Build Season - Week 4

It is the end of week four and the robot has taken shape. The main frame and components

have been assembled and all parts have been machined. There are still some final parts to be put on

the robot, but they won’t take long. Electrical is in full steam, trying to get the whole robot wired and

ready. Programing is perfecting there code and waiting for mechanical and electrical to finish. We are

expecting the robot to be fully running by Tuesday.

The marketing department has worked on getting this year’s game button finalized; we still

have a few adjustments to make to it before it is complete, but it is almost ready. We have also worked

on getting the Outreach notebooks completed. We have been in contact with a local Chick-Fil-A to

figure out how to have a fundraiser night there.

An important thing that happened in the marketing department was the advancement of the plans to redo the Platypi costume. We are redoing it to make it more user friendly for the person inside. The marketing department has also been working very closely with the Imagery and Spirit award groups to coordinate our image for this year and add some new things to make us stand out.

The award groups have been hard at work as well. The Chairman’s award group is working on

the essay and has divided it up between two underclassmen who are working together with a senior to

complete the essay, hopefully by the end of this coming week. The Engineering Inspiration award group is currently asking students to write information for individual sections in the booklet we will create that shares our mission, the team, and all that we have done and will do in the community. The Woodie Flowers award essay has been written and other adults and students can edit it. The Business Plan is still in the works but is progressing well.

A mentor helping a student with machinery 

Build Season 2013 - Week One

The first week of build season was an exciting and productive week.  Here is what we accomplished:

We watched the Kick-Off simulcast, inventoried the kit of parts, and started brainstorming strategy and design ideas.  We spent time looking over the rules and establishing our priorities for the game. We decided that climbing the pyramid would be our main priority, and scoring the frisbees would be second. We then moved on to concepts of how to approach raising the bot to the top of the pyramid. After looking at different designs and weighing the pros and cons of each of them, a single design was decided on. Next, the team started adding dimensions to drawings of the bot. While the Mechanical and Design departments were hard at work, Programming has completed its training and we are awaiting the design team for specifics of the robot. We have been working on autonomous and testing the new tech.

The Marketing department worked on updating our Outreach notebooks, writing grants, transitioning the newsletter to a new format, working on this year's button design, and coordinating fundraising nights for the team at a local Chick-fil-a restaurant.  We also put out a button competition for the rest of the team to design this year's "Have You Hugged A Platypi" button.  We are interested to see what we get from that contest! 

Awards department was busy this week as well.  For the Chairman's award, they read past years entries and talked about a timeline for when they want the essay completed.  They also worked with the two new underclassmen that will help write this year’s Chairman's essay.  The Woodie Flowers award has been started and will be completed by the end of week three.  The Entrepreneurship Award subgroup met Saturday and went through as much of the Business Plan as they could and talked about things they could add to make us stand out. The group working on Engineering Inspiration award looked through what was put together last year, how it could be improved, and what else we want to include for this year. 

The team worked hard last week designing, training, planning, and preparing for award submittals. We are all incredibly busy but we love what we're doing!

Brainstorming after kick-off