Control Hub trial along with select other teams in...

Final Gantt Chart

Final Gantt Chart By think

Due to our new intake articulation involving the superman wheel the ice cube tray intake is slightly too...

MXP Expansion

MXP Expansion By Ethan

Task: Plan the next stage of the MXP

Since the last post, in which we installed the Superman Arm, we've installed the second stage of the linear lift and the belt drive that accompanies...

Center of Gravity calculations

Center of Gravity calculations By Arjun

Task: Determine equations to find robot Center of Gravity

Today's Meet Objectives

Objective Summary

Fix camera mount, attach lift motors, make custom cables for the drive motors, and forge the hook

Today's Work...

New Elbow

New Elbow By Justin

Task: Design an elbow for bigwheel that we can 3d print

To speed up the build process of the new robot, we made a 3D printable part of the elbow joint. The...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log March 23, 2019 By Charlotte, Ethan, Bhanaviya, Karina, Jose, Justin, BenB, BenO, Arjun, Cooper, Paul, Abhi, Janavi, and Aaron

Meeting Log March 23, 2019

Today's Meet Objectives

Agenda

Objective Summary

Today, our main goal...

Intake Speed

Intake Speed By Karina

Task: Analyze efficiency of our intake system

A big part of our redesign is improving our intake system. To see where some of the errors may lie, we took detailed videos of our robot intaking silver and...

Bill of Materials

Bill of Materials By Bhanaviya and Karina

Task: Create a list of parts needed for the new robot

To determine all the materials we need for the new robot, Karina and I started a Bill of Materials....

Meeting Log

Meeting Log March 22, 2019 By Bhanaviya, Janavi, Abhi, Arjun, Ben O, Paul, Ben B, and Cooper

Meeting Log March 22, 2019

Today's Meet Objectives

Agenda

Objective Summary

Over the course of today’s meet, we plan to create new axle...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log March 20, 2019 By Bhanaviya, Karina, Evan, and Justin

Meeting Log March 20, 2019

Meeting Log March 16, 2019

Today's Meet Objectives

Localization

Localization By Ben

Localization

A feature that is essential to many advanced autonomous sequences is the ability to know the robots absolute location (x position, y position, heading). For our localization, we determine the robots position relative to the fields coordinate frame. To track our position, we use encoders (to...

Off-Schedule Meeting Log - Spring Break

Off-Schedule Meeting Log - Spring Break March 08, 2019 By Charlotte, Cooper, Karina, Bhanaviya, BenO, Abhi, Janavi, Jose, Aaron, and Arjun

Meeting Log March 08, 2019

Friday

Widen Superman

OVERALL:

Read More

North Texas Regional Postmortem

North Texas Regional Postmortem By Ethan, Charlotte, Abhi, Janavi, Evan, Ben, Jose, Justin, Karina, Bhanaviya, and Arjun

Task: Analyze what went wrong at North Texas Regionals

We performed really well at Regionals; we actually won our first game of the season...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log March 02, 2019 By Charlotte, Ethan, Evan, Justin, Karina, Janavi, Jose, Ben, Abhi, and Bhanaviya

Meeting Log March 02, 2019

Today's Meet Objectives

Since we qualified for worlds, we are using today as an opportunity...

SEM FTC Robotics advances to State and Worlds Championships

SEM FTC Robotics advances to State and Worlds Championships By Ethan

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...

Wylie Regionals 2019

Wylie Regionals 2019 By Ethan, Charlotte, Evan, Kenna, Karina, Abhi, Arjun, Bhanaviya, Ben, Justin, Jose, and Janavi

Task: Compete at the North Texas Regional Tournament

Preparation

Unlike other tournaments, we started packing before morning. We packed as...

How to connect gamepads directly to RC phone without a DS phone

How to connect gamepads directly to RC phone without a DS phone By Arjun

How to tweak ftc_app to allow you to drive robots without a Driver Station phone:

A lot of teams have been asking about how we were able...

Up-to-Date Bigwheel Model

Up-to-Date Bigwheel Model By Justin

Task: Finish the Bigwheel model

Updating the Bigwheel model to the robot’s current configuration was a challenge. The new linear slides are not standard parts, so we had to model them from...

Cart Hack

Cart Hack By Arjun

We made more secure way of activating our hook, so we switched our piece of wire attaching the servo to the hook with a much stronger and...

Bigwheel Model

Bigwheel Model By Justin

Task: Design and update the Bigwheel Model

We are updating our bigwheel model to represent our current robot. We had a model of just the chassis from the chassis study, so we are...

Autonomous Non-Blocking State Machines

Autonomous Non-Blocking State Machines By Arjun

Task: Design a state machine class to make autonomous easier

In the past our autonomous routines were tedious and difficult to change. Adding one step to the beginning of an autonomous would require changing the...

Woodrow Wilson Scrimmage

Woodrow Wilson Scrimmage By Bhanaviya, Charlotte, Janavi, Kenna, Karina, Evan, Abhi, Jose, Ben B, and Arjun

Task: Compete at the Woodrow Wilson Scrimmage with Woodrow teams

This past Saturday, Iron Reign competed in the Woodrow...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log By Charlotte, Evan, Ethan, Kenna, Karina, Abhi, Arjun, Ben, Jose, Janavi, and Bhanaviya
Meeting Log February 09, 2019

Today's Meet Objectives

Today we participated at a scrimmage held at Woodrow Wilson High School. This was...

Latch 2.0 - Forged in Flame

Latch 2.0 - Forged in Flame By Evan

Task: Design a new latch for hanging

Our latching system is too complicated to use quickly; it requires too much reliance on driver control and becomes jammed. So,...

Drive Testing at STEM Expo

Drive Testing at STEM Expo By Ben and Abhi

Task: Test robot performance at the STEM Expo to inspire younger kids and practice

STEM Expo Preparation By Bhanaviya and Benb

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...

Mechanical Depositing

Mechanical Depositing By Evan

Task: Create a mechanical deposit for our selective deposit

To relieve driver stress, we decided to put a mechanical release mechanism that would drop the minerals into the passive sorter to then further...

Intake Omnis

Intake Omnis By Ben

Task: Add omnidirectional wheels to intake arm

We need to add omniwheels to the intake arm to allow the arm to rest on the ground, while still maintaining the necessary height for collecting the minerals. If the...

Gearkeepers

Gearkeepers By Jose and Evan

Task: Create and install gearkeepers to reduce slippage

Our first attempt at a latch was made out of flat metal L brackets that would slide into the hook, but they slid off under...

Wylie East Postmortem

Wylie East Postmortem By Ethan, Janavi, Charlotte, Karina, Abhi, Justin, Kenna, Arjun, and Bhanaviya

Task: Analyze what went wrong at Wylie

We performed well at Wylie, comparatively speaking. But, there's always room for improvement.

Problems:

The Robot &...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log January 26, 2019 By Charlotte, Kenna, Ethan, Justin, Arjun, Abhi, and Bhanaviya

Meeting Log January 26, 2019

Today's Meet Objectives

We are going to use our experience from last week to guide our improvement...

Code Updates By Abhi and Arjun

Task: Detail last-minute code changes to autonomous

It is almost time for competition and with that comes a super duper autonomous. For the past couple of weeks and today, we focused on making our depot...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log January 12, 2019 By Charlotte, Kenna, Karina, Evan, Justin, Abhi, Ethan, Arjun, and Janavi

Meeting Log By Bhanaviya, Charlotte, Kenna, Evan, Arjun, Ethan, Janavi, Karina, Austin, Lin, Jayesh, and Omar
Meeting Log January 05, 2019 Today's Meet Objectives

Today's goals include lowering the latch on Superman so that it becomes...

Modeling Slide Barriers

Modeling Slide Barriers By Kenna

Task: Create barriers to prevent the linear slide from falling

Recently, we added polycarb barriers to our linear slide system. They were created as a temporary measure by bending the polycarb with...

Auto Paths

Auto Paths By Abhi

Task: Map and code auto for depot side start

Hello and welcome to the Iron Reign...

Creating Side-Latches

Creating Side-Latches By Evan

Task: Allow the robot's arms to stand on their own

The issue with the lift is that many of the pieces that need to be made require specificity that’s hard to obtain using...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log December 22, 2018 By Charlotte, Ethan, Janavi, Bhanaviya, Evan, Arjun, and Abhi

Meeting Log December 22, 2018

Today's Meet Objectives

Our goals for today include a battery box, repair and improvement of our intake system, and...

Scoring Mechanism

Scoring Mechanism By Janavi and Abhi

In our post "Selecting Lift System" we decided that the linear slide system that we will...

Townview Qualifier 2018 - The Day Of

Townview Qualifier 2018 - The Day Of By Ethan, Janavi, Evan, Abhi, Charlotte, Karina, Kenna, Arjun, Jayesh, and Bhanaviya

Task: Run the Townview Tournament

On Saturday, December 15, Iron Reign hosted 30 teams at the Townview Magnet...

Helping PiGuardians with Code

Helping PiGuardians with Code By Arjun

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...

Selecting Lift System By Janavi

Objective: Determine the type of lift system will allow us to delatch and reach the lander

In our past post Choosing Drive Train we decided that we will use the chassis BigWheel. After deciding the base...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log December 01, 2018 By Charlotte, Ethan, Kenna, Evan, Abhi, Justin, and Bhanaviya

C.A.R.T. Bot Side Shields By Ethan

Task: Design sideshields for the Townview Tournament

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...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log November 17, 2018 By Charlotte, Karina, Kenna, Janavi, Evan, Justin, Ethan, Arjun, Bhanaviya, and Abhi

Meeting Log November 17, 2018

Evan working on the robot!

Today's Meet Objectives

We are going to discuss multiple facets...

Conrad Qualifier Post Mortem - Short Term

Conrad Qualifier Post Mortem - Short Term By Ethan, Bhanaviya, Janavi, Charlotte, Kenna, Arjun, Justin, Janavi, Karina, and Abhi

Task: Analyze what went wrong at Conrad

Iron Reign didn't necessarily have the best time at Conrad. As...

Materials Testing Planning

Materials Testing Planning By Ethan

Task: Design a lab to test nylon properties

So, Iron Reign is used to using off-the-shelf materials on our robot: silicone oven gloves, ice cube trays, nylon 3D-printed parts, and more. But, we've never actually done...

Conrad Qualifier By Ethan, Charlotte, Karina, Janavi, Bhanaviya, Abhi, Arjun, Evan, and Justin

Task: Compete at the N. TX Conrad Qualifier

For extension both into the crater and lifting our robot up to the crater we have decided test a linear slide system. We plan to utilize linear slide...

Torque Calculations

Torque Calculations By Karina

Iron Reign will be attending a scrimmage on Saturday, but to attend a scrimmage, you usually...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log October 20, 2018 By Charlotte, Kenna, Janavi, Ethan, Arjun, Justin, and Abhi

Meeting Log October 20, 2018

Sumo bots at SEM STEM Spark

Today's Meet Objectives

Today we are taking part in a massive outreach event to...

Developing a CNN

Developing a CNN By Arjun and Abhi

Code Testing with Arjun

Today's Meet Objectives

We set up some tables with FTC Starter Kits for our new recruits...

Labelling Minerals - CNN

Labelling Minerals - CNN By Arjun and Abhi

Task: Label training images to train a Neural Network

To increase the efficiency of our robot, we looked into ways to passively sort minerals during intake and deposit. It is important to sort because it requires...

CNN Training Program

CNN Training Program By Arjun and Abhi

Task: Designing a program to label training data for our Convolutional Neural Network

In order to use the captured training data, we need to label it by identifying the location...

BigWheel Chassis

BigWheel Chassis By Evan

Task: Work on a possible chassis

We've been toying around with the idea of using BigWheel, our Summer Chassis Research Project bot, in this year's competition with a few modifications. The idea for this robot is that...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log September 28, 2018 By Charlotte, Karina, Kenna, Janavi, Evan, Abhi, Justin, Ethan, and Arjun

Meeting Log September 28, 2018

Coding lessons with new recruits

Home Depot Trip!

Today's Meet Objectives

As we are starting to make more serious strides in...

Chassis Brainstorming

Chassis Brainstorming By Ethan and Evan

Task: Brainstorm chassis designs

At the moment, we've used the same chassis base for three years, a basic mechanum base with large wheels. However, we don't really want to do the same this year. At...

CNN Training

CNN Training By Arjun and Abhi

Task: Capture training data for a Convolutional Neural Network

In order to train a Convolutional Neural Network, we need a whole bunch of training images. So we got out into the...

Vision Discussion

Vision Discussion By Arjun and Abhi

Task: Consider potential vision approaches for sampling

Part of this year’s game requires us to be able to detect the location of minerals on the field. The main use for this is in sampling. During...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log September 15, 2018 By Charlotte, Karina, Kenna, Janavi, Evan, Abhi, Justin, and Ethan

Meeting Log September 15, 2018

Today Austin, an Iron Reign alumni, visited us from A&M! :)

Today's Meet Objectives

As...

Brainstorming Two

Brainstorming Two By Evan, Abhi, and Janavi

Task: Have a 2nd brainstorming session

We had another brainstorming session today, which allowed us to break down into some new building tasks.

Intake System 3 - TSA Bag Scanner

This part...

Selecting Wheels

Selecting Wheels By Janavi

Objective: Determine the type of wheel that best suits the chassis

In the Choosing Drive Train E-16 we decided that we will use the chassis BigWheel. We know that our wheels need to be light weight but...

Choosing Drive Train

Choosing Drive Train By Janavi

Task: Analyze the game

In our last post, we created a chart where we listed each task asked based on point value and the level of difficulty, separated by autonomous and teleop. Our goal is to...

Rover Ruckus Strategy

Rover Ruckus Strategy By Ethan, Kenna, Charlotte, Evan, Abhi, Justin, Karina, and Aaron

Task: Determine the best Rover Ruckus strategies

Testing Intakes

Testing Intakes By Ethan and Evan

Task: Design a prototype intake system

In our first practice, we brainstormed some intake and other robot ideas. To begin testing, we created a simple prototype of a one-way intake system. First, we attached two...

2018 Kickoff

2018 Kickoff By Ethan, Evan, Kenna, Charlotte, Abhi, Justin, Karina, and Arjun

Task: Attend the North Texas FTC Kickoff

Iron Reign Clutter

One of Iron Reign's greatest weaknesses is the organization of our physical space. It is rare that our workspace is...

Mentor Involvement from MIT

Mentor Involvement from MIT By Abhi

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...

BigWheel CAD

BigWheel CAD By Ethan

Task: Create a mockup for BigWheel

We've been working on a design for the chassis workshop for quite a while now. We already presented it at the first meeting, and now we need...

At Big Thought's offices in downtown Dallas, three teams met. Technicbots (Team 8565), EFFoRT (Team 8114), Schim Robotics (12900), and Iron...

Chassis Flyer

Chassis Flyer By Ethan

Kraken

This is Iron Reign’s world-championship robot from last season. The basic rundown is this:

Weight - 42 lbs
Size - 18x17.8x17.5 inches
Drive - Mecanum
Main parts kit - REV

...

Moon Day 2018

Moon Day 2018 By Karina, Ethan, Janavi, and Charlotte

FTC is undergoing a series of changes next year that will most likely negatively impact Iron Reign's ability to advance...

Turn Up! at Dallas Love Field

Turn Up! at Dallas Love Field By Justin, Ethan, Charlotte, Kenna, Abhi, and Evan

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

Background

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...

Championship Scouting Sheet

Championship Scouting Sheet By Abhi

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...

REV Rail Deformation and Faults of Design

REV Rail Deformation and Faults of Design By Karina, Austin, and Abhi

Task: Analyze Source of Gripper break

Read More

Autonomous Updates, Multiglyph Part 2

Autonomous Updates, Multiglyph Part 2 By Abhi, Karina, and Tycho

Task: Develop multiglyph for far Stone

We had a functional autonomous for the balacing stone close to the audience. However, chances are that our alliance partner would want that...

REVolution on Thingiverse

REVolution on Thingiverse By Abhi

Task: Publish REVolution Parts

Procedure

Obtain a fully charged REV battery - should say ~13V on our battery charger
Record the voltage upon being plugged in...

iMake 2018

iMake 2018 By Ethan, Charlotte, Karina, Austin, Justin, and Tycho

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...

Iron Reign Engineering Journal Summary

Iron Reign Engineering Journal Summary By Ethan

Task: Write a summary page for the engineering journal

The generic engineering journal rubric given to teams by FIRST heavily recomends having a season-summary intro page at the front of the journal. As well,...

Business Plan Updates

Business Plan Updates By Ethan

Task: Update the Business/Strategic Plan

See the first and second posts here.

Cumulative Updates as of 3/22/2018

MXP

To make Iron Reign’s history entirely clear, we built the RV last...

Motor Constants and Future Plans

Motor Constants and Future Plans By Ethan

Task: Find constants for the motors for future calculations

In order to better predict how our robot will work, we first need to find a few constants to do calculations. Luckily, our school has...

South Super Regionals 2018 Postmortem

South Super Regionals 2018 Postmortem By Charlotte, Ethan, Tycho, Austin, Janavi, Abhi, Karina, Kenna, and Evan

Task: Reflect on our accomplishments in South Super Regionals

Judging

Strengths
In previous presentations, we have had difficulty with timing and conveying...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log March 17, 2018 By Abhi, Tycho, Ethan, Janavi, Austin, Karina, and Kenna

Meeting Log March 17, 2018

We always struggle a little with describing our robot to the judges. So, this post will be the third in a series of posts describing the physics of our...

Which Cipher?

Which Cipher? By Abhi

Task: Find which cipher works best

After continual development and adding the fifth grabber, it became time to make a new model.

With some sick upgrades, Kraken has become reborn just in time...

Designing the Tent

Designing the Tent By Janavi and Kenna

Task:

So, its Supers time again! And that means its time to design our tents and pick a theme for ourselves. Last year, when Iron Reign went to Supers for the first time, we...

Meeting with Advanced Waterjet Cutting

Meeting with Advanced Waterjet Cutting By Tycho and Austin

Advanced Waterjet Cutting

Today we visited the Advanced Waterjet Cutting office and spoke to Sal Copado and Chris regarding our side shield designs. We had called a couple days in advance...

Relic Arm V2

Relic Arm V2 By Abhi and Christian

Task: Revise Relic Arm

As were continuing development of the relic arm, we realized we needed to make several modifications. That resulted in the following design.

This demonstrates the latest version...

Revolution Flyer

Revolution Flyer By Tycho

Strengths
Some of our team members...

Meeting With Mr.Palacios

Meeting With Mr.Palacios By Janavi, Charlotte, Ethan, Evan, Abhi, Austin, Tycho, Karina, and Kenna

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...

North Texas Regionals, 2018

North Texas Regionals, 2018 By Ethan, Evan, Abhi, Tycho, Janavi, Charlotte, Austin, Karina, and Kenna

Task: Win at the North Texas Regionals

Introduction

All over the city, lights turned on. In each house, a member departed, on...

Last Minute Robot Fixes

Last Minute Robot Fixes By Ethan and Evan

Task: Add last-minute design changes to the robot

It was a temperate night. The waning moon shone overhead, a blazing reminder of the continuity of time, for as the moon dipped lower in...

Designing Grabber V. 4.5

Designing Grabber V. 4.5 By Ethan, Evan, and Austin

Task: Build an Updated Grabber System

So, we probably won't finish both the Grabber V.5 and the Flipper designs by the North Texas Regional this Saturday, but we...

Relic Recovery

Relic Recovery By Abhi

Task:Develop a relic arm

Now that we had developed a glyph game and a stable autonomous, it has come time for Iron Reign to conquer the true challenge of the 2017-2018 competition: Relic Recovery.

...

Control Award Updates

Control Award Updates By Janavi

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...

Conveyor Belt V2

Conveyor Belt V2 By Abhi

Task: Develop Conveyor System 2

After analyzing the lack of speed from our last competition, we decided to continue the journey of attaching the gripper arms to a conveyor belt as previously designed. To...

Building a new chassis

Building a new chassis By Karina and Janavi

Task:

Janavi and I have started to build a new chassis for Kraken 2.0., modelled after Kraken’s current chassis.

We have a new format for our postmortems. We start by asking a series of...

Friction Coefficients of Various Materials

Friction Coefficients of Various Materials By Ethan

Task: Test Friction Coefficients of Various Materials

Introduction:

Iron Reign has used many different materials in years past. In those years, we usually preferred materials which were more durable. We...

DISD STEM Fair

DISD STEM Fair By Kenna, Tycho, Evan, Ethan, Charlotte, Karina, Abhi, Janavi, and Austin

DISD STEM Fair was one of our busiest events, but it was also one of our least chaotic. Our team has...

Wylie East Qualifier 2018

Wylie East Qualifier 2018 By Ethan, Evan, Charlotte, Janavi, Karina, Tycho, Austin, Abhi, and Kenna

Task: Compete at the Wylie East Qualifier

Introduction

It was a cold and dark morning. The howling winds of a cold front...

Prepping for Wiley

Prepping for Wiley By Janavi, Karina, Ethan, Charlotte, Kenna, Abhi, Austin, Tycho, and Evan

Task:

It was countdown time before the competition, we had to practice driving our robot, pack the MXP, and practice our presentation....

Helping Other Teams

Helping Other Teams By Austin and Tycho

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...

How to Make a Robotics Team in 7 Easy Steps!

How to Make a Robotics Team in 7 Easy Steps! By Janavi

Task:

So you want to make a robotics team? No fear! We'll show you how to in 7 easy steps!

Step 1: Find Support Resources
...

Iron Reign and Sponsorships

Iron Reign and Sponsorships By Ethan

A Summary of the 2017-2018 Iron Reign Sponorships

Iron Reign, generally, has not been great at finding sponsorships in prior years. However,

DISD STEM Expo Preparation

DISD STEM Expo Preparation By Charlotte

Task: Prepare for DISD STEM Expo

Next Saturday, Iron Reign will be participating in the DISD STEM Expo for our second year. As we did last year, we are bringing our...

Creo Parametric, a Learning Journey

Creo Parametric, a Learning Journey By Abhi

Introducing Kraken By Abhi and Tycho

Task:Design the robot model

We have finally completed assembly modeling Kraken, Iron Reign's Relic Recovery robot. Named after the sea creature due to the robot's OCTOPUCKERS, Kraken stands as a fierce competitor in FTC....

Business Plan Updates

Business Plan Updates By Ethan

Task: Update the Business/Strategic Plan

See the first post with the full text here.

Flipper Prototype

Flipper Prototype By Evan

Task: Build an alternate glyph-placing mechanism

The world advances on innovation. We strive to make the most efficient devices and aparati to complete jobs for us. There’s a hundred different ways to work a task, but only one will be the best at functioning in the areas of efficiency and timeliness. Just as America runs on Dunkin, advancement runs on efficiency.

REVolution Inside Washer

REVolution Inside Washer By Tycho

Task: Power to the REVolution

This is a standard pillow block. We had to add adhesion pads to the ends because the nylon would curl away from the print bed. But these...

REVolution Thick HingePlate

REVolution Thick HingePlate By Tycho

Task: Power to the REVolution

This is our most used hinge plate. The 4 holes can take M3 screws to attach to a REVrail on one side at the end.

...

REVolution Narrow Inside Washer

REVolution Narrow Inside Washer By Tycho

Task: Power to the REVolution

This washer is a stackable spacer that can be used to adapt standard bearings/sprockets/pulleys to thinned base plates.

Townview Qualifier 2017

Townview Qualifier 2017 By Kenna, Abhi, Ethan, Austin, Evan, Charlotte, Karina, Tycho, Janavi, and Jayesh

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.

SEM Robotics Tournament

SEM Robotics Tournament By Coach

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

Qualifier Preparation

Qualifier Preparation By Kenna, Abhi, Karina, Charlotte, Tycho, Janavi, Ethan, Austin, and Jayesh

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

Task: Power to the REVolution

The dual rail plate allows you to couple the rotation of two REVrails together. The distance between the holes should be based on how you...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log December 09, 2017 By Ethan, Evan, Tycho, Austin, Janavi, Charlotte, and Abhi

Meeting Log December 09, 2017

Today's Meet Objectives

Organization / Documentation / Competition Prep

Review Journal
Write post-mortem

REVolution Pulley

REVolution Pulley By Tycho

Task:Build an Army Worthy of Mordor

This GT2 pulley has rounded teeth that engage nicely. GT2 pulleys and timing belts are the most common in use with 3D printers - but those are...

Gripper v4, Octopuckers

Gripper v4, Octopuckers By Tycho and Abhi

Task: Design a new piece for intake

Version 2 of our gripper arms worked much better than our original. Due to their silicone material and trianglular shape, we definitely had more control over the glyphs...

SEM Robotics Tournament

SEM Robotics Tournament By Coach

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...

Oklahoma 2017 Post-Mortem

Oklahoma 2017 Post-Mortem By Ethan, Evan, Tycho, Austin, Janavi, Kenna, Abhi, Charlotte, and Karina

Task: Recap what went right and wrong in Oklahoma

Once done, our postmortem post will be here.

On Nov. 17, we went to the Oklahoma Mustang HS qualifier. Our strategy for this tournament was to attempt to qualify in multiple regions so that we have more chances to get to the South Super Regionals. For this tournament, the DISD STEM Dept. funded

Intake Grippers Pt2

Intake Grippers Pt2 By Evan

Task: Attach the new intake grippers

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.

Drive Practice

Drive Practice By Karina, Charlotte, and Abhi

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...

Code Fixes and Readability

Code Fixes and Readability By Tycho

Task: Make the code more readable

So, we were absolute failures. There's no way to get around that. We got 14th place out of 14, and our presentation flopped. But, its not the end of the world

Adding Code Fixes to the Robot

Adding Code Fixes to the Robot By Tycho

Task: Add code updates

These commits add said functionality:

Pre-game logic - joystick control
Fix PID settings

Relic Recovery Strategy Part 1

Relic Recovery Strategy Part 1 By Austin

Today is one of the last full meetings until our tournament, so we need to get everything ready for judging. This post also includes the objectives for the next week.

DISD Sponsorship

DISD Sponsorship By Ethan

DISD's sponsorship of Iron Reign

As referenced in another blog post, we recently went to a DISD Coaches' meeting. Shortly after the meeting, we were confirmed to be the host of the DISD Townview Qualifier. So, DISD was able to send us

So, You Want to Build Your Own RV

So, You Want to Build Your Own RV By Ethan

How to build your own RV in 6 easy steps.

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,

Working on Autonomous

Working on Autonomous By Tycho

Task: Create a temporary autonomous for the bot

We attempted to create an autonomous for our first scrimmage. It aimed to make the robot to drive forward and drive into the safe zone. However, we forgot to align the robot and it failed at the scrimmage.

Wheel Protector Correction

Wheel Protector Correction By Abhi

Problem: Wheel Guard Innacuracy

Refering back to the design of the wheel guard, we decided it was time to actually mount it on the robot. At first, it seemed like the part was perfect for the robot

Machine Vision Goals – Part 1

Machine Vision Goals – Part 1 By Tycho

We’ve been using machine vision for a couple of years now and have a plan to use it in Relic Rescue for a number of things. I mostly haven’t gotten to it because

Meeting Log

Meeting Log October 21, 2017 By Ethan, Tycho, Evan, Abhi, Charlotte, and Karina

Meeting Log October 21, 2017

Today's Meet Objectives

Organization / Documentation / Competition Prep

Review Journal
Travis blog post

Today's Meet Objectives

Organization / Documentation / Competition Prep

Review Journal
Learn to blog

MXP at UTA

MXP at UTA By Kenna, Abhi, Austin, Charlotte, Ethan, and Janavi

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.

Texas Workforce Commission Grant

Texas Workforce Commission Grant By Ethan

FIRST in Texas and the TWC grant

In Texas, a government labor agency called the Texas Workforce Commission gives a yearly grant to people who apply through FIRST in Texas. We got it last year...

Chassis Upgrades

Chassis Upgrades By Austin

Task: Upgrade our chassis

Because our robot at this point has merely become a collage of prototypes that we compete with, there are often subtle improvements that need to be made. Starting with the wheelbase

Meeting Log

Meeting Log October 07, 2017 By Ethan, Evan, Austin, Tycho, and Charlotte

Meeting Log October 07, 2017

Today's Meet Objectives

Organization / Documentation / Competition Prep

Review Journal
DISD post

V2 Hexifier and Parts

V2 Hexifier and Parts By Tycho and Abhi

Task: Creating the Parts for V2

Today we continued our work on the second grippers. We talked about this in another post, but the gist is that we iterated through various materials to find something that would securely grip the block, without damaging it. At the beginning, that got rid of most of our options, but we tested various sprays, materials, and pressures to find the right material.

Oh No! Dying Glyphs

Oh No! Dying Glyphs By Abhi

Problem: Glyph Damge due to Robot Design

We were tearing up our glyphs like this because our wheels had no guard for their screws:

Though our current gripper is working sufficiently, there are some issues we would like to improve in our second version. The mounting system is unstable and easily comes out of alignment because the rev rail keeps bending. Another issue we've encountered is the cervo pulling the grippers so that they begin to cave inwards, releasing any blocks being held at the bottom. By far the biggest problem is our intake. Our drivers have to align the robot with the block so precisely to be able to stack it

Meeting Log

Meeting Log September 30, 2017 By Ethan, Evan, Tycho, Austin, Kenna, Karina, Austin, and Abhi

Meeting Log September 30, 2017

Today was based around prepping for our meeting with DISD adminmistrators, getting our robots in working order, and organizing parts for the season.

Building Competition 2017

Building Competition 2017 By Evan and Austin

Today was the first meeting of the Relic Recovery season. Our main focus today was strategy, then organization and getting the robot ready for this year's challenges

FTC Kickoff and First Meet

FTC Kickoff and First Meet By Ethan, Abhi, Kenna, Austin, Karina, Tycho, and Evan

Task: View FTC Kickoff and plan for the year

So, You're Writing a Blog Post

So, You're Writing a Blog Post By Ethan

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.

Moon Day at Frontier of Flight Museum

Moon Day at Frontier of Flight Museum By Abhi, Charlotte, Austin, Janavi, and Tycho

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.

NSTA 2017

NSTA 2017 By Ethan, Evan, Lin, Jayesh, Omar, Tycho, and Charlotte

Turn Up! 2017 at Frontiers of Flight By Janavi, Jayesh, Lin, Tycho, Omar, Evan, Charlotte, Ethan, and Darshan

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.

Spring Break Doodle Poll

Spring Break Doodle Poll By Charlotte, Ethan, Evan, Lin, Omar, Max, Tycho, Janavi, Jayesh, Darshan, and Austin

Task: Spring Break Meeting Planning

In order to organize a plan for our spring break meetings, we created a poll on doodle.com....

To Do List

To Do List By Janavi, Tycho, Max, Jayesh, Omar, Lin, Austin, and Darshan

Task: Update our To Do List

Sensors

CDIM #2 on right side
color and distance sensors on right side -done
ultrasonic sensors
can we get...

Meet me in the pit- Tent and Shields

Meet me in the pit- Tent and Shields By Austin, Lin, Tycho, Omar, Darshan, Jayesh, and Max

Tent Building

Since we had the general idea of the shape and size of the actual pit tent, we set out to either build...

Super Regionals Booth Design

Super Regionals Booth Design By Lin, Austin, and Omar

Task: Design a theme and layout for super regional pits

A year or two ago Imperial advanced to Super Regionals, bringing along a few Iron Reign members. While teams get...

Regional Postmortem

Regional Postmortem By Ethan, Lin, Austin, Jayesh, Omar, Darshan, Max, and Tycho

Task: Analyse what we did right and wrong at regionals

Scouting:

Good

Detailed scouting sheets
Had good inter-team dynamic
Organized
Pre-scouted

Inspire Award

Inspire Award By Tycho, Jayesh, Lin, Omar, Max, Darshan, Evan, Ethan, Janavi, and Charlotte

1st Place at North Texas Regional Championship

Iron Reign members left to right are Ethan Helfman (Build, Communications), Janavi Chada (Programming, Communications), Tycho Virani (Programming...

2017 North Texas Regional

2017 North Texas Regional By Ethan, Evan, Jayesh, Charlotte, Tycho, Lin, Max, Darshan, and Janavi

Judging and Awards By Lin, Jayesh, Omar, Tycho, and Max

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...

To Do List Update

To Do List Update By Tycho, Max, Jayesh, Omar, Janavi, and Evan

Task: Update our To Do List

Sensors

CDIM #2 on right side
color and distance sensors on right side
ultrasonic sensors
can we get rid of...

DISD STEM Expo

DISD STEM Expo By Ethan, Evan, Janavi, Jayesh, Lin, and Max

Task: Present to kids at the DISD STEM Expo

Every year, DISD hosts a STEM expo for local...

Building the Fly Wheel Launcher

Building the Fly Wheel Launcher By Jayesh, Omar, Darshan, Evan, Tycho, and Max

Task: Create a particle launcher with a higher scoring rate

One of the leading problems Iron Reign faces is our ability to allot time to effective driving practice. Driving practice is essential...

Helping Imperial Robotics

Helping Imperial Robotics By Ethan, Evan, and Tycho

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...

Return to Machine Vision

Return to Machine Vision By Tycho

Task: Prepare to reintegrate machine vision

A year and a half ago while the new Android-based platform was still in pre-launch, we were the first team to share a machine vision testbed...

Introducing the New Particle Accelerator

Introducing the New Particle Accelerator By Max

Bake Sale By Darshan, Lin, Evan, Jayesh, Omar, and Janavi

Task: Plan Bake Sale

During our winter break, we worked on our robot, but we also planned to gain funding for our continued progression. We had applied for multiple grants...

Motor Controller Mounts

Motor Controller Mounts By Ethan, Darshan, Max, and Tycho

Task: Prevent static shocks to our robot

Throughout the year, we've dealt with static issues with our robot, as shown here and here. And, now...

Cap Ball Lift

Cap Ball Lift By Omar, Jayesh, Darshan, Evan, and Max

Task: Build a lift to try cap-ball scoring

Although we're confident in our robot's ability to shoot balls and press beacon buttons, we decided that in order to be competitive, we should try to score the cap ball. The lift...

Centurion's Helm of +2 Swankiness

Centurion's Helm of +2 Swankiness By Max

Task: Make some Roman helmets for the team

...
Read More

Tent Disassembly

Tent Disassembly By Ethan, Omar, and Darshan

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...
Read More

Meeting Log

Meeting Log December 31, 2016 By Ethan, Evan, Tycho, and Lin

Meeting Log December 31, 2016

Today's Meet Objectives

Organization / Documentation / Competition Prep

Blog Fixes

Software

Test autonomous changes

Build / Modelling
...
Read More

Mapping Out Autonomous

Mapping Out Autonomous By Janavi, Tycho, Omar, Evan, and Darshan

Task: Mapping Out Autonomous

To tell the robot how far to move forward we had to calculate our motors RPM. We did this by telling the robot...
Read More

Fixing Faulty Encoder

Fixing Faulty Encoder By Tycho and Jayesh

Task: Fix a faulty encoder on our robot

This shows a test of our encoder issues. It might have been a month ago...
Read More

Beginning the build for the Cap Ball Trapper

Beginning the build for the Cap Ball Trapper By Jayesh and Omar

Task: Give Deadshot flexibility in end game scoring by designing Cap ball launcher

One of the issues we saw in Arkansas was in the lack of flexibility we...
Read More

QD Academy Scrimmage

QD Academy Scrimmage By Ethan, Evan, Tycho, Max, Darshan, Lin, and Omar

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...
Read More

Arkansas Analysis

Arkansas Analysis By Lin, Omar, Darshan, Jayesh, Evan, Max, Tycho, Janavi, and Ethan

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...
Read More

Time to Skip Version 9

Time to Skip Version 9 By Max

Task: Make some changes to the catapult bowl

The apocalypse is at hand.

Chaos reigns as the world is thrown into peril; whole nations are thrown into anarchy by the second; and the superpowers of the world, once bitter enemies, have no...
Read More

Arkansas State Competition 2016

Arkansas State Competition 2016 By Ethan, Evan, Lin, Janavi, Jayesh, Omar, Darshan, Max, and Tycho

Task: Compete in the 2016 Arkansas State Competition

This year, to give our team a better chance of going to super-regionals for...
Read More

Combining TeleOp and Autonomous

Combining TeleOp and Autonomous By Tycho

Task: Combine TeleOp and Autonomous code

Today, I combined the autonomous and teleop so that we can demo both more easily. As well, during testing, we now can switch between them seamlessly so that our...
Read More

Designing Button Pusher

Designing Button Pusher By Darshan and Omar

Task: Design potential beacon scoring mechanism

Up to this point, we hadn't given much attention to a beacon scoring mechanism that we could use in both autonomous and tele-op. At...
Read More

Robot Frame and Rewiring

Robot Frame and Rewiring By Jayesh, Omar, and Evan

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...
Read More

Final Catapult

Final Catapult By Ethan, Evan, Omar, and Jayesh

Task: Finish up the catapult before Arkansas

Today marks six days until Doomsday (AKA Little Home, Arkansas), so we needed to finalize everything. For the catapult, Jayesh and Omar fixed my catapult Read More

Meeting Log

Meeting Log November 26, 2016 By Ethan, Max, Tycho, Janavi, Darshan, Omar, and Evan

Meeting Log November 26, 2016

Today marks one week until our Arkansas Tournament. God help...
Read More

Catapult Upgrades

Catapult Upgrades By Max

Get Nostradamus on the horn, there’s a new prophet in town.

Task: Imbue the catapult bowl with infinite power

As I predicted in the article about the first version of the catapult bowl, it’s gonna need a rework. There’s enough room for the catapult system...
Read More

Autonomous Setup Options

Autonomous Setup Options By Tycho

Task: Create a basic autonomous

Autonomous is one of the things that we tend to be weak on every year, and this year, we really want to get to super-regionals. So, to start off this year's...
Read More

Catapult Unfixes

Catapult Unfixes By Ethan

Task: To bring the catapult within size limits and improve it

What Actually Happened: Abject failures

So, the original catapult, when not stuck, performed pretty well at the scrimmage. However, since we opted not to measure our robot at the scrimmage, we didn't realize that our robot...
Read More

Meeting Log

Meeting Log November 22, 2016 By Lin, Evan, Ethan, Darshan, Tycho, and Omar

Meeting Log November 22, 2016

Intake System Improvements

Intake System Improvements By Lin and Janavi

Task: Replace rubber bands with smaller versions and add wider intake area

New intake area is wider than before

At the Scrimmage we noticed that the rubber bands would get tangled...
Read More

Nov. 21 Scrimmage

Nov. 21 Scrimmage Written, but not attended by Ethan By Omar, Darshan, Jayesh, Max, Tycho, Lin, Janavi, Austin, and Ethan

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

First, the team arrived at the Virani's house and boarded the...
Read More

Mecanum Driving

Mecanum Driving By Tycho

Task: Code driving under mecanum wheels

Today, I wrote the whole code for controlling our mecanum wheels. It is entirely fron scratch, and works perfectly right off the bat. This code allows us to strafe, move backwards...
Read More

A Thank-You to Tetrix

A Thank-You to Tetrix By Ethan and Evan

Task: To create a thank-you video to Pitsco

We entered a contest to win a pack of Tetrix parts on Twitter, and we won! You can also enter the contest by following these...
Read More

Parasyte

Parasyte By Jayesh, Omar, Darshan, Lin, and Max

Task: Design a collector for the balls

We've spent the last few practies creating a ball collector. The idea was to have our track with the gripping rubber bands reach from the bottom...
Read More

Meeting Log

Meeting Log November 06, 2016 By Max, Tycho, Jayesh, Darshan, Ethan, Evan, and Janavi

Meeting Log November 06, 2016

We've been blogging/journalling at the sub-team level, which allows...
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New Worlds Cities In Space

New Worlds Cities In Space By Lin, Jayesh, Omar, and Darshan

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

A contigent from Iron Reign participated in a...
Read More

The Robot is a Nautilus Now

The Robot is a Nautilus Now By Max

Task: Make a conveyor shaft to guide particles to the catapult

We’ve thoroughly proven that the tread of rubber bands is an effective method of ball collection, but as of yet it can only move the balls along the ground. We’ll need a...
Read More

Launching Mechanisms Pt. 2

Launching Mechanisms Pt. 2 By Ethan

Task: To improve upon launching mechanism designs

Catapult

First and foremost, we now have one completely functional, terrifying, catapult. The motor mechanism is cannibalized from our sister team's attempt at a catapult,...
Read More

Stabilizing Our Driving Base

Stabilizing Our Driving Base By Jayesh, Omar, Max, and Darshan

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...
Read More

Ready the Artillery

Ready the Artillery By Max

Task: Design a bowl for our upcoming catapult system

We've been experimenting with catapult systems for a little while now, but we're still sorely lacking one of the core ingredients of any catapult system: the ability to throw things. I mean, technically we're lacking the ability...
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Launching Mechanisms

Launching Mechanisms By Ethan

Task: To build a launching mechanism for the particles

For the 2016-2017 season, particle scoring is really important. During autonomous, balls that are launched into the center vortex earn 15 points each, and balls that are launched into the center vortex earn 5 points. If done quickly...
Read More

Applying for Grants

Applying for Grants By Charlotte and Evan

Task: Applying for Grants

As the season begins, we have started to apply for grants. Grants are important to us because 68% of students in our home school receive free-or-reduced lunch, and we are...
Read More

Need for ZTE Speed - The Movie - The Game

Need for ZTE Speed - The Movie - The Game By Max

Task: Make a case for the ZTE Speed controlling the robot

While we are still in the early stages of design and it's not wise to make a permanent decision about where the robot's controlling phone will be, we...
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General Organization Progress

General Organization Progress By Lin and Janavi

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...
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Travis Open House

Travis Open House By Ethan, Max, Tycho, Lin, Darshan, Jayesh, and Evan

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...
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Programming our New Robot

Programming our New Robot By Tycho, Lin, Ethan, and Jayesh

Task: Program our new mecanum wheel driving platform

Now that our new robot has been built with a mecanum wheel...
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2016-2017 Robot

2016-2017 Robot By Ethan, Omar, Jayesh, Evan, Tycho, and Max

Task: To build the robot for the 2016-2017 season

As much as we love our robot from last season, Geb, we need a robot that is better able to fit the...
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Adding Blog Features

Adding Blog Features By Ethan

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...
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Building the Robot Base

Building the Robot Base By Jayesh, Omar, and Darshan

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:...
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Budgeting With Team 3734

Budgeting With Team 3734 By Ethan, Evan, and Austin

Task: Create a Budget Sheet for the 2016-2017 Season

As always, Iron Reign needs more money. We are a title 1 school in a cash-strapped district with over 60% of students qualfying for free lunch. So, this year, we decided to *actually*...
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First Official Practice of the Season

First Official Practice of the Season By Omar, Lin, Jayesh, Darshan, Ethan, Evan, Janavi, Max, and Tycho

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,...
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MXP Transportation

MXP Transportation By Darshan, Lin, Jayesh, Omar, Ethan, Evan, Janavi, Tycho, and Max

Oh the places you'll go!

We attend many events throughout the DFW area, taking our robot and whatever else we need along with us. This has often puts...
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FTC Kickoff 2016

FTC Kickoff 2016 By Ethan, Evan, Max, Tycho, and Omar

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,...
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Planning Meeting

Planning Meeting By Janavi, Max, Tycho, Jayesh, Omar, Darshan, and Lin

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...
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Outreach and Sponsors

Outreach and Sponsors By Lin, Darshan, Jayesh, Omar, Ethan, Evan, Janavi, Tycho, and Max

Task: Analyze how finances effect recognition

It's always a challenge to convince sponsors that we are a worthy team for their grants, visibility in FIRST and the...
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Meeting with The Texas Workforce Commission

Meeting with The Texas Workforce Commission By Jayesh, Omar, Max, Tycho, Darshan, Evan, Ethan, Janavi, Lin, Trace, and Dylan

Task: Connect with our sponsors in the Texas Workforce Commission

Commissioner Hughs visited with the @FIRSTinTexas Robotics @team6832 today to discuss the #UILRobotics Read More

Robotics UIL 2016

Robotics UIL 2016 By Ethan, Evan, Lin, Darshan, Jayesh, Janavi, Trace, Max, Tycho, and Omar

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...
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Mobile Learning Lab in Action

Mobile Learning Lab in Action By Lin, Max, and Tycho

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

The RV has been fully remodeled and set up with netbooks...
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Turn Up! at Frontiers of Flight with DCOL

Turn Up! at Frontiers of Flight with DCOL By Janavi, Darshan, Jayesh, Lin, Max, Tycho, Omar, and Austin

Inspiring 1,000 People to Turn Up with STEM

Written by Janavi Chadha

The Dallas City of Learning...
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MXP - Mobile Learning Lab Recap

MXP - Mobile Learning Lab Recap By Jayesh and Lin

DCOL Mobile Tech XPerience (MXP) Begins Service

Written by Jayesh Sharma
Edited by Lin Rogers

Iron Reign has been actively supporting Dallas...
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Geb Fixes and Adjustments

Geb Fixes and Adjustments By Jayesh, Omar, and Lin

Task: Prepare Geb for competition and get it into running condition

With all of the large projects and events that Iron Reign have been commiting to (with more still to come), we...
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Mobile Learning Lab Part 4 - Update

Mobile Learning Lab Part 4 - Update By Ethan, Max, Tycho, Lin, Jayesh, Darshan, Austin, Matthew, Evan, Dylan, Omar, and Trace

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

The RV exterior

We...
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Mobile Learning Lab Part 3 - Flooring

Mobile Learning Lab Part 3 - Flooring By Evan, Max, Tycho, Dylan, Ethan, Lin, Darshan, and Austin

Carpet ripping is not fun. The carpet is tacked down with so many staples that is is not easy to remove. It tends...
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Mobile Learning Lab Part 2 - Roof

Mobile Learning Lab Part 2 - Roof By Tycho, Max, Matthew, and Austin

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...
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Dallas City of Learning

Dallas City of Learning By Ethan, Evan, Jayesh, Omar, Lin, Max, and Tycho

Task: Teaching children how to use robots

On 18 June, we went to the...
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Mobile Learning Lab Part 1 - Demolition

Mobile Learning Lab Part 1 - Demolition By Evan, Max, Tycho, and Austin

Task: Redo the inside of the recreational vehicle

Mr.Virani recently aquired an RV so it could be used as a mobile learning center...
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New tread material test

New tread material test By Lin, Tycho, Max, and Evan

Task: Initial tests for new tread material

The standard Tetrix treads and tread inserts aren't nearly as sturdy as we would like. When they snap it's a real effort to put...
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Making a Ports Map

Making a Ports Map By Omar and Jayesh

Task: Create a list of motors/servos and what ports they're connected to

Very often, when we disconnect a motor or servo (maybe on accident), we forget what port we...
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LEGO (Plastic Fastener) SUMO Workshop and Competition, Coming April 24th and May 14th

LEGO (Plastic Fastener) SUMO Workshop and Competition, Coming April 24th and May 14th By Tycho

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...
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Sumobot Tips and Tricks

Sumobot Tips and Tricks By Tycho

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.

...
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Hoverboards and PID

Hoverboards and PID By Lin, Omar, Darshan, Tycho, and Max

Task: Continue with the Hoverboard and tweak PID

After the long weekend last week, today was a reasonably relaxed practice. We decided that we could work on anything, as long we...
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Day 2 of iMake

Day 2 of iMake By Lin, Max, Tycho, and Omar

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...
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Robot On a Hoverboard - Try 1

Robot On a Hoverboard - Try 1 By Lin, Max, Tycho, Darshan, Omar, Evan, Ethan, and Jayesh

Task: Try to drive the hoverboard with the competition bot

In the middle of Saturday's...
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Fort Worth Maker Fest

Fort Worth Maker Fest By Jayesh, Omar, Max, Tycho, Lin, Darshan, Evan, Ethan, and Austin

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...
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RIP FTC 2016

RIP FTC 2016 By Jayesh, Omar, Max, Tycho, Lin, Darshan, Alisa, Dylan, Evan, Ethan, and Trace

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

Link to postmortem document

Iron Reign had a fairly...
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Presentation Runthrough

Presentation Runthrough By Lin, Max, Tycho, Darshan, Jayesh, Omar, Alisa, Ethan, and Evan

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...
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Fixing Up Our Climber and Trough Attachments

Fixing Up Our Climber and Trough Attachments By Jayesh, Max, and Omar

Task: Replace servo on CliffHanger with a motor

At both competitions we've been to so far, we've noticed that the servo that controls the cliff hanger's elevation...
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Actual Postmortem

Actual Postmortem By Jayesh, Lin, Omar, Max, Tycho, Darshan, Trace, Alisa, Ethan Evan, and Dylan

Nolan Tournament

Post-mortem

We have 1 weekend to get it right!

Iron Reign

INTRO

While we had a great...
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Post Competition Goals

Post Competition Goals By Jayesh, Omar, Darshan, Max, Tycho, Lin, Ethan, Evan, Dylan, Alisa, and Trace

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...
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Nolan Qualifier

Nolan Qualifier By Ethan, Lin, Jayesh, Darshan, Max, Tycho, Evan, Alisa, Trace, and Dylan

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...
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Pushing my Buttons

Pushing my Buttons By Ethan and Max

Task: To build a button-pusher for the beacon

Today, we realized that the tape-measure attachment that's supposed to push the buttons on the beacon could have multiple functions instead So, we designed an attachment to the tape measure that can push...
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The Double-Wide Experiment

The Double-Wide Experiment By Jayesh, Max, Dylan, and Evan

Task: Strengthen our tape-measure climber against folding and sideways forces

Our tape measure is constantly under stress, which usually isn't a big problem if the driver is positioned with a straight 90 degree angle, but when twisted can result in cracks.
...
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It's a Bloodbath

It's a Bloodbath By Ethan, Alisa, Max, Darshan, Jayesh, and Tycho

Task: To dye all our nylon parts red

Today, we took every single 3D-printed part off our robot to dye them. We used RIT clothes dye, which worked because our parts are nylon. The purpose of dying all...
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Conveyor belt

Conveyor belt By Jayesh, Max, and Darshan

Task: Create continuous method of scoring blocks

Since we have a semi-reliable form of going up the ramp (which we are working on to make closer to 100% efficiency), a priority for our team robot-wise is to establish an effective...
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Post Writing Guide for Team Members

Post Writing Guide for Team Members By Lin

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.
...
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Tape Measure Attachment

Cliff Hanger - Tape measure based climber By Trace and Max

Task: Creating an attachment to climb the mountain

We have recently been working on a new approach to climbing the mountain. Our strategy so far was to have one system customized for climbing the...
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Competition Post-Mortem

Competition Post-Mortem By Lin, Jayesh, Darshan, Max, Tycho, Evan, Ethan, Alisa, Trace, and Dylan

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...
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A Presentation for the Ages

A Presentation for the Ages By Ethan, Jayesh, Max, Tycho, Lin, Omar, Evan, Alisa

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,...
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I Still Won on the Inside… 2016 FTC Qualifier at Wylie

I Still Won on the Inside… 2016 FTC Qualifier at Wylie By Jayesh, Omar, Darshan, Max, Tycho, Evan, Ethan, Alisa, Lin, Trace, and Dylan

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...
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Functions of our controller

Functions of our controller By Alisa, Ethan, Trace

Task: Listing out the functions of our game controller

In order to find a button for our argos mode drive, we made a rough draft of our game controller listing the functions of each button. For example, the 'X'...
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Starting Color Blob Detection

Starting Color Blob Detection By Omar, Max, Tycho

Task: Implement color blob detection on the robot for detecting beacons

Even though this was very long overdue, we now have a way to turn towards a certain color similar to what Argos does. What we're basically doing is calculating the angle that the...
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Slide Trigger (Revisited)

Slide Trigger (Revisited) By Max

Task: Remodel the slide trigger mechanism to compensate for mechanical problems

Reflections

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Prototyping and Making the Flipper

Prototyping and Making the Flipper By Jayesh, Omar, Darshan

Task: Design an apparatus to deposit the climbers in the beacon bucket.

One of the methods to score in this year's competition is depositing the two climbers in the bucket behind the beacon. This being relatively simple, we decided to concentrate this practice...
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Rebuilding the Churro Climber System

Rebuilding the Churro Climber System By Omar, Darshan, Max

Task: Fix bending axle on churro climber permanently

After further testing of the churro climbers, we noticed that the axle the gear is rotating on had been bent severely due to the strain on it of the arms pulling. If we left...
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Slide Lock

Slide Lock By Max

Task: Model a part to keep the slide from going too far forward

Since we mounted the beater bars on a slide, we have been keeping them from going too far and falling off their rails either...
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Climber Restraint

Climber Restraint By Max

Task: Model a part to keep the churro climber cable ties on path

As we continued to work on the churro climber mechanism today, we decided that the cable ties bowing out would be a big issue...
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Improvements to Churro Catcher and Ramp

Improvements to Churro Catcher and Ramp By Jayesh, Lin, Omar

Task: Make improvements to Churro Catcher and Ramp and make blog more accessible

Iron Reign held our first of two meetings before the New Year season to concentrate on improving our main designs to ensure they worked as expected. Starting with...
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Optimizing the Churro Catcher

Optimizing the Churro Catcher By Jayesh, Omar, Darshan

Task: Improve and fix our Churro Catcher + finalize design for trough

The team met up on Sunday and we focused our meeting on finalizing our trough design and making our churro catchers usable. Beginning with our trough prototype, we put in an angled...
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General Blog Improvements

General Blog Improvements By Lin

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...
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Churro Hook

Churro Hook By Max

Task: Model a part to help the robot climb the churros on the mountains

Most of the big-value items in terms of points have to do with the mountains, so climbing mechanisms are a must have. Since...
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Prototyping the Trough

Prototyping the Trough By Jayesh, Omar, Darshan

Task: Prototype the trough using materials such as cardboard to give us a baseline
'

The team had a meet before the busy Christmas period to focus on the main part of of our scoring mechanism: the trough. We discussed possible courses...
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Improving the Catcher Design

Improving the Catcher Design By Dylan, Darshan, Omar, Jayesh, Evan, Alisa

Task: Add Improvements to the Catcher Design

Today our team worked on improving the methods of capturing and holding blocks and balls. Our first design involving zip ties had major difficulties including that it had little strength to pull objects...
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General Improvements

General Improvements By Jayesh, Omar, Darshan, Max, Lin

Task: Perfect and improve multiple of our main characteristics of our robot

Iron Reign held its first Christmas break parade today and we decided to focus our time on making multiple small improvements, rather than adding one big part on our robot. Omar, Darshan,...
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Slide Trigger

Slide Trigger By Max

Task: Model a part that lets us hold back the slide with a trigger to release it

The beater bar mechanism was put on a slide so that we could restrain it until some point during the...
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Scrimmage at Greenhill

Scrimmage at Greenhill By Darshan, Alisa, Omar, Lin, Max, Tycho, Evan

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...
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Thinking about Effort

Thinking about Effort by Omar

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...
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Design and prototype a churro latch mechanism

Design and prototype a churro latch mechanism By Lin, Darshan

Task: Design an alternative churro climber mechanism

Currently Max and Tycho are working on a beater bar 3D part that is stiff enough to pull in blocks, and will hopefully double as a churro catcher when spinning. However, since the parts take 4...
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Business Planning

Business Planning By Alisa

Task: Making a Business Sponsorship Template

I worked on making a rough draft of a sponsorship template. This template will be used to email companies to ask for their sponsorship. I have a list of companies that have a high chance of sponsoring us. I found...
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Helping the Travis Team

Helping the Travis Team By Tycho

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...
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Why we should measure twice, and cut once

Why we should measure twice, and cut once By Ethan, Evan

Task: To redo our bumpers

"Measure nonce, cut twice," is Iron Reign's unofficial slogan, as hidden in our html.

We especially learned the error of cutting hastily today, as...
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Prototyping the ramp for the intake system

Prototyping the ramp for the intake system By Jayesh, Omar, Ethan, Evan

Task: Make a physical prototype to plan out the next step in our ball/block intake system

We held a post-Thanksgiving meet to focus on the mechanical side of our robot, as we had been devoting a...
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Hell On Reels

Hell On Reels By Max

Task: Make a prototype grappling hook of doom.

As the point values make clear, managing to get the robot to hang on the end of the "cliff" is likely worth the effort. As such, we've worked on making a strange grappling-hook type contraption to pull the...
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Researching Awards

Researching Awards By Lin

Task: Research and understand the various awards

We rarely prepare enough for awards, usually hoping the practice before that we've done enough to be in the running. Last year we won the PTC Creo award at one competition, but that was a one time deal. This year we...
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Autonomous Code

Autonomous Coding By Dylan and Tycho

Task: Updating and Working on Autonomous Code

Today we continued working on the code involved for the first ten seconds of motion in the tournament known as autonomous. In this period we hope to reach the other side of the field towards the Res-Q...
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Driving That Robot

Driving That Robot By Evan, Darshan

Task: To try out the robot in a competition setting

Last weekend Darshan and I tried to drive the robot in a small scrimmage with eight other teams. Even though we hit a few bumps along the competition...
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Bumper Shields

Bumper Shields By Ethan and Evan

Task: To create bumper shields for the robot.

We needed to create bumper shields because the debris on the field interfered with the tread. We had a prototype on the left,
Evan and I cut the bumper shields out of polycarbonate with two...
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Beater Bar Launch Mechanism

Beater Bar Launch Mechanism by Omar, Darshan, Evan, Max

Task: Design deployment mechanism for beater bar

Similarly to last year, the beater bar on our robot needs to be deployed in order to stay within the size limit. Using motors would make the robot heavier, and potentially too...
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Meeting other Teams at the Scrimmage

Meeting other Teams at the Scrimmage By Lin, Omar, Darshan, Jayesh, Tycho, Max, Evan

Task: Get a feel for where we are and the progress of other teams

Whether or not we were allowed to compete, we felt that it would be worthwhile to go to the scrimmage, if only to see...
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Starting up our Autonomous Code

Starting up our Autonomous Code by Jayesh, Tycho, Max

Task: Get started on autonomous coding

We spent some of the time at the scrimmage today starting up our autonomous code in android studio. The main basis of our coding was put around climbing the ramp, which is our main function of our robot...
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SEM Open House 2015

SEM Open House 2015 By Jayesh, Lin, Omar, Max, Tycho, Darshan

Task: Publicize our school and team + showcase the benefits of robotics

Iron Reign was once again invited to attend our school's open house and present our robotics group and speak about what we have and will do. We...
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Writing Pose

Writing Pose By Max and Eliot

Task: Create a rough draft of the code for the Pose class

Starting just a few weeks into the competition year, we thought up ideas for a system of classes to allow the robot to...
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Addition of Beater Bar to Robot

Addition of Beater Bar to Robot By Omar, Ethan, Darshan, Lin

Task: Fix and alter robot to include sliding beater bar

Since the robot's last run, several fixes and adjustments had to be made in order to make the robot operational again. All we had to do was tighten a couple of bolts,...
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Helping the Travis Team

Helping the Travis Team By Tycho

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,...
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Autonomous Code Part 1

Coding for Autonomous Pilot Program By Tycho and Dylan

Task: Program Pilot Code

Our task was to begin programming for our first version of the Pilot class of the robot using other classes for our angle, position, and controller that we created. The controller class known as PID controller used part of...
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Rocker Boogie Tank

Rocker Boogie Tank By Trace

Task: Design and build a basic rocker boogie tank

A few weeks back, I designed a new chassis. It was a combination of the rocker bogey and a tank to make the rocker boogie tank! With the advantage of sturdiness from a tank and the ability to adjust...
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Before Scrimmage basic tests

Before Scrimmage basic tests By Lin, Tycho, Omar, Max, Darshan

Task: make sure the robot can run

There's a scrimmage next Saturday that we may or may not be going to based on Dallasisd technicalities with our team. Our goals for today were to get a basic autonomous going to dump climbers and...
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Video Ideas

Video Ideas By Alisa, Dylan, Ethan

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...
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Gyro-IMU Case V2

IMU Case V2 By Tycho

Task: Improve our 3D Printable case for the Adafruit BNO055 IMU

Last week I designed a case for our IMU sensor in Creo and wrote up how it could be improved. I've fixed most of those issues and we are ready to share the results....
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Create a List of Blog Tags

Create a List of Blog Tags By Lin

Task: Make a list of tags for blog entries

We've been tagging each blog post as we write them according to topics we think they fall into, but there's been no standard for what to choose from. For example, what I tag as "Mechanical"...
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Gyro-IMU Case

IMU Case By Tycho

Task: Make a 3D Printable case for the Adafruit BNO055 IMU

We're used to having gyros to help maintain heading, but we've never been fans of the Hitechnic gyro sensor. Now we have more options and the BNO055 looks pretty good. But our testing has been off...
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Arrangement and Rearrangement of Motor Controllers

Arrangement and Rearrangement of Motor Controllers By Omar, Darshan

Task: Find better configuration of motor/servo controllers and power distribution module on the robot

Today, we tried to figure out the best possible way to stick all the motor controllers and the PDM together to minimize the amount of space they take...
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Driving up the mountain - test 2

Driving up the mountain - test 2 By Lin, Darshan, Jayesh, Omar, Max, Tycho, Evan

Task: Test how the condition of the mountain changes robot performance

After last week's fail we decided that we should change a couple of variables of the environment. The first and easiest to...
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Circle Time

Circle Time By Jayesh, Ethan, Omar, Darshan, Evan

Task:Discuss multiple possible solutions to climb steep incline on field

We held a team meeting outside on the field discussing multiple possible solutions to the problem of the robot ascending to the top of the ramp. While we are already able to climb...
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Money Please

Money Please By Evan

Task:

At the strategy meet we had, I brought up how we need money to get sensors so we can detect our heading and position. At the current moment we spend about 3000 dollars a year on parts and sensors and we only get a 1000 dollar...
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Building the Field - Part III

Building the Field: Part III By Ethan, Trace, Alisa, and Evan

Task: Building the field for the third week in a row!

Today, for the third time, we worked on setting up the field. We finished the mountains and the climber setup. We made several mistakes along the...
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Daily Organization

Daily Organization By Lin, Darshan, Evan, Omar, Max, Tycho, Dylan, Alisa

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...
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Building the 2015 Field

Building the 2015 Field By Evan, Dylan, Alisa, Trace, Ethan

Task: Cleaning and building the Field

Today we were charged with the task of building the FTC field. There was one problem. The tent we were setting it up in was in a state of decay. We cleaned out the...
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Post Kickoff

Post Kickoff By Jayesh, Omar, Lin, Ethan, Alisa, Evan, Max, Tycho

Task: Build FTC field and begin tank tread mirror side

After the 2015 kickoff, Iron Reign conducted a meeting to construct our game field and also construct our mirror side for the tank treads. Taking turns on placing the grips on our...
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I hate tread inserts

I Hate Tread Inserts By Omar

Task: Insert grips into alternating treads to boost traction of driving system

I am so done with these treads. For the past three hours I have worked to soak the treads and tread inserts in dish soap. *takes deep breath* The process...
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FTC Kickoff 2015

FTC Kickoff 2015 By Jayesh, Omar, Max, Tycho, Evan, Ethan

Task: Attend FTC kickoff and assist newer teams in understanding task ahead of him

We were invited by team Technical Dificulties invited Iron Reign to attend first FTC kickoff for...
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Tank Drive Model

Tank Drive Model By Tycho

Task: Design a new build platform more suited to this year's challenge

Since the robot game for this year came out about a week ago, we were thinking about which kind of drive system would work best for the challenge, which mostly...
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Meeting After Game Reveal

Meeting After Game Reveal By Dylan, Darshan, Alisa, Ethan, Evan, Lin, Tycho, Max, Trace

Task: Discuss robot design

Now that the game has been released, we as a group discussed the different amount of points per each possible game strategy that would give us the most ample amount of points during the...
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Labor Day Meeting

Labor Day Meeting By Lin, Jayesh, Darshan, Alisa, Omar, Max, Tycho

Task: Learn about OpModes

Today, we reviewed opmodes in the FTC API and how to register new opmodes. We also learned about the differences between regular, linear and synchronous (from SwerveRobotics) opmodes.

Task: Review Blogs/Journal

Our Blog == our...
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Designing Drive Trains

Designing Drive Trains By Tycho

Task: Create preliminary designs for a new robot using a new build platform

After we got the new mechanum wheels, I had to start thinking about a new design that would be able to use them.

Reflections

Not...
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Season Startup Team Meet

Season Startup Team Meet By Max, Tycho, Omar, Lin, Trace, Evan, Darshan

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...
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Field Navigation Speculation

Field Navigation Speculation By Max

Task: Determine necessities of this year's field navigation code

Today was our very first meet of the year, and as such, not too much got done other than planning and experimentation. For the greater part of the meeting, I worked...
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Back To Creo

Back To Creo By Tycho

Task: Create preliminary designs for a new robot using a new build platform

Today I started making new designs for a competition robot based on extrusions and the new software platform.

Reflections

I decided to make two different possible designs, one based on our...
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Overview of new hardware and software

Overview of new hardware and software By Max,Tycho,Lin,Alisa,Ethan,Trace

Task: Getting a first glimpse at the new motors and controllers with Imperial robotics

We continued our meeting at the Dallas Makerspace after the GitHub tutorial. We unpackaged the new motors and motor controllers for the first time and took out the phones...
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Learn About GitHub

Learn About GitHub by Max, Tycho, Jayesh, Lin, Ethan, Trace, and Alisa

Task: Learning more about Git and GitHub.

We've been using GitHub to host this website and to version our robot code since last year. Max, Tycho, Jayesh, Caitlyn, Ethan, Trace, and Alisa attended. Steve Edwards, a member of...
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Mayor's Back to School Fair 2015 and Dallas City of Learning at Fair Park

Mayor's Back to School Fair 2015 and Dallas City of Learning at Fair Park By Jayesh, Max, Tycho, Omar, Darshan

Task: Share STEM opportunities with returning Dallas ISD Students

Moonday 2015 at Frontiers of Flight Museum

Moonday 2015 at Frontiers of Flight Museum By Max, Tycho, Lin, Omar, and Jayesh

Task: Represent SEM and STEM at Moonday 2015

The Frontiers of Flight Museum hosts an event every year called Moon Day that exhibits a lot of STEM topics to anyone who...
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Argos the Chromovore

Argos the Chromovore By Max and Tycho

Task: Get some pre-season experience with Android controlled robots

We've been experimenting with Android controlled robots while we wait for our ModernRobotics modules. Argos is a chromovore - it seeks an identified color using OpenCV4Android machine vision processing....
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Discovery Faire at the Dallas Downtown Library

Discovery Faire at the Dallas Downtown Library By Lin, Jayesh, Omar, Darshan, Max, and Tycho

Task: Present at the Dallas City of Learning Discovery Faire

"Kids are invited to “Turn Up!” to make, create, craft, play and learn at the Dallas Public Library on Saturday June 20. The Dallas City of...
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Earth Day Texas 2015 at Fair Park

Earth Day Texas 2015 at Fair Park By Max, Tycho, Lin, Omar, Jayesh, and Darshan

Task: Represent SEM and STEM at Earth Day 2015

Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles came by our booth where we were representing our Science and Engineering Magnet High School and...
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Regional Tournament

Regional Tournament By Max, Lin, Darshan, Jayesh, and Omar

Task: Perform somewhat successfully at the regional tournament

Due to numerous issues having to do with the design flaws of our robot and with poor luck, we sucked. We were not able to win any matches that day. Also unfortunately, we were...
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Updated Intake System

Updated Intake System By Jayesh

Task: Make a new intake method for the balls
Our old beater bar intake for the game was deemed too big for our new scissor lift idea. Our new claw has a simple toggle set in the code:
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Beater Bar V4 Beater Bar V4 By Jayesh Task: Finalize Beater Bar The previous versions of the beater bar were too bulky and big for the front of the robot, so initially we had just taken the mechanism entirely off. However, we needed something to push the balls towards the... Read More Servo Mounting Wiring Servo Mounting Wiring By Jayesh Task: Wire servos to new mount The two new servos, one for the backboard, and the other for the autonomous small ball, are placed in relatively high positions and needed to be wired. The problem was that the wires needed to be positioned at a... Read More Backboard V2 Backboard V2 By Jayesh Task: Create final design for backboard Our old backboard was very nice in structure, however, as it was made out of paper and plastic Legos, it wouldn't have lasted for very long on the field. Our new design is... Read More Backboard Prototyping Backboard Prototyping By Lin Task: Prototype a backboard for scoring in the 90 cm goal Since our ski lift sort of launches the scoring balls when they reach the top, we had to create a backboard for the balls to bounce off of and aim at the tube ... Read More Autonomous Gyro Autonomous Gyro By Jayesh Task:Create Autonomous deploying from ramp utilizing gyro A simple idea for autonomous was to use dead reckoning, with command such as motor[leftWheel]=100; motor[rightWheel]=100; wait10Msec(100); motor[leftWheel]=0; motor[rightWheel]=0; However, the problems included an inability to correct movement if one side of the wheels had less power than... Read More PID PID By Tycho Task: What is PID? PID is useful in many ways, such as setting an arm to a certain position, going straight based on a gyro or following a line. There are three parts to a PID control program : Proportional, Integral and Derivative. ... Read More Control Scheme Control Scheme By Darshan, Lin, Tycho, Max, Jayesh, and Omar Task: Test Autonomous and debugging Today we were refining our ramp autonomous by debugging the gyro code. We found that our "goYonder" and "goBackward" method were affecting each other which was making our robot work incorrectly and just going... Read More Mansfield Competition - Off to Regionals Mansfield Competition - Off to Regionals By Darshan Task: Compete at Mansfield successfully This past weekend the team was at the Mansfield competition hoping to make it past the qualifier. Although we were more prepared by packing early, as the competition was far away, we were still rushed the next... Read More Control Scheme Control Scheme By Jayesh Task: Assign control scheme to actual competition controller Referencing the earlier article explaining robot functions needing to be assigned buttons, we had a meeting to get the control scheme actually implemented into the controllers. The picture above displays the majority of the control scheme. Some values... Read More Competition at UTD Competition at UTD By Omar Task: Have success in tournament despite incomplete robot The team spent the weekend at UTD at a qualifier. We were not able to complete the scissor lift before competition and had a very simple game plan for each match. Our robot was (is) basically a brick,... Read More Semi-Final Robot Semi-Final Robot By Jayesh Task:Finalize robot design for competition With the scissor lift elevating with the screw-motor system, and the drive chain-claw system for scoring the balls all in place, our robot is now officially ready for competition next week. Our advantages lie in the stable,continuous driving chain of the... Read More Improve Scissor Lift (V3) - Wiring Guide Improve Scissor Lift (V3) - Wiring Guide By Jayesh Task: Improve Scissor Lift beams The primary circular based beams were deemed unfit for use because of the constant folding and unstable support it gave for the scissor lift. We have switched to an L-shaped design that gives us greater... Read More Mount scissor lifts Mount scissor lifts By Lin Task: Tear down temporary base frame and begin mounting scissor lift We will be extending the scissor lift by using two drawer linear slides. We had to mount these on the side so that the two scissor lifts would be stable. Max cut notches into... Read More Scissor Lift Construction Begins Scissor Lift Construction Begins By Lin Task: Start building scissor lift We know that we are using a scissor lift, but we needed the actual dimensions. We are using 4 sections/ X's (maybe five if the lift is unstable) and we have about enough space for a... Read More Wiring guide Wiring guide By Lin Task: Follow the FTC Wiring Guide Our robot has been experiencing issues that the guide mentioned, such as the Tamaya connections shutting off mid tests. We've seen how catastrophic the Samantha shutting off mid match can be, with robots charging into walls and... Read More Scissor Lift Scissor Lift By Jayesh Task: Scissor Lift for New Scoring mechanism Our method for elevating the platform for optimum height has been decided. A simple scissor-based design with support on either side seems the best option. Supporting each opposite side and also lifting the platform, the scissor... Read More New Design Features New Design Features By Darshan Task: Position basket, chair, and drive chain With the new design, we will be using a drive chain with "chairs" placed periodically along it. There will be a basket at the end of the ramp which will be catching the balls. The drive chain will... Read More Bill of Materials Bill of Materials By Tycho The parts we have used, not including Tetrix/Lego parts, were used for our main scoring mechanism, and also for subsequent parts like the beater bar. ... Read More New Design! New Design! By Jayesh Task: Make emergency scoring mechanism for competition With competition only a week away, the team has decided that the rolling tube will not be able to be completed by the competition. We are now switching to a elevator based design with a drive chain. This... Read More 3D Modeling Kibosh, pt 2 3D Modeling Kibosh, pt 2 By Tycho Task: Continue Build of Kibosh in Creo After finishing about 2/3 of the drive train, I came across the first custom part. We sliced a small chunk off of the inner beam so we could install our goal catcher. Getting the alignment on the... Read More Solution to Tube Placement Solution to Tube Placement By Jayesh Task: Place Scoring Tube A Solution we have produced for the placement of the tube was to place to long beams to opposite sides of the robot and connect with a third beam. This addition grants us more surface area... Read More Placing the lift tube for elevating the balls Placing the lift tube for elevating the balls By Jayesh Task:Place lift tube Now that our rolling goal clamp system is working, we have the task of placing the lift tube to elevate the balls to the correct position. First we have to reconstruct the back end of the... Read More 3D Modeling Kibosh 1 3D Modeling Kibosh 1 By Tycho Task:Start Building Kibosh in Creo Today I started building the model of the Robot in an assembly in Creo. As I only had some experience with parts, which is not the proper tool for this job, I decided to watch some videos on the... Read More Scissor lift V3 - Mount Scissor Lifts Scissor lift V3 - Mount Scissor Lifts By Jayesh Task: Improve Scissor Structure Our first version of the scissor lift had an unstable structure that was too heavy and often collapsed upon itself. Relying on a lighter, more flexible design, the new version of the scissor lift fixes many of... Read More Toggle for Capturing Rolling Goals Toggle for Capturing Rolling Goals By Jayesh Task: Code the servo for the toggle + finalize remote settings While our scoring tube mechanism for the balls to be placed in the rolling goals is being finalized, our simple task of capturing the rolling goals has finally been coded and... Read More Scissor lift V2 - Mount Scissor Lifts Scissor lift V2 - Mount Scissor Lifts By Jayesh Task: Improve Scissor Structure The first version of the Scissor lift was a basic prototype that wasn't meant to be the final design due to the flimsy, flexible design of the beams. The new version uses heavy steel beams and are... Read More Initial robot driving Initial robot driving By Jayesh Task: Test the controller connection with Samantha With the scoring mechanism gradually coming together, today was devoted to the testing of the sync between Samantha and our robot. The drive control system has given us a weird bug, where on startup, the robot starts moving only... Read More Ball capture Ball capture By Jayesh Task: Create mechanism to capture Rolling Goals Our main mechanism for capturing the balls for scoring are now in place. A simple 3D printing of two triangle-shaped items are nailed opposite each other, allowing for a perfect diameter to contain both the balls... Read More Spring based design(Scoring) Spring based design(Scoring) By Jayesh Task: Design a way to lift the ball tube The ideas we have come up with for scoring the balls in the rolling goals have undergone many changes throughout the year. The basic plan was to somehow stack adjacent tubes on top of one another and... Read More Toggle for servo (goal clamp) Toggle for servo (goal clamp) By Jayesh Task: Improve Toggle Servo Coding Our goal today was to code for the servo, utilized by the goal clamp, to have a basic toggle to switch the open/closed mechanism. This was accomplished with a boolean value switch within an if/else group. Our boolean... Read More Creo first experiences Creo first experiences By Max Outside example of Creo capabilities Task: Utilize Creo to create better designs to print out for the robot Our goal today is to use Creo; however, it is a new tool to us. We previously used SketchUp... Read More Joystick Control Scheme Joystick Control Scheme By Lin Task: Find a control scheme for the needed actions We've mostly been focusing on mechanical aspects on the robot recently, including the 3D printed parts and positioning, so we discussed which actions should be used on what buttons of the controller. In past competitions we've always... Read More Trapping Rolling Goals Trapping Rolling Goals By Lin Task: Build a mechanism to hold a rolling goal so we can drive with it Since we've already cut away part of the beams making up the robot's base to accommodate a rolling goal's shape, we now have to put down a hook to hold it... Read More Tube Positioning - Where will they go? Tube Positioning - Where will they go? By Omar Task: Mount the Tubes on the Robot For a long time now, one of our problems has been to figure out how to mount the tubes that will function as the lift system onto the robot, and where to mount them. Today,... Read More ThanksGiving meet ThanksGiving meet By Jayesh Task: Construct adhesive chain to elevate balls The team had an extra meet during the ThanksGiving holidays and we used the extra time to start building the adhesive chain that will bring the balls up for scoring in the tubes.... Read More To-Do List To-Do List By Lin LIFT -update pulleys and spools -experiment with base positions GOAL BASE CLAMP -finish socket -servo clamp DRIVE TESTING / PRACTICE -autonomous review -set up Samantha -Driving practice -Tweak program controls for normal remote ... Read More Sewing Adventures and Samantha Sewing Adventures and Samantha By Jayesh Task: Make our adhesive strap sturdier and more durable Today the team had an experience that most of us haven't had before: the art of sewing. The reason is that our adhesive strap needs extra support so the durability is sustained... Read More 3D Printing Troubles 3D Printing Troubles By Jayesh Task: Print Spool/Pulleys for Lift Strap Today we visited the Dallas Makerspace. They have moved their building though, and now have much more space. Their facility has great tools for us to use in future endeavours. Also, they are... Read More SEM Open House SEM Open House By Jayesh Task: Showcase robot to possible future engineers and scientists On Tuesday we presented our Team's accomplishments, future goals, and basic robotics knowledge in a room full of kids and parents thinking of attending a school of... Read More Spool Joint Spool Joint By Max Fig1 : Actual Image TBD - let's fix this Task: Leverage synergies as a team so as to look towards the horizon in the new tomorrow by implementing binomial+ access Today we 3D-printed a new version of the tube joint made... Read More Scissor Lift Construction Begins Scissor Lift Construction Begins By Lin Task: Start building scissor lift We know that we are using a scissor lift, but we needed the actual dimensions. We are using 4 sections/ X's (maybe five if the lift is unstable) and we have about enough space for a... Read More To-Done List To-Done List By Tycho LIFT -begin experimenting with lift mechanisms -connect tubes -design & print 3D tube joints -experiment with base positions CAPTURE -fabricate ramp -build better beater bar -gear up beater bars GOAL CLAMP -None DRIVE TESTING / PRACTICE ... Read More To-Do List To-Do List By Tycho LIFT -test strap -figure out pulleys -design 3D printable pulleys -experiment with base positions CAPTURE -ramp sliders -speed up beater #2 -gorfball deflector GOAL BOOT CLAMP -form socket -servo clamp DRIVE TESTING / PRACTICE -autonomous... Read More Creating a Socket Creating a Socket By Omar Task: Ease transportation of rolling goals While looking around on the internet, we found that some teams were trying to grab the bottom of the Rolling Goal to pull it around. This, however, is not what we plan to do right now. What our idea is... Read More Big Thought Sponsorship Big Thought Sponsorship By Darshan Task: Gain more sponsors to make the work of producing a robot easier On Saturday, November 8, 2014 a new Microsoft store was opened at NorthPark Center where Big Thought was one of four beneficiary organizations at the opening ceremony. Big Thought, as they... Read More William B. Travis High School Night William B. Travis High School Night By Omar Most of our team went to a middle school named William B. Travis, so when we heard that we had the opportunity to visit our old school again, we jumped on the chance. The school placed us in our 4th grade math teacher's, Mrs.... Read More Intake Mechanism Completed! Intake Mechanism Completed! By Jayesh Task: Finalize ball collector This week we finished updating the ball collector. This is a major accomplishment, since this is a very important part of the machine, and is the first step towards the ability to score. Our... Read More Beater Bar V3 Improvements Beater Bar V3 Improvements By Darshan Task: Improve BeaterBar V3 Today we came up with a new attack angle for the beater bar. This new angle allows for greater accuracy for picking up the the large balls but missing the small ones. We also added a temporary mounting area for our... Read More EKOCYCLE™ Printer Grant EKOCYCLE™ Printer Grant Edited by Max Task: Post final essay to obtain 3D printer from EKOCYCLE™ Coca Cola, 3D Systems, will.i.am and FIRST got together to offer 1600 3D printers to FIRST teams! Application Essay The demand for robotics at our school is... Read More Almost Working Intake System Almost Working Intake System By Jayesh Task: Finalize ball intake system The ball intake mechanism of the robot has finally been given a mostly working design. The plastic ramp and the dual-row system of twist ties has been pretty effective with moderate power driving both rows.... Read More Fitting the Tube Joints Fitting the Tube Joints By Tycho Task: Mount the Tube Joints onto the Tube Today we attempted to fit our tubes into our newly-printed Tube Joints. The tube joints, however, were at least 2 mm too small in the inside diameter, so we had... Read More Beater Bar V3 Beater Bar V3 By Tycho Task: Build Better Beater Bar Today we set out to build an upgraded version of the beater bar. We used square dowels from home depot to prevent the twist-ties from changing their orientation on the bar. We down the... Read More Making the Intake Ramp Making the Intake Ramp By Max Task: Make the intake ramp out of polycarbonate Last night we went to the Dallas Makerspace to build our ramp for our capture and intake system. Lin had already done the mockup in cardboard and the rest of the team... Read More 3D Printing the Tube Joint 3D Printing the Tube Joint By Max Task: 3D Print Tube Joint Last night we went to the Makerspace to 3D print our second version of the Tube Joint (link in the related articles section). We arrived with a Sketchup file on a... Read More Tube Joint V2 Tube Joint V2 By Tycho and Max Task: Improve Tube Joint Today we published an updated version of our tube joint on Thingiverse. This version of the tube joint added a third tab for extra durability, and a gradual slope was added leading up from... Read More Blog Production Blog Production By Jayesh Task: Create blogs to showcase our ideas and help share our design updates as they go Blog production will be our main asset to showcase a journal to the judges on competition day. Github is the blog provider we have so today was the day we... Read More Essay for Grant for 3-D Printer Written by Jayesh Task: Produce essay to convince EKOCYCLE® to gift us 3D printer Iron Reign Robotics has been a successful student team that has obtained multiple awards across multiple competitions. FTC (First Tech Challenge), and Google Lunar X-prize are only a few of the competitions and events we have been a part of.... Read More Nature's Fury comes to FTC Nature's Fury comes to FTC By Tycho Fig1. Everything in the foreground was inside the tent last night Yesterday, October 2nd, a storm blew across North Texas, wreaking havok on trees, backyards and many a robotics field. At least our robotics field. Our field was... Read More First 3D Printable Part Published First 3D Printable Part Published By Max Task: Create joint for tube Today we published our first 3D printable part on Thingiverse. This part is meant to create a joint in our lift tube so that it can be folded into the 18" sizing... Read More Visit to SEM Visit to SEM By Omar Fig1: Tycho showcasing Kibosh's ability to rise up slopes to Imperialrobotics Task: Showcase our robot's driving chassis Today, we went to our school, SEM, to meet with our sister FTC team, Imperial Robotics. We took one of... Read More Second Meet Second Meet By Omar Task: Restart robot basic programs and prepare it for later changes Today was a mechanical day for Iron Reign. Our goal was to make sure that our robot from last year was able to move with some basic demo... Read More First Meet First Meet By Lin Task: Produce ideas for scoring and helping our team-mates win each game First meet of the season. We brainstormed ideas for retrieving the golf ball and soft ball sized balls while watching the challenge video. We came up with three starter... Read More Let us Introduce Ourselves... Season Kickoff Lin Rogers Hello, I am Lin Rogers, and I have been a part of Iron Reign since 7th grade, about 4 years. Robotics has provided me with a focus for my education at SEM, so I know that what I'm learning matters. Jayesh Sharma Read More FTC Robot Bill of Materials

Please help support our team! $40 buys a motor, $55 buys a new battery, $150 adds controllers and sensors, $500 pays tournament fees, $750 upgrades our chassis

Welcome to Iron Reign at Dallas ISD's Science and Engineering Magnet

All Posts

Task: Review our failure of rushed build leading up to the UTD qualifier

Task: Make the Ringevator legal so we can use it in competition

Task: Describe the construction and development of the Ringevator intake

Task: Create a flow chart to analyze all our intake designs so far in this season.

Task: Prepare the intake before the qualifier

Task: Build A Forward Kinematic Model Of The Robot To Account For Turret And Muzzle Offsets, And Counter-Lead The Target To Allow For Launching In Motion

Task: Prepare the intake before the qualifier

Task: Map and test controls

Task: Achieve Continuous Targeting and Automatic Launching

Task: assemble different intake prototypes

Task: Add Margins Of Error To The Desmos Calculator

Task: Prepare the portfolio and intake before the qualifier

Task: Account For Initial Height

Task: Test the intake now that it is on the robot

Task: Summarize the key components of Ring Launcher 9000

Task: Create a system to test our materials to better understand their grip potential

Task: Go over our 5 intake iterations

Task: Present our flywheel launcher to the Dallas Personal Robotics Group

Task: review the progression of matches in our latest scrimmage

Task: Set up FTC Dashboard

Task: assemble different intake prototypes

Task: Derive And Translate Trajectory Calculations Into Code

Task: Correct the trajectory calculations after the DPRG meeting

Task: Design new parts to better mount the ring launcher and encoder

Task: Build and prototype the Flywheel Launcher

Task: Present our flywheel launcher to the Dallas Personal Robotics Group

Task: Improve the Trajectory Calculations

Task: Finalize the ring launcher design

Task: Expand the ring launcher to begin accomadating for a controlled system of firing the rings

Task: Finalize code changes prior to the PvC scrimmage

Task: Update the model to plan TomBot's build

Task: Continue developing the ring launcher and do preliminary testing

Task: Practice the presentation prior to the PvC Scrimmage on Saturday

Task: Assemble the flywheel with the readily manufacured parts

Task: Begin designing a ring launcher

Task: Physically build the ladder intake, based on the design in CAD

Task: Update the model to plan Proteus' build

Task: Design an intake with the NinjaFlex belt

Task: Build and prototype an intake system

Task: Create a prototype for a belt sander intake system

Task: Model a projectile motion equation to approximate forward speeds of rings launched from a ring launcher

Task: Layout a plan for auto paths this season

Task: Design a mechanism to trasfer rings from the ground to a future ring launcher

Task: Plan for sustainability goals

Task: Give a presentation to rookie teams at Dealey International School

Task: Prepare for our presentation to Dealey International School

Task: CAD a custom flywheel

Task: Plan changes to our codebase for the new season.

Task: Create and Test a Arm Disk Launcher

Task: Begin creating intake systems on CAD to test their potential

Task: CAD a simple roller intake design

Task: CAD a robot for the Ultimate Goal Challenge quickly in order to get ideas for a final robot design and prototypes

Task: Print some game elements to get a kick start on the season

Task: Watch the FTC Challenge Reveal event live

Reaching out to Motus Labs September 08, 2020

Task: Reach out to potential sponsors in light of the 2020-2021 season

Task: Help design a CAD Challenge game, make a reveal video for the game, judge submissions, and give feedback

Talking Heads: Summary July 11, 2020

Task: Prepare for the 2020-2021 Game Reveal season

Introducing MXP 2: Electric Boogaloo

Task: Assess Code Changes During The Week Before Regionals

Task: CAD, 3D print and test new, better, and more aesthetically pleasing gripper triggers

Task: CNC a new robot base

Task: Reflect on what went right and wrong at the regionals tournament

Task: Get back to work after Regionals

Introducing...The Revenge of TomBot!

Task: Reflect On Code Changes And Choices Made During The Wylie East Regional Qualifier

Task: Compete in Qualification and Finals matches

Task: Drive at Regionals

Task: Compete at the North Texas Regional Tournament

Preparation

Task: Fix our autonomous path the night before regionals.

Task: Mill the spicy side shields for the competition tomorrow

Task: Design and CAD/CAM some spicy side shields