Middleton Parents and Students,
I am still working to finalize our volunteer committee structure. You will get another email from me in a couple of days with the full list of committees and help we need. Thanks again for all of the help.
The following are the topics that will be cover in this email:
1. Reminder: Tempest N Tampa (TNT) Event at University of Tampa
2. TNT Transportation
3. Team Assignments
4. Team Shirts and Order Form
5. Website
6. Home Work Assignment
7. Learning About Sensors
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1. Tempest N Tampa – As a reminder, all FRC team members are encouraged to attend the FRC Tempest N Tampa (TNT) event at the University of Tampa on September 17, 2011. TNT is an offseason FRC tournament that is hosted by Team Crunch from East Lake High School. This is a great chance for people new to the robotics club and new to FRC to see a robotics tournament in action. I am not sure what time the FRC events will start but I suggest you plan on arriving around 9am. TNT will be held at the Bob Martinez Sports Center at the University of Tampa, 312 N Blvd., Tampa, FL, 33606.
In addition to the FRC event, FIRST will also be conducting several FTC workshops. I strongly encourage you to attend the “Using Scouting and Strategy to Your Best Advantage in FTC” presentation at 10am. If you did not attend the FTC kick-off event in Orlando last Saturday, then I also strongly encourage that you attend the “Effective Design Process for FTC Manipulators for the 2011-12 Game”. This was an outstanding presentation. Of course you also want to show your support and attend Carson Wolf’s presentation at 12noon. The following is the details about the FTC workshops agenda:
10:00 a.m. – Using Scouting and Strategy to Your Best Advantage in FTC
12:00 p.m. – FTC Programming Sensors in ROBOTC
1:00 p.m. – Effective Design Process for FTC Manipulators for the 2011-12 Game
3:00 p.m. – What to Expect at Your First FTC Tournament
Location:
Sword & Shield Room or Room 104 [The rooms are adjacent]
Bob Martinez Sports Center at the University of Tampa
312 N Blvd., Tampa, FL, 33606
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2. TNT Transportation – Wendy DeWolf will be taking her son Elijah to the TNT event and offered to help if anyone needs transportation. If you need a ride to TNT, please send an email to Wendy:
wendy9278@hotmail.com
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3. Team Assignments – We have completed our preliminary team assignments. The following is who is currently assigned to each of the robotics club teams:
FRC
| Nickolas | Berglund |
| Justin | Castro |
| Nicholas | De La Guardia |
| Elijah | DeWolf |
| Lance | Dickens |
| Robert | Donaghy |
| Katelin | Guenther |
| Richwawn | Nembhard |
| Chris | Nevins |
| Marco | Schoener |
| Powell | Yunk |
| Jethro | Desir |
FTC 1369 Minotaur
| Andres | Hernandez |
| Vincent | Long |
| Nitaino | Lugo |
| Riley | MacDonald |
| Daniel | Martinez |
| Joey | Mason |
| Nicolas | Negron |
| Andrew | Passmore |
| Alejandro | Robles |
| Jonathan | Roth |
| Jasmine | Santiago |
| Eiji | Shibata |
| Mikhail | Thomas |
FTC 3846 Aionios Tyfonas
| Mahre | Anthon |
| Jeanelle | Baldwin |
| Christen | Ellis |
| Mark | Fernandez |
| Alejandro | Garcia |
| Jordon | Hart |
| Mark | Judy |
| Ryan | Magee |
| Joshua | Moore |
| Javier | Narvaez |
| Patrick | Nunn |
| Remy | Phillip |
| Xena | Quick |
| Hana | Schoener |
| Michael | Whitehead |
| Michael | Wood |
FTC 4997 Masquerade
| Brian | Butner |
| Samantha | Fields |
| Ryan | Glass |
| Jason | Howard |
| D’Angelo | Jeanmaria |
| Nicholas | Jimenez |
| Tyler | Keene |
| Cory | Kenney |
| Abdel | Khaled |
| Jonathan | Moore |
| Brian | Neuman |
| Lauren | Slack |
| Adam | Ward |
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4. Team Shirts and Order Form — We will be placing an order for the FTC team shirts in early October. Therefore, we need student shirt sizes and if any family members would like a shirt. Each team member and Adult Mentor will receive a shirt at no cost. However, any family members that want a shirt will need to pay $15 per shirt. Your order form must be returned to me or Kathy Freriks by September 30, 2011. Attached to this email is the team shirt order form that can completed and sent to school. Optionally, you can send me an email with the information requested in the attached order form. Thank you to Alison Roth for putting together this order form and helping us organize the t-shirt order. Download T-Shirt Order Form
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5. Website — The new Middleton Robotics Website has been created. The information I include in these emails plus a schedule of all upcoming events is published on this website. We have tabs for each of the teams to add their own specific content. If you have any content you would like added to the website, please send an email to bobhoward@yahoo.com. Thank you to Bob Howard for quickly pulling together our new website. This is outstanding.
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6. Homework Assignment — Today was our first chance to start thinking about a design of our FTC robots. The three FTC teams made great progress and everyone contributed their ideas to how to solve the Bowled Over! challenge. There are several rule changes and new materials that can be used this year. Therefore, I gave the teams homework assignments based on the four FTC sub-teams to investigate the new rules and materials. The following is the list of homework assignments we will discuss at the meeting on Friday:
· Drive Train team – Several new LEGO power function motors have been added. What are the advantages and disadvantages? When might we consider using these power function motors?
· Drive Train team – Adding bling to the robot. LED lights can now be directly powered by a separate 9-volt battery. Where can we get some battery powered LED lights and how many lights can we have running off of a 9-volt battery?
· Scoring Element team – Two big changes to the polymer-based plastics. What can we do with this change?
· Scoring Element team – Threaded Rod has been added. What is it and how might we consider using it?
· Electronics team – What is a Universal Security Clip to hold the PWM? What is PWM? Why would we use it and should we order some?
· Electronics team – New wiring connection is now recommended for connecting the Samantha that includes Anderson 30 Amp PowerPole. Review the new wiring recommendations and determine what an Anderson connection is. Should we use it?
· Electronics team – Any new recommendations to help prevent the NXT lock problems? What do we need to do?
· Programming team –Samostat program is required this year. What is it and how do we use it?
· Programming team –What sensors do you think we will want to use with this game challenge?
· Programming team – What version of RobotC do we need to use and are their new programming templates? If there are new programming templates, is there anything interesting or new?
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7. Learning About Sensors – The sensors that we will be using on our FTC robot are from a company called HiTechnic. Two sensors we will likely be using to help us score points are the IR Seeker and the Magnetic sensors. You can learn more about these two sensors by visiting the HiTechnic website: www.hitechnic.com and going to the “Products” page. Each of the sensors has a description and example uses for the sensor. If you are going to be a programming on the FTC team, you will definitely need to understand the capabilities of these two sensors. I also encourage all of the programmers to attend Carson Wolf’s presentation about programming sensors in RobotC at the TNT event this Saturday at noon.
