Iron Reign

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

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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...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log April 13, 2019 By Bhanaviya, Ethan, Janavi, Evan, Karina, Justin, Abhi, Jose, BenO, BenB, and Arjun

Meeting Log April 13, 2019

Compete at the REV Scrimmage and do...

Auto Paths, Updated

Auto Paths, Updated By Abhi

Task: Reflect and develop auto paths

It has been a very long time since we have reconsidered our auto paths. Between my last post and now, we have made numerous changes to both the hardware and...

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

Task: Update the Gantt Chart

Earlier in the year, we posted an early version of the Gantt chart as seen in (T-17, Project Management). Since then, the chart has seen many changes, which can be seen...

Ninja Flex Intake V2

Ninja Flex Intake V2 By Jose, BenB, Karina, Evan, Abhi, Ethan, Charlotte, and Aaron

Task: Design, implement, and test a newer version of the ninja flex intake

The new ninja flex intake is good, but it...

Machining Gears for Superman

Machining Gears for Superman By Ethan and Justin

Task: Machine replacement gears for Superman

Shortly after creating the new Tetrix gear system, we got a response from one of the CNC shops we'd reached out to, offering...

Intake Update

Intake Update By Ethan

Task: Custom design an intake to improve intake times

In testing, we found that the intake didn't perform adequately - the balls would slide back out in the inverse articulations. So, we designed...

New Superman Arm

New Superman Arm By Ethan and Evan

Task: Redesign the Superman arm to be more robust for Worlds

In posts E-116, we found that we were putting pressure on the individual teeth of the Superman gears on...

UIL 2019 Postmortem

UIL 2019 Postmortem By Ethan, Charlotte, Evan, Janavi, Beno, Benb, Bhanaviya, Abhi, Arjun, Jose, Aaron, Paul, Cooper, and Justin

Task: Reflect on what we did correctly and incorrectly at UIL

Pit & Packing & Roles

Pack more robot parts -...

Code updates at UIL

Code updates at UIL By Arjun, Abhi, and Ben O

Task: Update code to get ready for UIL

It's competition time again, and with that means updating our code. We have made quite a few changes...

Assisting Mechanicats with Code

Assisting Mechanicats with Code By Arjun

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

Competition is always stressful for everyone. There's so much that can go wrong, and when something does, it feels like all your hard work has...

UIL 2019

UIL 2019 By Ethan, Charlotte, Evan, Janavi, Beno, Benb, Bhanaviya, Abhi, Arjun, Jose, Aaron, Paul, Cooper, and Justin

Task: Compete at the Texas State Championship

Today, we competed at the Texas State Championship, UIL Robotics, Division 5A-6A. We finished our robot earlier this week, so this served as a testing ground for our new robot and code.

Intake Flappers

Intake Flappers By Jose, Evan, and Abhi

Task: Design and test intake flappers to speed up mineral intake

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

In post B-7, we announced that BigThought received $150k on our behalf for the creation of a new MXP. Now, we've created a tentative...

Wiring Icarus

Wiring Icarus By Jose, Abhi, Evan, and Aaron

Task: Wire Icarus to be functional and move utilizing code

With the construction of Icarus nearing completion we need to start connecting wires from the motors and servos to the REV Expansion Hubs...

Project Management Mentorship

Project Management Mentorship By Charlotte

Task: Ensure skills are passed to underclassmen

Since our project manager is leaving for college next year, there has been an effort to teach the younger students on our team to take on this role and...

Connecting the Hook to a Servo

Connecting the Hook to a Servo By Karina

Task: Connect the hook to a servo

When attaching the hook to the servo, it was very important that the configuration gave the hook its widest possible range of motion. The open position...

Icarus' Arms

Icarus' Arms By Evan, Aaron, and Ethan

Task: Install intake arms

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

Because our robot tends to tip over often, we decided to start working on a dynamic anti-tip algorithm. In order...

Reverse Articulations

Reverse Articulations By Abhi

Task: Summary of Icarus Movements

In post E-116, I showed all the big wheel articulations. As we shifted our robot to Icarus, we decided to change to a new set of articulations as they would work...

Icarus Code Support

Icarus Code Support By Abhi

Task: Implement dual robot code

With the birth of Icarus came a new job for the programmers: supporting both Bigwheel and Icarus. We needed the code to work both ways because new logic could be developed...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log March 28, 2019 By Cooper and Evan

Meeting Log March 28, 2019

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...

Icarus' Superman Arm

Icarus' Superman Arm By Evan, Aaron, and Ethan

Task: Design and install a lifting arm for Icarus

At the same time as the elbow joint was being done (which can be found in the article "Constructing Icarus'...

Constructing Icarus' Elbow

Constructing Icarus' Elbow By Evan, Aaron, and Ethan

Task: Build the elbow for intake

In the last Icarus' blog post, it was just getting the basic flat, support frame of the robot. The next step in the...

Updated Meetinglog Template

Updated Meetinglog Template By Charlotte

Task: Update the meetinglog template to more accurately reflect efforts

An essential part of the project management role is the meeting log, where the project manager records all progress made in each subteam during each session....

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

Today's Meet Objectives

Objective Summary

We plan to build the base of the chassis for the new robot, mainly by aligning the...

Finishing Icarus' Base

Finishing Icarus' Base By Evan, Aaron, and Ethan

Task: Perform the final steps to complete Icarus' base

Since we finished the polycarb base, our robot went through some major changes. We last left our robot in the...

New Robot Base - Icarus

New Robot Base - Icarus By Evan, Justin, Aaron, and Ethan

Task: Build the base for the new robot

Since BigWheel was never intended to be a competition robot, we decided to build an entire new...

Balancing Robot Updates

Balancing Robot Updates By Abhi and Ben

Updates on Balancing Robot

Today we managed to get our robot to balance for 30 seconds after spending about an hour tuning the PID gains. We made significant progress, but there is a flaw in our algorithm that needs to...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log March 16, 2019 By Charlotte, Janavi, Aaron, Ethan, Justin, Bhanaviya, Beno, Abhi, and Karina

Meeting Log March 16, 2019

Today's Meet Objectives

Agenda

Objective Summary

Our main objectives for today are to gather...

FIRST in Texas Grant

FIRST in Texas Grant By Ethan

Task: Recieve a grant for the Iron Reign program

Iron Reign has received $1,000 from FIRST in Texas for tournament fees and robot parts. This will go a long way for...

Balancing Robot

Balancing Robot By Abhi and Ben

Initial Work on Balancing Robot

Since our robot has two wheels and a long arm, we decided to take on an interesting problem: balancing our robot on two wheels as do modern hoverboards and Segways. Though the problem had already been solved by others, we...

VEX 393 Motor Testing

VEX 393 Motor Testing By Jose, Cooper, Aaron, and Janavi

Task: Test VEX Motor 393 as a faster servo for intake

We need to speed up our intake to spend less time in the crater collecting minerals....

Planning Sessions

Planning Sessions By Charlotte

Task: Outline new planning sessions

Beyond the Gantt chart and meeting logs mentioned in (T-17, Project Management), another one of the biggest additions to the team with the project management role are planning sessions. Planning sessions are...

DPRG Visit 2.0

DPRG Visit 2.0 By Abhi, Karina, Arjun, and BenO

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

Today we had 2 goals: present the FTC control system and allow everyone...

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

Issues with Driving

Issues with Driving By Cooper, Jose, BenB, Bhanaviya, Karina, and Justin

Task: Widen Superman's wheels and plan the new robot

Since we just qualified, we have a lot to do. On the list for tonight, between the 6 of us, we...

Code Refactor

Code Refactor By Abhi and Arjun

Task: Code cleanup and season analysis

At this point in the season, we have time to clean up our code before development for code. This is important to do now so that the code remains...

Road to Worlds Document

Road to Worlds Document By Ethan, Charlotte, Evan, Karina, Janavi, Jose, Ben, Justin, Arjun, Abhi, and Bhanaviya

Task: Consider what we need to do in the coming months

ROAD TO WORLDS - What we need to do

OVERALL:

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

Task: Tweaking ftc_app to allow us to drive robots without a Driver Station phone

As you already know, Iron Reign has a mechanized cart called Cartbot that we bring to competitions. We used the FTC control system...

Big Wheel Articulations

Big Wheel Articulations By Abhi

Task: Summary of all Big Wheel movements

In our motion, our robot shifts multiple major subsystems (the elbow and Superman) that make it difficult to keep the robot from tipping....

Off-Schedule Meeting Log - Week before Regionals

Off-Schedule Meeting Log - Week before Regionals February 19, 2019 By Ethan, Evan, Jose, Charlotte, Karina, and Justin

Meeting Log February 19, 2019

It's the week before Regionals, so...

Latch Designs - A Retrospective

Latch Designs - A Retrospective By Ethan

Task: Analyze past successes and failures in our latching system

Version 1

The first version of the latch worked decently. We started out with the idea of a one-way, passive...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log February 16, 2019 By Ethan, Janavi, Kenna, Justin, Bhanaviya, Ben, Abhi, and Arjun

Meeting Log February 16, 2019

So, its the last week before Regionals, so we...

Elbow Rebuild

Elbow Rebuild By Ethan, Jose, Karina, and Ben

Task: Rebuild the elbow after total gear annihilation

In a previous post, we detailed the extent to which we had stripped our gears - they were missing teeth in...

Research Poster

Research Poster By Janavi and Ethan

Task:Create a Poster amalgamating all of our math

Throughout this season our team has completed various calculations from the torque of our robotics arm, to the speed of the wheels. Since these calculations are...

Robot Issues - Gear Grinding

Robot Issues - Gear Grinding By Ethan

Task: Analyze the issues with the elbow arm of our robot

The elbow arm of the robot is what allows us to rotate the arm of our robot - the...

Control Mapping

Control Mapping By Bhanaviya, Abhi, Ben, and Karina

Task: Map and test controls

With regionals being a week away, the robot needs to be in drive testing phase. So, we started out by mapping out controls...

Pulley Spacers

Pulley Spacers By Ethan

Task: Design and implement pulley spacers to prevent belt interference

We had an issue where the belts that allowed our arm to slide upward were misaligned, resulting in the belts frequently slipping. We...

BigWheel Upgrades

BigWheel Upgrades By Evan

Task: Fix some issues on BigWheel before the build freeze

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

An FLL team gathered around Iron Reign’s robot

We had the privilege...

Code Updates

Code Updates By Abhi

Task: DISD STEM EXPO

The picture above is a representation of our work today. After making sure all the manual drive controls were working, Karina found the positions she preferred for intake, deposit, and latch....

DISD STEM Expo

DISD STEM Expo By Bhanaviya, Ethan, Charlotte, Janavi, Evan, Abhi, Arjun, Kenna, Justin, Karina, Ben B, and Jose

Task: Present at the DISD STEM Expo

DISD STEM...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log February 02, 2019 By Charlotte, Kenna, Ethan, Bhanaviya, Jose, Ben, Evan, and Janavi

Meeting Log February 02, 2019

Bhanaviya working on the blog

Today's Meet Objectives

The DISD STEM Expo took place today. While incredibly...

Fixing Mineral Dropper Components

Fixing Mineral Dropper Components By Jose and Evan

Task: Fix any issues with the mineral dropper

At the STEM expo we saw a clear issue with the mineral dropper: it is very poorly geared and doesn't deposit minerals well. A quick...

Latch V.3.5 Assembly

Latch V.3.5 Assembly By Ben

Task: Assemble the V.3.5 latch and attach to the robot

We assembled the fourth version of the latch today. Some of the improvements on this latch include using bigger bearings and thrust bearings inside. This latch...

STEM Expo Preparation

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

We need to install gearkeepers on the Superman arm to prevent gear skippage which damages gears over time. We designed a simple rectangle in...

Superman Calculations

Superman Calculations By Ethan

Task: Calculate torque and other values of the Superman arm on our robot

We want to have our robot completely replicable through the journal. So, we found it necessary to include the power calculations of various subsystems...

Road to Regionals

Road to Regionals By Ethan

Task: Consider what needs to be done before regionals

Engineering Notebook:

Latch Updates

Latch Updates By Justin, Abhi, and Ben

Task: Update the latch

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...

Three SEM Robotics Teams have now advanced to the FTC North Texas Regional Championship!

Three SEM Robotics Teams have now advanced to the FTC North Texas Regional Championship! By Ethan

This Saturday our two all-freshmen rookie FTC Robotics teams took it up a notch at their last qualifier tournament of the season. Iron Core was...

Tokens!

Tokens! By Ethan

Task: Design tokens to hand out at the North Texas Regional

We recently taught ourselves how to use the laser-cutter. Now that we've gone mad with power, we've decided to make little handouts for...

Competition Day Code

Competition Day Code By Abhi and Arjun

Task: Update our code

While at the Wylie quaiifier, we had to make many changes because our robot broke the night before.

First thing that happened was that the belt code was...

Wylie East Qualifier 2019

Wylie East Qualifier 2019 By Ethan, Charlotte, Janavi, Evan, Abhi, Arjun, Karina, and Justin

Task: Compete at Wylie East

Wylie East was Iron Reign's second qualifier of the year. Having qualified at the first one, we planned...

Pool Noodle Intake

Pool Noodle Intake By Evan

Task: Design a quick intake for the robot before competition

The night before our final qualifier, we decided that the intake system on the robot was not up to our standards. To...

Selective Intake

Selective Intake By Evan

Task: Design a new sorting mechanism for gold and silver particles

The differentiation between the different shapes of minerals has been something we’ve been thinking about since day one. At the time we...

Designing Side Shields

Designing Side Shields By Ethan

Task: Create side shields for BigWheel

Iron Reign has access to an Epilog Mini laser-cutter through our school, so we decided to use it to create side shields to protect our robot...

Belt Drive

Belt Drive By Evan and Karina

Task: Install a belt lift on our robot for depositing

The most recent addition to BigWheel has been the addition of a belt drive lift on either side of the linear...

Code Updates

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 January 12, 2019

Today's Meet Objectives

Today our goals include presentation practice, autonomous testing and fine tuning, and build changes from the newest update...

Minor Code Change

Minor Code Change By Karina

Task: Save Bigwheel from self destruction

The other day, when running through Bigwheel's controls, we came across an error in the code. The motors on the elbow did not have min and max values for its...

Vision Summary

Vision Summary By Arjun and Abhi

Task: Reflect on our vision development

One of our priorities this season was our autonomous, as a perfect autonomous could score us a considerable amount of points. A large portion of these points come from...

Latch Model

Latch Model By Abhi and Justin

Task: Model and print the Latch

Early in the season, we made a hook, Although it was durable, it required a higher amount of precision than we would have liked to have, especially in the...

Issues with Driving

Issues with Driving By Karina

Task: Get ready for Regionals

Regionals is coming up, and there are some driving issues that need to be addressed. Going back to November, one notable issue we had at the Conrad qualifier was the lack...

Meeting Log

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

Today, we implemented our first autonomous path. Since we we still didn't have a complete vision software, we made these manually so we can integrate vision without issues....

Debug OpenCV Errors

Debug OpenCV Errors By Arjun

Task: Use black magic to fix errors in our code

We implemented OpenCV support in our code, but we hadn’t tested it until now. Upon testing, we realized it didn't work.

The first problem...

Off-Schedule Meeting Log, Winter Edition

Off-Schedule Meeting Log, Winter Edition January 03, 2019 By Ethan, Evan, Karina, Abhi, and Arjun

Meeting Log (Week of)January 03, 2019

We have quite a few tasks this week, including:

Latch design

Teammember Statistics Update

Teammember Statistics Update By Ethan

Task: Look at the commitment changes over time of our team

It's a new year! And, with this new year comes new tournaments, new experiences, new projects, and more. But, to grow, one must reflect. Iron...

OpenCV Support

OpenCV Support By Arjun

Task: Add OpenCV support to vision pipeline

We recently refactored our vision code to allow us to easily swap out vision implementations. We had already implemented TensorFlow, but we hadn't implemented code for using OpenCV instead of...

Refactoring Vision Code

Refactoring Vision Code By Arjun

Task: Refactor Vision Code

Iron Reign has been working on multiple vision pipelines, including TensorFlow, OpenCV, and a home-grown Convolutional Neural Network. Until now, all our code assumed that we only used TensorFlow, and we wanted...

Meeting Log - Dec. 19, 2018

Meeting Log - Dec. 19, 2018 December 29, 2018 By Ethan, Evan, Janavi, Karina, Abhi, and Arjun

Meeting Log December 29, 2018

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

Task: Create a way to hold minerals

We now have a lift and an intake system, but we're missing a way to hold onto and deposit the minerals after intake. To achieve this, we...

BigWheel Arm Locks

BigWheel Arm Locks By Evan

Task: Create locks to keep BigWheel's intake arms in an extended position

An important part of this year's challenge is scoring minerals in the lander. Additionally, our upright elbow cannot raise the...

The Return of BatteryBox

The Return of BatteryBox By Ethan

Task: Create a charging station for our phones and batteries

A long time ago, in a land far, far away, Iron Reign once had a battery box. This was a fabled...

End of TIG Welding

End of TIG Welding By Evan

Task: Detail TIG welding plans and why they failed

At the beginning of the season, we saw that our robot base was not as well crafted as we originally thought it...

REV Headquarters Visit

REV Headquarters Visit By Ethan, Charlotte, Abhi, Bhanaviya, Evan, Karina, and Arjun

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

Today, a group of Iron Reign, Core, and Star members ventured down to the...

Selecting Intake System

Selecting Intake System By Janavi

Objective: Determine the type of intake system that will allow us to efficiently obtain and deposit minerals within the lander

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...

Townview Qualifier 2018 - Setting Up

Townview Qualifier 2018 - Setting Up By Bhanaviya, Ben, Karina, Kenna, Ethan, Evan, Charlotte, Justin, Janavi, Austin, and Jayesh
Task: Prepare Townview for SEM's qualifier on December 15th

On December 15th, Iron Reign is hosting an FTC qualifier at Townview...

DPRG Vision Presentation

DPRG Vision Presentation By Arjun and Abhi

Task: Present to the Dallas Personal Robotics Group about computer vision

We presented to the DPRG about our computer vision, touching on subjects including OpenCV, Vuforia, TensorFlow, and training our own Convolutional Neural Network....

Presenting to the DPRG

Presenting to the DPRG By Ethan, Janavi, Charlotte, Arjun, Karina, Abhi, Evan, Bhanaviya, and Kenna

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

We reached out to the Dallas Personal...

Rotational Nylon Wear Test

Rotational Nylon Wear Test By Ethan

Task: Test the amount of wear on a moving nylon part over time

After our last tournament, we noticed several 3D-printed sprockets that had worn down significantly. So, we wanted to measure how much wear...

Arm Repairs

Arm Repairs By Evan and Abhi

Task: Fix elbow and Superman

This is a follow up to Post E-64, Code Issues Break the Superman Arm. We made some hustles and got them fixed. We reinforced Superman by ganging up...

Code Issues Break the Superman Arm

Code Issues Break the Superman Arm By Abhi

Task: Analyze the code issues that led to our robot breaking

After constant use, our robot's Superman arm broke. At this point, it is important to analyze our failures. This error was not...

Linear Nylon Strength Test

Linear Nylon Strength Test By Ethan

Task: Measure linear nylon wear

We've had some issues with our nylon sprockets, mainly through excessive wear and tear. So, we want to test what circumstances cause what deformation.

Linear...

Selecting Lift System

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

Meeting Log December 01, 2018

Today's Meet Objectives

We plan to prepare for a few events coming up, the tournament we are going to host at Townview and...

Friction Coefficient and Energy

Friction Coefficient and Energy By Ethan

Task: Measure the coefficient of friction of our oven mitt intake

We want to measure various constants of materials on our robot. Earlier this season, we found that a nylon-mitt collision on our intake sapped...

Agenda for Dallas Personal Robotics Group

Agenda for Dallas Personal Robotics Group By Bhanaviya, Karina, Kenna, Ethan, Abhi, Evan, and Charlotte

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

Next Saturday, December 8th, Iron Reign will be giving its judging presentation to...

C.A.R.T. Bot Side Shields

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

Task: Design sideshields for the Townview Tournament

Iron Reign takes pride in the Townview Tournament; we really enjoy making it a great experience for everyone. One small way we plan to...

Conrad Qualifier Post Mortem - Long Term

Conrad Qualifier Post Mortem - Long Term By Ethan

What could have gone better?

This is a document for analyzing what we can do better, not just what went wrong at the Conrad qualifier. The format of this will be in...

Chassis Mark Two Planning

Chassis Mark Two Planning By Ethan

Task: Plan a new BigWheel chassis

Our next tournament is a while away, in about two months. So, we have a little bit of time to redesign. And, our current chassis has plenty of faults....

Mentoring SchimRobots at Rice MS Tournament

Mentoring SchimRobots at Rice MS Tournament By Bhanaviya

Task: Mentor a middle school team at the RMS Qualifier

Earlier today, I attended the Rice Middle School Qualifier in order to mentor my middle school team, SchimRobots, as an alumnus. Last year, when I was a member...

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...

Code Post-Mortem after Conrad Qualifier

Code Post-Mortem after Conrad Qualifier By Arjun and Abhi

Task: Analyze code failure at Conrad Qualifier

Iron Reign has been working hard on our robot, but despite that, we did not perform well owing to our autonomous performance.

Our autonomous plan was fairly simple: perform sampling, deploy the...

Inspire at Conrad Qualifier

Inspire at Conrad Qualifier By Ethan

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

Conrad Qualifier

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

Task: Compete at the N. TX Conrad Qualifier

Right off of a mortifying experience at the Hendricks MS Scrimmage, in which we got the...

SEM Robotics Tournament

SEM Robotics Tournament By Coach and Ethan

Our deepest thanks to all volunteers!

Iron Reign (team 6832), The School of Science and Engineering and the Dallas ISD STEM Department are happy to announce that we...

BigWheel Upgrades

BigWheel Upgrades By Evan

Task: Get BigWheel ready for the tournament

Today, we built mounts to attach both types of intake to the rack; the rack-and-pinion corncob intake and the red-flapped intake. We also created a new way of mounting the...

RIP CNN

RIP CNN By Abhi

Task: Farewell Iron Reign's CNN

FTC released new code to support Tensorflow and automatically detect minerals with the model they trained. Unfortunately, all of our CNN work was undercut by this update. The silver lining is that...

Linear Slide Lift

Linear Slide Lift By Janavi

Task: Design a lift for MiniChassis

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

Task: Calculate the torque needed to lift chassis

After seeing how well the robots that could latch onto the lander performed at the scrimmage, Iron Reign knew that we had to be able to score these points....

Pose BigWheel

Pose BigWheel By Abhi

Task: New Pose for Big Wheel robot

Historically, Iron Reign has used a class called "Pose" to control all the hardware mapping of our robot instead of putting it directly into our opmodes....

Meeting Log

Meeting Log November 03, 2018 By Ethan, Charlotte, Evan, Janavi, Kenna, Karina, Justin, Arjun, Abhi, and Bhanaviya

Meeting Log November 03, 2018

Today's Meet Objectives

So, we have one week before our first tournament. This isn't great. As you...

Full Circle

Full Circle By Evan

A reflection on my time at Iron Reign

In 2012 I began competing in FTC. That year our team built a robot with a giant central arm on top of a six wheeled...

BigWheel Arm

BigWheel Arm By Evan

Task: Design an arm for BigWheel

Bigwheel’s intake arm is one of the most important parts of the robot. Since our scrimmage, we have learned how to make this arm much more efficient,...

Dallas Chamber Leadership Council

Dallas Chamber Leadership Council By Kenna, Janavi, Abhi, and Ethan

Presenting to Leadership Dallas Class of 2019

Today, we presented to the Leadership Dallas program, run by the Dallas Chamber of Commerce, to fundraise for Iron Reign...

DISD Scrimmage at Hedrick MS

DISD Scrimmage at Hedrick MS By Charlotte, Janavi, Ethan, Evan, Justin, Karina, and Abhi

Task: Compete at the Hedrick MS DISD Scrimmage

Today, Iron Reign competed in the DISD scrimmage at Hedrick Middle School. This was the...

Off-Schedule Meeting Log

Off-Schedule Meeting Log October-2 23-2, 2018-2 to October 23, 2018 By Ethan, Karina, Charlotte, Kenna, Arjun, and Evan

Meeting Log October 21 to October 23, 2018

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

Juggling the minerals

Today's Meet Objectives

Our first scrimmage is next weekend, so we need to complete our chassis...

Intake Update

Intake Update By Ethan, Abhi, Justin, and Kenna

Task: Update the intake for the new robot size

We created the corn-cob intake a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, it was a little too big for the Minichassis, so...

Rewriting CNN

Rewriting CNN By Arjun and Abhi

Task: Begin rewriting the Convolutional Neural Network using Java and DL4J

While we were using Python and TensorFlow to train our convolutional neural network, we decided to attempt writing this in Java, as the code...

MXP Expansion - $150,000 Grant

MXP Expansion - $150,000 Grant By Ethan

Task: Plan for major grant to fund replacement of MXP ($150k)

First, for a brief backstory: Iron Reign built the MXP - or Mobile Learning Lab - two seasons ago...

Mini Mecanum Chassis

Mini Mecanum Chassis By Janavi and Justin

Task:

Over the summer, we designed many robots for the North Texas Chassis Project, including one based off of last year's Worlds robot, Kraken. The robot chassis had 6" mechanums. But, based on...

Travis High School Night

Travis High School Night By Ethan, Evan, Kenna, Charlotte, and Karina

Task: Present about Iron Reign to 120 prospective members

Today, we went to the Travis H.S. Night to talk to prospective freshmen about our robotics...

SEM STEM Spark

SEM STEM Spark By Ethan, Charlotte, Janavi, Abhi, Karina, Justin, Bhanaviya, and Alisa

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

For the past year, members of Iron Reign have been planning this event and getting...

SEM STEM Spark Preparation

SEM STEM Spark Preparation By Charlotte, Ethan, Janavi, Abhi, Karina, and Justin

Task: Prepare for and set up SEM STEM Spark

The National Honor Society at our home school, the Science and Engineering Magnet, has been...

Recruitment Update

Recruitment Update By Ethan

Task: Plan for 30+ influx of team members

So, as we've stated in prior posts, this year has been a successful year for recruitment. We have had 30 total signups, up from...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log October 13, 2018 By Charlotte, Janavi, Ethan, Arjun, Abhi, Justin, and Karina

Meeting Log October 13, 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

Task: Begin developing a Convolutional Neural Network using TensorFlow and Python

Now that we have gathered and labeled our training data, we began writing our Convolutional Neural Network. Since Abhi had used Python and...

BigWheel+

BigWheel+ By Evan

Task: Continue work on BigWheel

BigWheel has gone through a few major changes. First and foremost, it now has a flipper arm, AKA Superman. Since the robot itself is the lift mechanism, we...

Project Management

Project Management By Charlotte

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

Iron Reign sometimes struggles with our team organization and time management. There have been many instances where we have fallen behind in different subteams...

Mining Base 2.0

Mining Base 2.0 By Ethan

Task: Rethink our static robot idea

So, our dream this year is to create a static robot. Last week, we found out about a rule change that would prevent our mining robot from staying within the...

Upgrading to FTC SDK version 4.0

Upgrading to FTC SDK version 4.0 By Arjun

Task: Upgrade our code to the latest version of the FTC SDK

FTC recently released version 4.0 of their SDK, with initial support for external cameras, better PIDF motor control, improved wireless connectivity,...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log October 06, 2018 By Charlotte, Kenna, Janavi, Ethan, and Arjun

Meeting Log October 06, 2018

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

Now that we have software to make labeling the training data easier, we have to actually use it to label...

Another Design Bites the Dust

Another Design Bites the Dust By Ethan

Task: Discuss a new rule change

At one point, we were thinking about creating a "mining facility" robot that stays static within the crater and delivers the blocks into the mining depot. In our...

Team Marker Fun

Team Marker Fun By Karina

Task: Create the Team Marker

Last week, we decided to take up the task of creating the team marker, a simple project that would surely be overlooked, but can score a significant amount of points. We...

Corn-Cob Intake

Corn-Cob Intake By Ethan and Abhi

Task: Design an intake system unique for balls

Right now, we're working on a static-deposit system. The first part of this system is having an intake mechanism that passively differentiates the...

Designing the Corn Cob Aligner

Designing the Corn Cob Aligner By Ethan and Abhi

Task: Design an aligner for the beater bar intake

The ice cube tray is 9 holes wide and each hole is 16.50mm wide and long. Using these measurements,...

Iron Reign Grants!

Iron Reign Grants! By Ethan

Task: Detail the grant awards that Iron Reign and its associated teams received ($11k)

So, Iron Reign is currently training an influx of new members - so much that we've started two...

Designing Wheel Mounts

Designing Wheel Mounts By Justin

Task: Create wheel mounts for our Mini-Mecanum chassis

Today, we modeled two possible designs for mini-mecanum wheel mounts. The purpose of the mounts is to hold a churro or hex shaft in...

Intake Sorter

Intake Sorter By Abhi

Task: Design a sorter for the balls and blocks

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

Today's Meet Objectives

Since our overflow of new recruits, we have opened up...

Hanging Hook Prototype

Hanging Hook Prototype By Abhi, Ethan, Justin, and Janavi

Task: Design a hook for pulling the robot on the lander

To get a head-start on latching and delatching from the lander during autonomous, we got a head...

Autonomous Path Planning

Autonomous Path Planning By Abhi

Task: Map Autonomous paths

With the high point potential available in this year's autonomous it is essential to create autonomous paths right now. This year's auto is more complicated due to potential...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log September 22, 2018 By Charlotte, Janavi, Evan, Abhi, Justin, Ethan, Arjun, Karina, and Kenna

Meeting Log September 22, 2018

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

Today, we went to the Rover Ruckus kickoff! This year's main challenge is getting blocks (gold) and balls...

Rover Ruckus Brainstorming & Initial Thoughts

Rover Ruckus Brainstorming & Initial Thoughts By Ethan, Charlotte, Kenna, Evan, Abhi, Arjun, Karina, and Justin

Task: Come up with ideas for the 2018-19 season

So, today was the first meeting in the Rover Ruckus season! On top of that, we...

Post Kickoff Meeting

Post Kickoff Meeting September 08, 2018 By Karina, Charlotte, Ethan, Evan, Kenna, and Abhi

Meeting Log September 08, 2018

Today Iron Reign attended the FTC 2018-2019 season kickoff at Williams High School. After the event, we gathered...

North Texas Invitational Presentation Series - Worlds

North Texas Invitational Presentation Series - Worlds By Ethan, Abhi, Janavi, Kenna, Charlotte, Evan, Karina, and Justin

Task: Present about Worlds to new teams

This was our last presentation in a series of presentations in conjunction with teams from around Texas...

Garchomp Presentation

Garchomp Presentation By Janavi and Kenna

Task: Present in the Inviational Presentation Series

Today, we participated in the Chassis Presentation workshop for teams all around the North Texas region; the project was to design robots and perform various tests with them,...

Bigwheel Presentation

Bigwheel Presentation By Arjun and Karina

Task: Present about Garchomp

As a new freshman on Iron Reign, I took on the responsibility of a robot we called Bigwheel. Karina and I worked on getting the robot into something that could be...

2018-19 Recruitment

2018-19 Recruitment By Ethan, Kenna, Charlotte, Janavi, Abhi, and Arjun

Task: Recruit new members for the 2018-19 season

Last year, Iron Reign lost two members, so we're only looking for 2-3 members to replace them and their particular skillsets. However, our...

Organization!

Organization! August 25, 2018 By Charlotte

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...

Hey New Members!

Hey New Members! By Kenna

Hopefully, you're here because you heard our announcement or saw our flyers. Even if not, welcome! We are team 6832 Iron Reign Robotics. We've been a FIRST team since 2010 and currently compete in Read More

My Summer at MIT

My Summer at MIT By Abhi

Task: Spend a Summer at MIT

Hello all! You might have been wondering where I went the entire summer while Iron Reign was busily working on tasks. Well for those of you interested,...

Adjusting Garchomp's Chains

Adjusting Garchomp's Chains By Janavi and Kenna

Task: Build the Chassis

In our last post, we thought that we had finished Garchomp. However, as we came back to the next practice, we realized that Garchomp's chains were incorrectly linked.

...

Dallas Back to School Fair

Dallas Back to School Fair By Ethan and Kenna

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

Today we brought the MXP over to O.W. Holmes Academy in South Oak Cliff for our...

Best Buy Grant

Best Buy Grant By Ethan

Task: Receive a grant from Best Buy for continued MXP operation

Last year, we received a $10,000 award to continue our RV operations, cover staffing costs, and pay for additional technology\repairs....

C.A.R.T. Bot Summer Project

C.A.R.T. Bot Summer Project By Evan, Abhi, and Janavi

Task: Enhance our robot-building skills

At Iron Reign, we hate to waste the summer since it’s a great time to get all the ridiculous builds out of the...

SEM Nest Outreach

SEM Nest Outreach By Arjun

Task: Present about STEM to new freshmen at SEM

Today Iron Reign presented at the New Student Orientation (NEST) camp at our school, SEM. All incoming freshman were there. We had...

Replay Autonomous

Replay Autonomous By Arjun

Task: Design a program to record and replay a driver run

One of the difficulties in writing an autonomous program is the long development cycle....

Summer Chassis Project - July Meeting

Summer Chassis Project - July Meeting By Kenna, Ethan, Charlotte, Karina, Shaggy, and Abhi

Task: Compare & Collaborate on Chassis

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

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

Iron Reign had a great time today at the Frontiers of Flight Museum for the 2018 Moon Day. We...

Position Tracking

Position Tracking By Abhi

Task: Design a way to track the robot's location

During Relic Recovery season, we had many problems with our autonomous due to slippage in the mecanum wheels and our need to align to the balancing...

Central Public Library Outreach Event

Central Public Library Outreach Event By Ethan, Kenna, Charlotte, and Evan

Task: Present at the J. Erik Jonsson Public Library

This Saturday, we drove down to the J. Erik Jonsson library to present at the Dallas City...

2018-2019 Recruitment

2018-2019 Recruitment By Ethan

Task: Recruit members for the upcoming robotics season

At the end of last season, we had two members graduate, Austin and Tycho. Their upcoming "goodbye" posts will be posted here, the same as last year. So, we...

CNC Machine Rehab 1

CNC Machine Rehab 1 By Ethan and Charlotte

Task: Refurbish an Apple II CNC Mill and Lathe Set

We were helping our school's FRC team clean out their parts closet, which hadn't been cleaned in 10-ish years. Under the layers and...

2018-19 Connect and Outreach Strategy

2018-19 Connect and Outreach Strategy By Ethan

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

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

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

Every year, the Frontiers of Flight Museum hosts Turn Up!,...

Big Wheel Ideas

Big Wheel Ideas By Janavi

Task: Create a Unique Chassis

This summer, we're working on creating unique chassis that are outside of our comfort zone. Often we choose safe bases - opting for ones that we have tried in...

Swerve Drive Prototype

Swerve Drive Prototype By Abhi and Christian

Task: Build a Swerve Drive base

Over the past week, I worked with Christian and another member of Imperial to prototype a drive train. Due to the limited resources. we decided to use Tetrix...

Swerve Drive Experiment

Swerve Drive Experiment By Abhi

Task: Consider a Swerve Drive base

Last season, we saw many robots that utilized a swerve drive rather than the mecanum drive for omnidirectional movement. To further expand Iron Reign's repertoire of drive bases, I wanted...

Iron Reign sponsored by Mark Cuban

Iron Reign sponsored by Mark Cuban By Abhi

In this post, I would like to thank Mr. Cuban for supporting Iron Reign. Today, we received a message from Mark Cuban's assistant stating that he would be contributing $2500...

Conversing with Mark Cuban

Conversing with Mark Cuban By Abhi, Ethan, Janavi, Christian, Kenna, and Charlotte

Task: Explain Iron Reign

Once again, we got a positive response from Cuban! Unfortunately, we couldn't meet in person but I was still pursuing the sponsor path....

Response from Mark Cuban

Response from Mark Cuban By Abhi

Task: Reply to Cuban

After sending a small email to Cuban, he replied very soon asking for more details (shown above)! With this, I felt more confident I could make things happen. In...

Contacting Mark Cuban

Contacting Mark Cuban By Abhi

Task: Get Funding from Mark Cuban

At the World Championship this year, Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST, talked about getting celebrity involvement in the robotics program. Very few celebrities support FIRST (will.i.am being...

UIL 2018

UIL 2018 By Abhi, Karina, Evan, Janavi, Austin, Justin, and Shaggy

Task: Attend the 2018 UIL Robotics Competition

Background

For those who don't know, UIL Robotics is the premier state robotics competition for Texas. Iron Reign has...

Finishing the Chassis

Finishing the Chassis By Kenna and Janavi

Task: Build a Chassis

We have been working on this chassis for over 3+. In out last post, we had thought the wheels were ready to go....

School of Science and Engineering Freshman Orientation

School of Science and Engineering Freshman Orientation By Austin and Shaggy

Task: Speak to 200 prospective recruits about Iron Reign

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

Iron Reign earns FTC World Championship Motivate Award

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

...

2018 Worlds Day Three

2018 Worlds Day Three By Ethan, Evan, Kenna, Austin, Charlotte, Abhi, Tycho, Karina, Justin, Janavi, and Shaggy

Task: Compete in robot game

It was the beginning of Day 3. We awoke, covered in metal parts and broken servos, took our sleeping-caps...

2018 Worlds Day Two

2018 Worlds Day Two By Ethan, Evan, Kenna, Austin, Charlotte, Abhi, Tycho, Karina, Justin, Janavi, and Shaggy

Task: Compete in robot game

It was the beginning of Day 2. Our members rolled out of bed, covered in old Fiesta receipts and...

2018 Worlds Day One

2018 Worlds Day One By Ethan, Evan, Kenna, Austin, Charlotte, Abhi, Tycho, Karina, Justin, Janavi, and Shaggy

Task: Present and play first match

It was a dark, surprisingly non-humid, Houston morning. Tarballs blew through the parking lot from dusty, abandoned oil...

Relic Recovery Reveal Video

Relic Recovery Reveal Video By Abhi and Austin

Task: Publish Robot Reveal

After a season of work, Iron Reign has the final version of Kraken ready for Championships. With it comes a video showing off its features. We filmed...

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

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

Relic Arm

Relic Arm By Karina and Evan

Task: To have a working relic arm in time for Worlds

For weeks now, Team 6832 has been working hard to have a functional relic arm designed and mounted on the robot. We feel...

Robot Video Analysis

Robot Video Analysis By Charlotte

Task: Determine the acceleration and max velocity experimentally

To find the acceleration and maximum velocity of our robot we decided to use a method we have learned in our physics class at school: video analysis with...

Autonomous Updates, Multi-glyph

Autonomous Updates, Multi-glyph By Abhi

Task: Score extra autonomous glyphs

At super regionals, we saw all the good teams having multi glyph autonomi. In fact, Viperbots Hydra, the winning alliance captain, had a 3 glyph autonomous. I believed Iron...

Upgrading Kraken

Upgrading Kraken By Abhi

Task: Update CAD model

With FIRST Champs right around the corner, we needed to update our CAD model to match our current Kraken. After all, Kraken can't be lackin' any features. I decided to reopen...

Discover Summer PREP U

Discover Summer PREP U By Ethan, Charlotte, Austin, Evan, Kenna, Tycho, and Karina

Task: Volunteer at the DISD Discover Summer PREP event

Today, our sponsor volunteered our RV for DISD's Discover Summer PREP U. This is the...

Build Kraken 2

Build Kraken 2 By Janavi and Kenna

Task: Build a Pushbot (Kraken 2)

Building. It seems so simple but alas I was wrong, so wrong. During our post mortem, when we discussed our roles on the road to worlds, Kenna and...

Importance of Documentation

Importance of Documentation By Abhi and Tycho

Task: Explain commits

As explained in a previous post, we were having many issues with git commits and fixing our errors in it. After a lot of the merging conflicts, we had...

Elastics Testing

Elastics Testing By Ethan

Task: Test wear and tear on our robot's bungees

This is the fifth or so article in our series on robotics testing. Today's spotlight will be on the constants of our robot's bungees,...

Controller Mapping

Controller Mapping By Janavi

Task: Map the controller layout

At this point, we are training the next generation of the drivers on our team, and since we have so many buttons with so many different functions it can often...

The Cost of Mistakes

The Cost of Mistakes By Abhi

Task: Analyze Failures

Two words describe the picture above: "Oh dear". The wires shown above are connected to our jewel thief on the bottom of our robot. The reason the wires are so...

Lab Planning

Lab Planning By Ethan

Task: Design labs to find more physical properties of our robot

Lab #1: Batteries

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

Today we focused on changes we planned from Supers. Also,...

Engineering the Flag Holder

Engineering the Flag Holder By Abhi

Task: Find a place to put the flag

When we went to Super Regionals, we forgot about where to put our flag with the new design. That led us to strapping a zip...

Field Oriented Control

Field Oriented Control By Abhi

Task: Implement a drive system depending on field perspective

We are always looking for ways to make it easier to drive. One way to do that is to modify our code such that no...

Gripper Physics Diagrams

Gripper Physics Diagrams By Ethan

Task: Describe the physics of the gripper

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

By this stage of Relic Recovery, we have finally discovered an efficient strategy for the glyph game. At this point, it is important to get consistent driver practice. While...

Kraken LED Modes

Kraken LED Modes By Tycho and Janavi

Task: Attach and Code LEDs

We added LED's to Kraken's base. After that, we coded the lights to change color depending on which mode we are in. Though a small addition,...

Kraken LED Installation

Kraken LED Installation By Ethan, Austin, Evan, and Abhi

Task: Install LEDs on our robot

This has been a low-priority task for the robot throughout the season. We wanted to be able to a) look cool and b) signal team color...

South Super Regionals Day Three, 2018

South Super Regionals Day Three, 2018 By Ethan, Evan, Kenna, Charlotte, Austin, Karina, Janavi, Abhi, Tycho, Justin, and Christian

Task: Finish SSR and attend awards ceremony

It was the final day. Tumbleweeds drifted over the land, rolling...

South Super Regionals Day Two, 2018

South Super Regionals Day Two, 2018 By Ethan, Evan, Kenna, Charlotte, Austin, Karina, Janavi, Abhi, Tycho, Justin, and Christian

Task: Complete the first day of competition at SSR

After finishing judging and setup, all we had left...

South Super Regionals Day One, 2018

South Super Regionals Day One, 2018 By Ethan, Evan, Kenna, Charlotte, Austin, Karina, Janavi, Abhi, Tycho, Justin, and Christian

Task: Set up and present at SSR 2018

A placid stillness hung over the dark, cold room. The...

The Kraken Awakes

The Kraken Awakes By Abhi

Task: Develop a new robot model

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...

Progress of the Octopuckers Over Time

Progress of the Octopuckers Over Time By Ethan and Tycho

Task: Chart the progress of the octopuckers over time

This design was too rigid, we overlooked the fact that triangles tend to be the strongest shape, and therefore...

Joining Iron Reign

Joining Iron Reign By Shaggy and Justin

The Transition from Imperial to Iron Reign

It all started when both teams went to the North Texas Regional - I was part of Imperial at the time, with high hopes for our...

Poster Designs

Poster Designs By Ethan

Task: Make team informational posters for South Super Regionals

Last year, we didn't spend that much time on the poster/aesthetic side of things for Supers, and we ended up getting the Judges' Award. While we can't really...

Promote Award 2018

Promote Award 2018 By Kenna, Austin, and Ethan

image coming ASAP

With SuperRegionals just around the corner, everyone is going into overdrive and we almost forgot about our video for the Promote...

Polycarb Deformation

Polycarb Deformation By Ethan

Task: Find a constant for polycarb deformation

Recently, we've been having an issue with our gripper in that the shielding for the sides of the intake have been bending torsionally, so that they deform and interfere with...

Iron Reign's Meta-Post Mortem

Iron Reign's Meta-Post Mortem By Ethan

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

As Super Regionals approaches, we'd like to evaluate our past performance on post mortems, to see how well we've done,...

Relic Arm Design

Relic Arm Design By Ethan, Abhi, and Shaggy

Task: Design and implement a new Relic Arm mechanism

At the North Texas regionals, we realized that if we really want to go further in the robot game, we need to significantly improve....

Oklahoma State Regionals 2018 Postmortem

Oklahoma State Regionals 2018 Postmortem By Charlotte, Ethan, Tycho, Austin, Janavi, Abhi, Karina, Kenna, and Evan

Task: Evaluate our strengths and downfalls at Oklahoma State Regionals

It wasn't a great regional, but it wasn't a bad one either, it...

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

Task: Create a flyer for our Revolution system

We've talked to REV before about our unique REVolution system that we've detailed in other posts, but for those who are unaware, its a system that we've personally designed...

Designing our Wheel Mounts

Designing our Wheel Mounts By Tycho

Recall the discussion and design strategy regarding our wheel mounts

The side shield design process involved much thought and discussion. We have experienced difficulty with the wheel mounts we have been using, which...

Grabber V5. Diagrams and Pictures

Grabber V5. Diagrams and Pictures By Austin

Task: Implement the new grabber system and record how it works

So, we've been talking about our new gripper system for a while - we've made prior 3D models and...

Preparing for South Super Regionals

Preparing for South Super Regionals By Ethan

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

We currently have a bit over two weeks to get ready for the South Super Regionals, and we're not quite ready. Actually, if we...

Intake Stars

Intake Stars By Tycho

Task: Improve the functionality of the gripper

Our grabber is good, but it isn't achieving 100% of the potential it could. One thing we're doing is creating the Grabber V.5 previously blogged about, but we...

OK Regional Keychains

OK Regional Keychains By Kenna, Ethan, Charlotte, Austin, and Evan

Task:

We came to the Oklahoma Regional woefully unprepared for the amount of stuff other teams would give out. As soon as we arrived, we received every...

Oklahoma Regionals, 2018

Oklahoma Regionals, 2018 By Ethan, Evan, Janavi, Charlotte, Abhi, Tycho, Austin, Karina, Kenna, Shaggy, and Justin

Task: Compete at the Oklahoma Regional

In November, we went to a Oklahoman qualifier in Mustang. The reason for this was...

North Texas Regionals 2018 Postmortem

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

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

Preparation

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

Task:

In the past few months we've made a lot of improvements and updates to our robot and code. For example, we changed our gripper system again; it now includes an internal which makes it easier...

Further Updates to the Engineering Plan

Further Updates to the Engineering Plan By Ethan

Task: Update the Strategic Plan for North Texas Regionals

Download the full, updated plan here.

Beyond superficial changes, we hadn't done much else to the Strategic/Business plan since it was...

Designing a Poster

Designing a Poster By Ethan

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

Our presentations to the judges usually turn out well. However, looking back at the last tournament's awards, we could've performed...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log February 03, 2018 By Ethan, Kenna, Charlotte, Karina, Janavi, Evan, Tycho, Abhi, and Austin

Meeting Log February 03, 2018

This is the last Saturday meeting before the tournament. We have to finish bringing the engineering journal up...

Robot Drive Team

Robot Drive Team By Charlotte, Tycho, Karina, and Evan

Task: Build a solid drive team.

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

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.

First, we had to measure the chassis of Kraken, then...

Flipper+

Flipper+ By Evan, Abhi, and Janavi

Task: Build a new glyph scoring system

As the season wears on, the robot game looms over Iron Reign since the bot we built scores only a fifth of the world record. To lessen the...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log January 27, 2018 By Ethan, Karina, Charlotte, Abhi, Tycho, Austin, Kenna, Evan, and Janavi

Meeting Log January 27, 2018

We are very behind on updating our engineering journal and discussing our performance in Wylie. This was the main focus...

Wylie East Qualifier Postmortem

Wylie East Qualifier Postmortem By Ethan, Kenna, Janavi, Karina, Evan, Abhi, and Charlotte

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

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

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

Task: Learn Creo Over Time

Over the course of this past season, I have been learning how to use Creo Parametric to learn 3-D modeling. Since this is Tycho's last year on the team...

The Grabber V. Kraken

The Grabber V. Kraken By Austin and Evan

Task: Build a new version of the grabber

One of our issues with the previous iteration of the gripper was the fact that the material that coated the actual pincers weren't even and would often lead to

Fixing the Robot Chassis

Fixing the Robot Chassis By Austin

Task: Redesign the robot chassis, fix issues

When we designed our new grabber with the octopuckers, one of the variables we neglected was the width of the new grabber once assembled and resting. After the grabber was completed

Meeting Log

Meeting Log January 06, 2018 By Ethan, Evan, Charlotte, Kenna, Tycho, Austin, Abhi, Karina, and Janavi

Meeting Log January 06, 2018

So, today's the last Saturday before the Wylie Qualifier, and we're pretty unprepared. We're a little behind on our blog posts by about a week, we still haven't added our octopucker attachment, and we need to finish our 3D model of our robot.

Talking to REV

Talking to REV By Austin and Tycho

Task: Talk to REV about our REVolution System

On an excursion to the Rev Headquarters located conveniently in North Dallas, to pick up a few extra servos and other miscellaneous parts we decided to...

Chassis Model

Chassis Model By Abhi and Janavi

Task: Use Creo Parametric to CAD the chassis

After making significant development on our robot, we decided to model it. So far, we have developed the chassis of the robot seen below

...

Introducing Kraken

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 an inside washer. It will fit entirely inside the standard plate hole. We don’t use these much, but they can be useful as spacers.

...

REVolution Narrow Bearing Washer

REVolution Narrow Bearing Washer By Tycho

Task: Power to the REVolution

Washers can be used as spacers. They are also used to smooth out the rough top layers. Keep the bed very clean and smooth and the...

REVolution Custom Dual Rail Plate

REVolution Custom Dual Rail Plate By Tycho

Task: Power to the REVolution

This shows customized version of the Dual Rail Plate. This is for our 4th generation rolling gripper system. The small ears are designed to hold...

REVolution Rail Stop

REVolution Rail Stop By Tycho

Task: Power to the REVolution

This stop can be placed anywhere on a REVrail to trap mounting plates inside bearings. They are usually used in pairs.

REVolution Thin Bearing

REVolution Thin Bearing By Tycho

Task:Build an Army Worthy of Mordor

This is the standard bearing / bushing that allows a REVrail to rotate inside a plate. It is typically coupled with a glide washer and two...

REVolution Rail End Cap

REVolution Rail End Cap By Tycho

Task: Power to the REVolution

End caps are stops placed at the end of a REVrail. Five of the holes are for M3 bolts that can be screwed into the standard...

REVolution 15x20 Tooth Sprocket

REVolution 15x20 Tooth Sprocket By Tycho

Task: Power to the REVolution

This is our REV0lution 20 tooth sprocket for #25 chain. This took a lot of trial and error to get right, because it was the component...

Meeting Log

Meeting Log December 23, 2017 By Abhi, Karina, Austin, Tycho, Kenna, Ethan, Charlotte, Janavi, Darshan, Jayesh, and Omar

Meeting Log December 23, 2017

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

Jewel Thief

Jewel Thief By Austin and Evan

Task: Build a Functional Jewel Thief

The jewel thief we built before *worked* but that was about it. More often than not, it failed or, even worse, knocking off the wrong...

Alumni Meeting

Alumni Meeting By Ethan, Abhi, Karina, Austin, Tycho, Kenna, Charlotte, Janavi, Darshan, Jayesh, and Omar

Task: Talk with our former members

Since we're in the last weeks of December, our schools are legally obligated to let us out. And, while colleges aren't legally mandated to let their students out, they tend to do so

REVolution Pillow Block

REVolution Pillow Block 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

Best Buy Event

Best Buy Event By Ethan

Task: Attend a Best Buy event and accept an award

We have been using our Mobile Learning Lab for about a year now. Initally, we were given a grant by Best Buy to get electronics and...

REVolution Basic HingePlate

REVolution Basic 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 Simple Dual Rail Plate

REVolution Simple Dual Rail Plate By Tycho

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

Even though we did very well in the Oklahoma qualifier, we still encountered several problems, that if not addressed, could lower our chances of getting to Super-Regionals. So, we had a team discussion

RoboDojo Maintenance

RoboDojo Maintenance By Coach

A mess of projects

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

Grabber Arms v3

Grabber Arms v3 By Abhi and Karina

Task:Develop a More Efficient System

At the Oklahoma qualifier, we saw numerous teams with similar systems to that of ours. However, since we had the mobilized gripper arms to stack with auto alignment, we were able to collect glyphs easier. In spite of that

Spring Cleaning in the RoboDojo

Spring Cleaning in the RoboDojo By Janavi, Evan, Ethan, Austin, Tycho, Karina, Charlotte, Kenna, and Abhi

Task:

A few weeks leaving for our Oklahoma competition we assembled a large garage tent upon the pool deck and moved our field inside the...

Oklahoma Qualifier Recap

Oklahoma Qualifier Recap By Ethan, Evan, Austin, Janavi, Charlotte, Kenna, Tycho, Karina, and Abhi

Task: Compete at the Oklahoma Qualifier

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

The basters are here and in full swing. We spent a late night putting together the two intake columns. They were attached to a backing by

Control Award

Control Award By Janavi

Task:

Last Saturday, after our qualifier, we had a team meeting where we created a list of what we needed to do before our second qualifier this Saturday. One of the tasks was to create the control award

How to Assemble parts in PTC Creo

How to Assemble parts in PTC Creo By Abhi

Task: Learn how to Assemble parts in Creo Parametric

In addition to making parts to print in Creo, it is sometimes useful to combine multiple parts to make a model. For example, we can

Building the Garage

Building the Garage By Ethan, Evan, Austin, and Kenna

Task: Build a cover for our field

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

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 can't include all the code changes we made today, but all of it involved cleaning up our code, removing extra functions we didn't use, refactoring, adding comments, and making it more readable

Gripper Part 2

Gripper Part 2 By Evan

Update:

The task today was simple. We replicated the prior work with the first gripper, as stated in the prior post, so we can begin connecting them. The biggest problem was

Driving Struggles

Driving Struggles By Abhi

Task: Drive the Robot

Today we tried to drive the robot on the practice field for the first time since the qualifier last Saturday. However, we couldn't get in very much quality drive practice because the robot kept breaking down.

Greenhill FTC Qualifier

Greenhill FTC Qualifier By Ethan, Evan, Tycho, Charlotte, Austin, Abhi, Tycho, Karina, and Kenna

Task: Compete at our first FTC qualifier

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

Business and Strategic Plan Pt. 1

Business and Strategic Plan Pt. 1 By Ethan

Download PDF here

Intro

Iron Reign has existed, in one form or another, for the past eight years. We have competed in FLL, Google Lunar X Prize Challenge, and now, FTC.

BigThought and Dallas City of Learning Sponsorship

BigThought and Dallas City of Learning Sponsorship By Ethan

Task: Recount our sponsorship with BigThought

We have two kinds of sponsorships, money-based and programmatic. Our partnership with BigThought is the latter. For those who don't live in the greater Dallas area,...

Relic Recovery Strategy Part 1

Relic Recovery Strategy Part 1 By Austin

Task: Determine building strategy for Relic Recovery

Any well-versed team understands that, depending on the competition for the year, a robot will either be modified to compete or be built from the ground up. In any case, however, a robot often

Designing the Jewel Thief

Designing the Jewel Thief By Evan

Task: Design a part to remove the jewel

The jewel thief, the mechanism for knocking off one of the jewels, was going to be one of the tougher parts of our bot to integrate, based on the chassis we began with. But, with a little engineering

DISD Scrimmage

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

Task: Run and compete at the DISD Scrimmage

Today we helped run and participated in a scrimmage at the Davis Ellis Field House. Iron Reign will be hosting a qualifier in December at Townview, our home school. This scrimmage served as a practice

Building the Field

Building the Field By Janavi, Charlotte, Ethan, Abhi, Karina, and Austin

Task: Build the field

Today we started the task of building the field, which we received for free, thanks to DISD and their generous donation. The first task Charlotte, Austin, Karina worked on was assembling

Iron Reign and Substainability

Iron Reign and Substainability By Ethan

Iron Reign's Substainability

Iron Reign has been a team for 8+ years now through multiple competitions. We started as a wee middle school FLL team at W.B. Travis, and we've grown exponentially since then.

How to make a part in PTC Creo Parametric

How to make a part in PTC Creo Parametric By Abhi

Problem: How to Make a Part in Creo Parametric

PTC Creo Parametric is one of the best software to 3-D model tools that we can print out. I will detail how to create a part in Creo

Gripper Construction

Gripper Construction By Tycho

Task: Making the Gripper

Standard parts were used to create the backbone. Then, we bent some tetrix parts to connect the backbone to the servos.

Meeting Log

Meeting Log November 03, 2017 By Ethan, Evan, Tycho. Austin, Charlotte, Karina, Janavi, Kenna, and Abhi

Meeting Log November 03, 2017

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

Stopping Glyph Damage

Stopping Glyph Damage By Abhi

Task: Stop Destroying Glyphs

Since damaging field elements is a huge no-no, we needed to fix this, we decided to create a 3-D part to protect the glyphs from our wheels

Travis High School Night

Travis High School Night By Tycho, Charlotte, Ethan, and Karina

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

Today we went to Travis Middle School for their high school night where they have many high schools competing to enroll their graduating 8th graders. Travis is a Talented and Gifted school and about half of our team came from there.

Grabber Code

Grabber Code By Tycho

Task: Create a seperate class for the grabbers on the robot

Today, we created a new PickAndPlace class to isolate the code that controls the current gripper and lift system. I also added new methods to send the lift to max, min and stacking heights with manual override.

Meeting Log

Meeting Log October 14, 2017 By Ethan, Kenna, Abhi, Austin, Janavi, Evan, Charlotte, and Tycho

Meeting Log October 14, 2017

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:

More specifically, we had multiple issues with damaging the glyphs. First, the exposed screws on the mechanum wheels (Fig 1) tended to cut into the glyphs as seen in the above picture. As well, you can see relatively sharp edges on the wheels where the block could also be cut

DISD Coaches' Training

DISD Coaches' Training By Ethan, Abhi, Kenna, and Tycho

Task: Present at the DISD Coaches' Training

On Monday, we went to the DISD Coaches' Meeting in order to present our robot to the FIRST DISD coordinator and other coaches in the district. This presentation was one of the reasons we got our robot working so quickly. During the presentation our coach talked with other coaches and the coordinator about funding and tounaments

Designing the Grabber

Designing the Grabber By Austin

Task: Work on the grabbers more

With our single degree of freedom lift fastened to the robot we focused on the appendage that would grip to within an inch of its life any glyph we fed it. We initially toyed with simple tetrix channels to form a make shift rail that would hold axels for pivoting points, however we found tetrix to be a bit too cumbersome and decided to use rev rail instead.

Designing the Grabber Further

Designing the Grabber Further By Evan

Task: Design the grabber design and make future plans

The grabber has been evolving. A column made of a turkey baster and a wooden dowel attached to servo has come into fruition. The first drawings and designs are coming along, and some 3D printed parts have been thought up to allow the square dowel to become a hexagon. An adapter of sorts.

Testing Materials

Testing Materials By Austin, Evan, and and Tycho

Task: Test Materials for V2 Gripper

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

Task: Find the best robot design

The games have begun and it’s time to build. So that’s what Austin and I did. A war had been declared. Legions of the indentured collided on the battlefield. Millions were slaughtered during this new age armageddon. Austin had his army. I had mine.

Slide Designs

Slide Designs By Austin

Task: Figure out slide mechanism

After determining that the treaded channel was much too buggy to perfect with the time we had, we shifted attention to other scoring systems like grabbers, however before finding the right grabber we decided we needed to get the track for it completed first.

Narrowing Down the Designs

Narrowing Down the Designs By Evan and Austin

Task: Redesign our grabber systems

In an attempt to get a working lift system before the coaches meeting we will be presenting at, a linear slide has been attached to the robot, along with a pair of grabbing arms. They work surprisingly well and aren’t as complicated as my idea. Plus the importance of speed has really taken hold on me this year.

Meeting Log

Meeting Log September 23, 2017 By Charlotte, Kenna, Tycho, Austin, and Evan

Meeting Log September 23, 2017

We started the day by volunteering at LV Stockard MS, another DISD event. During our practice, we planned to work on robot design, blog updates, and code testing.

MXP Event at LV Stockard Middle School

MXP Event at LV Stockard Middle School By Charlotte, Kenna, Tycho, and Austin

STEM education for children and their parents at a DISD event

Earlier this morning, we drove the Mobile Tech Experience RV to LV Stockard Middle School and participated in a DISD event. We served around 250 kids, ages ranging from preschool to middle school. The morning started off slow, but as the day went on, the MXP became more and more crowded. Our spot was near the food and snack area, so lots of families came through after getting breakfast or lunch.

Intake Systems

Intake Systems By Austin

Task: Work on designs for the intake system

Over the past couple of days we’ve experimented with a horizontally mounted track system that we had hoped would serve to move blocks through the entire length of the robot and into the crypto box. Immediately we noticed a few issues

MXP at Conrad HS

MXP at Conrad HS By Ethan, Evan, Karina, Tycho, Austin, Charlotte, and Kenna

Sharing STEM opportinities with kids and their families at Conrad HS

Today, we brought the Dallas City of Learning MXP to Conrad High School to support Dallas ISD's parent outreach fair call PrepU Super Saturday. The focus for this Super Saturday was making parents aware of extracurricular activities available to their students in DISD. So this was a perfect event to let parents know about the robotics programs available in Dallas ISD, including Jr. FLL, FLL, FRC and FTC.

Further Design of the Intake

Further Design of the Intake By Evan and Austin

Task: Design the grabbing systems further

The sun came out and it was back to the field. We got started right away, both of us building our designs. Since the cryptoboxes were wider than the 18 inch sizing cube, we started by designing a fold out for the conveyor belt.

Meeting Log

Meeting Log September 16, 2017 By Ethan, Evan, Karina, Tycho, Austin, Charlotte, and Kenna

Meeting Log September 16, 2017

Today we had a major outreach event at Conrad HS in DISD which served around 450 people. We also planned on continuing our building competition, working on strategy, the blog, and the robot teardown.

Makeshift Glyphs

Makeshift Glyphs By Janavi, Abhi, and Evan

Task:

After the game reveal video was released we had some ideas on how to have our robot grip onto the blocks, but we couldn't test it without a makeshift glyph to hold onto.

Intake System Competition

Intake System Competition By Evan and Austin

Task: Compare build designs for the cryptobox intake system

The block scoring system is going to be an integral part of the competition this year, and it will have to built sturdy. It’ll have to be reliable for us to have any shot of winning any matches. So we got to brainstorming. We spent a while at the whiteboard, drawing up various mechanisms and ways to pick up blocks.

Meeting Log

Meeting Log September 09, 2017 By Ethan, Evan, Abhi, Tycho, Austin, Karina, and Kenna

Meeting Log September 09, 2017

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

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

AmeriCorps Partnership

AmeriCorps Partnership By Ethan

Task: Detail our AmeriCorps partnership

Together with BigThought, we were able to find another programmatic sponsor: the US Government. For those of y'all who don't know, AmeriCorps is a federally run program that encourages civil service. Most...

PID Calibration and Testing

PID Calibration and Testing By Tycho

Task: Allow user to change PID coefficients from the controller

To allow each user to create their own settings, we're designing a way to allow the user to tune PID to their own liking from the controller. This also enables debugging for our robot.

REV Robot Reveal

REV Robot Reveal By Tycho, Austin, Charlotte, Omar, Evan, and Janavi

Argos V2 - a REV Robot Reveal

This video was pulled from Argos visits to: The NSTA STEM Expo in Kissimmee FL, in the path of eclipse totality in Tennessee, and in North Texas at The Dallas Makerspace, The Southwest Center Mall, Southside on Lamar and the Frontiers of Flight Museum. We hope you find it interesting:

Balancing and PID

Balancing and PID By Tycho

Task: Test and improve the PID system and balance code

We're currently testing code to give Argos a balancing system so that we can demo it. This is also a test for the PID in the new REV robotics expansion hubs, which we plan on switching to for this season if reliable. Example code is below.

Dear Iron Reign

Dear Iron Reign By Jayesh

Dear Iron Reign,

8 years ago, when I walked into Mr. Schulte’s room after school, I didn’t realize my life was about to change dramatically. I’d heard there was a robotics club which was attempting to be started. I’d had sparse experience with the subject, through extraneous events like the annual Engineering Saturday at UTA, so I decided to give it a shot.

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

Task: Expose our MXP to teachers nationwide

Background

For readers who don't know what the MXP is, here's a quick description. Our coach had been floating the idea of a mobile STEM lab for a while, and he was finally given the go-ahead and some money by his company, BigThought. Originally, he planned for buying a van and loading it with tech, but like all true Iron Reign projects, it grew quickly.

Omar's Farewell

Omar's Farewell By Omar

Task: Bye :'(

Hooray for graduation! Sort of. As we seniors write our farewell blog posts before we head to college, we have a lot of years to think about. In my case, I only have my 4 years of high school to pull from, but that's more than enough to express my gratitude for being on this team.

Darshan's Farewell

Darshan's Farewell By Darshan

Task: Adios mis amigos

Well... this is somewhat of a bittersweet moment for me. All of us seniors are leaving for college in hopes of spreading our horizons and making something of ourselves, but we're leaving this team that has become almost a second family.

Turn Up! 2017 at Frontiers of Flight

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.

UIL Robotics 2017

UIL Robotics 2017 By Ethan, Evan, Tycho, Charlotte, Austin, Omar, and Janavi

Task: Compete in the UIL Robotics 2017 State Tournament

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

Discover Summer Resource Fair

Discover Summer Resource Fair By Ethan, Evan, Max, Tycho, and Charlotte

Task: Present to kids at the Discover Summer Resource Fair

Today, we brought the MXP to the DISD Discover Summer Resource Fair. We talked to about 250 people, including the Mayor of Dallas

YouthSpark with Microsoft

YouthSpark with Microsoft By Lin, Jayesh, Ethan, Evan, Charlotte, Omar, Max, Tycho, Austin, Darshan, and Janavi

Task: Mobile Tech XPerience's appearance at the Meyerson

The Meyerson Symphony Center hosted a Microsoft YouthSpark event this Saturday with activities from robotics to VR to 3D printing. We set up the sumo laptops up in the atrium and the 3D in the MXP outside, right next

South Superregional - Day Three

South Superregional - Day Three By Jayesh, Tycho, Omar, Max, Darshan, Austin, Charlotte, Lin, Evan, Ethan, and Janavi

Task: Reminisce on our last three Superregionals matches

Our final competition day began with the driver team rushing to the pits because of a warning given by the game officials for the first match's teams to reach the pits earlier than expected. We reached in time

South Superregionals Day Two

South Superregionals Day Two By Max, Tycho, Omar, Jayesh, Darshan, Austin, Charlotte, Lin, Evan, Ethan, and Janavi

Task: Reminisce on our first six Superregionals matches

After a decent night's rest, we began Day Two at around 7 AM. A lot of our tools and materials were still on our RV, so we first moved them over to our pit. Our match schedule said that

Super Regionals - The First Day

Super Regionals - The First Day By Ethan, Evan, Tycho, Max, Jayesh, Janavi, Lin, Darshan, Omar, Charlotte, and Austin

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

Way too early in the morning, on March 22nd, the Iron Reign team gathered in darkness. It was approximately 65 Farenheit and gusts around 12 mph were blowing in from the South. Under this cover of darkness

Packing lists

Packing lists By Lin, Janavi, Ethan, Omar, and Evan

Task: Get prepped for the trip

Every post I write about organization seems to start off talking about how Iron Reign hasn't had the best track record with this sort...

OpenCV

OpenCV By Ethan and Tycho

Task: Implement OpenCV in autonomous

Last year, we had some experience with OpenCV to press the beacons, and this year we decided to do the same. We use OpenCV to find the color we...

Vuforia

Vuforia By Janavi and Tycho

Task: Use Vuforia to enhance autonomous

We use Vuforia and Open CV vision to autonomously drive our robot to the beacon and then click the button corresponding to our team's colour. We started this...

Editing the Reveal Video

Editing the Reveal Video By Evan and Omar

One man's harrowing journey through copyright free music lists

The Robot Reveal video is underway. With most of the filming done, the sky grows dark and the day ends. A night time of...

Dinner Discussions

Dinner Discussions By Lin, Max, Tycho, Jayesh, Darshan, and Evan

Task: Set last practices' priorities

Many members were out of town this break but we still managed to make a good deal of progress. What we forgot to...

Promote Video 2017

Promote Video 2017 By Max

Task: Create a video outlining Iron Reign's outreach

We have had a lot of interest garnered towards the STEM outreach the team has committed to. When we found that FTC encouraged the creation of a video outlining...

Practice Laps

Practice Laps By Omar, Jayesh, Tycho, Darshan, and Evan

Task: Get some organized driving practice in before Supers

With Superregionals drawing near, we thought it prudent to better organize ourselves in terms of driving teams. We've never felt that...

Dallas Women in STEM

Dallas Women in STEM By Lin, Tycho, Max, Jayesh, Janavi, Omar, and Austin

Task: Teach LEGO EV3 and 3D modelling to girls

The Yale club of Dallas organized a STEM event for groups of girls in the city. We took the...

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

Task: Win the North Texas regionals

Summary: We won

On Febuary 25, we drove our RV to W.E. Pete Ford Middle School, in Allen, TX. The...

Backups and Shields

Backups and Shields By Lin, Omar, Max, and Tycho

Task: Build a backup flywheel track and remount side shields

Previously, our side shields were zip-tied through 4 bolt holes on tetrix pieces per side, and we had taken one off to...

Pre-Scouting Regionals

Pre-Scouting Regionals By Ethan

Task: Find out information on teams at Regionals

One of the things we're weak on this year is scouting. Dylan did some amazing scouting work last year that got us to regionals, but he is no longer on the team. So, for regionals this year, we want...

I Am Become Aquila, Destroyer of Worlds

I Am Become Aquila, Destroyer of Worlds By Max

Task: Resurrect the Ancient One

The Great One, Aqui'la, has slumbered for too long. Since the deity lost Its battle with the accursed Gravitae a year ago, Its physical form has crumbled to pieces, leaving It powerless to bend the world to...

The Imperator Will See You Now

The Imperator Will See You Now By Max

Task: Design a new banner

For the past year or two, we've brought along a big vertical banner to our competitions to help boost our presence and make it easier for judges, other teams, and even members of our own team to find...

Judging and Awards

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

The first particle launcher we saw by another FTC team was actually a crude flywheel and rail design back in October where the rail was a...

Forester Field House Robotics Competition

Forester Field House Robotics Competition By Janavi, Omar, Tycho, Max, Jayesh, Evan, Lin, and Darshan

Task: Compete in the Forester Field House Robotics Competition

We started off with our presentation pretty early, and everything was going pretty well until our robot...

Fly Wheel 2 - Fly Harder

Fly Wheel 2 - Fly Harder By Max

Task: Create a backer rail to guide the particle as it fires

Our work on the flywheel design has been an effective proof of concept, and now we need to work it in to the rest of the robot. However, just like with...

Robot Drive Team

Robot Drive Team By Charlotte, Tycho, Karina, and Evan

Task: Build a solid drive team.

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

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

I was going to make a Windows 10 joke but then we stopped using the catapult at version 8.

Task: Design a flywheel for a new system replacing the catapult

So while our catapult was good, we needed...

Wylie East Postmortem

Wylie East Postmortem By Ethan

Task: Analyze what we did wrong and right at Wylie

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

Mechanical Problems...

Wylie East Qualifier

Wylie East Qualifier By Ethan, Evan, Max, Tycho, Darshan, Jayesh, Omar, Janavi, and Lin

Task: To go to the Wylie East robotics tournament

On Jan. 14, we headed out to Wylie East HS for a North Texas...

Bake Sale

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

...
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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
...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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

Intro to Gyros

Intro to Gyros By Lin, Tycho, Max, Omar, and Jayesh and Darshan

Task: Share what we've learned about motion sensing

On July 11th we gave a talk for a classroom full of adult members of the Dallas Personal Robotics Group (DPRG) where we...
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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! $25 buys a motor, $50 buys a new battery, $150 adds controllers and sensors, $500 pays tournament fees, $750 upgrades our drivetrain

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

All Posts

Task: Evaluate the Project Manager position

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

Meeting Log April 13, 2019

Compete at the REV Scrimmage and do...

Task: Reflect and develop auto paths

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

Task: Update the Gantt Chart

Task: Design, implement, and test a newer version of the ninja flex intake

Task: Machine replacement gears for Superman

Task: Custom design an intake to improve intake times

Task: Redesign the Superman arm to be more robust for Worlds

Task: Reflect on what we did correctly and incorrectly at UIL

Pit & Packing & Roles

Task: Update code to get ready for UIL

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

Task: Compete at the Texas State Championship

Task: Design and test intake flappers to speed up mineral intake

Task: Plan the next stage of the MXP

Task: Wire Icarus to be functional and move utilizing code

Task: Ensure skills are passed to underclassmen

Task: Connect the hook to a servo

Task: Install intake arms

Task: Determine equations to find robot Center of Gravity

Task: Summary of Icarus Movements

Task: Implement dual robot code

Meeting Log March 28, 2019

Today's Meet Objectives

Objective Summary

Today's Work...

Task: Design and install a lifting arm for Icarus

Task: Build the elbow for intake

Task: Update the meetinglog template to more accurately reflect efforts

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

Meeting Log March 23, 2019

Today's Meet Objectives

Agenda

Objective Summary

Task: Analyze efficiency of our intake system

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

Meeting Log March 22, 2019

Today's Meet Objectives

Agenda

Objective Summary

Meeting Log March 20, 2019

Today's Meet Objectives

Objective Summary

Task: Perform the final steps to complete Icarus' base

Task: Build the base for the new robot

Updates on Balancing Robot

Meeting Log March 16, 2019

Today's Meet Objectives

Agenda

Objective Summary

Task: Recieve a grant for the Iron Reign program

Initial Work on Balancing Robot

Task: Test VEX Motor 393 as a faster servo for intake

Task: Outline new planning sessions

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

Localization

Meeting Log March 08, 2019

Friday

Task: Widen Superman's wheels and plan the new robot

Task: Code cleanup and season analysis

Task: Consider what we need to do in the coming months

Task: Analyze what went wrong at North Texas Regionals

Meeting Log March 02, 2019

Today's Meet Objectives

Task: Compete at the North Texas Regional Tournament

Preparation

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

Task: Finish the Bigwheel model

Task: Tweaking ftc_app to allow us to drive robots without a Driver Station phone

Task: Summary of all Big Wheel movements

Meeting Log February 19, 2019

Task: Analyze past successes and failures in our latching system

Version 1

Meeting Log February 16, 2019