The Last 5 Weeks...a almost post-build season summary

So after a short five weeks, everyone on The Flying Platypi is beginning to feel the pressure as the 2011 build season comes to a close. A lot has been accomplished since January eighth; we've come from very rough sketches:



to a sturdy robot with a pretty awesome arm.


And look! Our chassis can drive!



The team held brainstorming session during the first week of meetings so everyone could be involved in the robot design. It was decided that the Team would build a basic kit chassis so we could focus on build a good, sturdy arms. Many sketches were done with specific measurements, making sure that we always "measure twice and cut once". Weeks later, all team members are very pleased with the robot so far and we're really excited for our first regional.

One thing that has worked very well this year is having our different departments meet at separate locations during the week.
This allowed members to focus on their own projects and keep out of each other's way.

Meanwhile, the Awards and Marketing Departments (along with help from the rest of the team) have been working hard on finish submissions for the Chairman's and Website Awards as well as arranging fundraising and networking activities.

You can see our new 2011 website here.

We're proud that both awards submissions were finished early and even went through several rounds of parental "judging". With six days left in build season, every single member of The Flying Platypi is working hard to make sure that the 2011 season is our best yet.

Two weeks into Build Season....now what?

Wow the first two weeks have gone by so fast!
On January 8th (kick-off!!) most of the team met at an office of one of the team parents to watch the live broadcast of 2011 kick-off in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, a handful of other members drove down to the Kick-Off event in Dorton Arena and then pick up the kit of parts afterwards. As it got closer to the game announcement, excitement built no only at Dorton but also back at the office. And then Logomotion was introduced and the build season began! The rest of the day was spent drawing rough designs, defining the goal of the game and laying out six-week goals for each department.

After several days of unfortunate snow delays, the team became closer and closer to figuring out exactly what type of game position they wanted to play and the best way to construct the robot. Many drawings later we had a rough idea for the chassis and arm.

Week 2
The big question for week two was how did we want to construct the arm and what kind of chassis will we need to support it. After many discussions, idea submissions, drawings and brainstorming sessions the team has come to its final chassis/arm/ end effector combination. Also, the Chairman's Award department got started on the essay, executive summary and the Chairman's video. And the most exciting news for week 2? The team order 24 dozen beads to hand out at regionals (:

It's been a busy off-season...(Part 1)

It's just one week before the 2011 FRC game is announced and excitement on the team is definitely building. But before we dive into a new, challenging and possibly sleep deprived build-season, we'd like to offer a short recap of some of the things we've done over this 2010 off-season.

The keyword for The Flying Platypi's summer were demos, demos demos. Last summer the team did only seven demos to share our robot with the public and this off-season we wanted to really try harder to spread the message of FIRST as well as show off our robot. As a result, we've done a grand total of twenty-one demos this past off-season, tripling our number from last year. Here are some of my personal favorite demos and what made them particularly fulfilling.


- The Flying Platypi took the robot to General Greene Elementary's Technology Day in May to tell the next generation of FLL, FTC and FRC members about FIRST and how much fun it can be! The excitement of the students, ranging from kindergarten to fifth grade, really helped feed the enthusiasm of those members presenting. We answered questions from both the students, their parents and teachers about the robot, drive system, programing and even the name of our robot. A great time was had by all!

- Another fun demo the team did was the Chick-Fil-A "spirit" night in June. The first night the team held, all the money raised from food profit percentages was donated to the families of the West Virginia coal miners that experienced a mine tragedy earlier in the year. We drove the robot around in the parking lot, handed our information about the team, and explained about the cause for which we were fundraising. It was a great night and everyone had a fun time. (and great food too!)

- Out of all the demos that I went to this summer, my favorite was as the Palladium movie theater the weekend Toy Story 3 premiered. There were a lot of younger kids (and quite a few teenagers too) going to the theater to watch the final installment of the Toy Story trilogy and many of them were immediately drawn to the interesting robot driving around in front of the building. One particular boy came over to the robot when we had first arrived and was really interested in how it worked. Because we had just gotten there, the robot was not quite ready to drive and we hurried to set up the drive system so we could show this excited individual our robot. In our rush we asked the little boy if he would like to help another team member fasten the bumpers to the front, back and sides of the robot. With unexpected gusto, he gladly accepted our offer and continued to ask very detailed and interesting questions as he aided us. After everything was ready, he drove the robot around the area we were given and seemed to have a great time talking to all the team members that were present. I had a fantastic day and I hope everyone else did too.

- I think the most interesting and different demo I attended this year was the "Amigos y Hermanos" event that was sponsored by the Governor's Crime Prevention Committee. We were asked to demo our robot to a audience of mostly Hispanic children and their parents. It was my first time personally giving the entire presentation about our robot and, needless to say, I was very, very nervous. However, once the robot started to drive around, the interest and excitement of those attending skyrocketed and there were many, many people waiting for their turn to drive the robot (with some help from the other team members attending). My favorite "volunteer driver" was a little boy who was about three. He was too short to reach the controls and had to be lifted up on a chair just so he could press the button for our robot to kick the soccer ball. His genuine joy after pressing the button made all the nervousness over speaking totally worth it.

Team Member Interview

Recently, one of the members of The Flying Platypi, Ryan Yarbrough, animated a video explaining this years FIRST Lego League challenge, Body Forward. We wanted to interview Ryan so he can tell us all about his project and the work that went into it.


Hi Ryan! how are you?

I'm doing great.

So, you're the one that made the new FLL animation right?

Yes, I am the one who made the FLL animation.

Cool! Can you tell me how an animation like that is made?

The FLL animation was made using a form of animation called stop motion. Stop motion is when you use a camera to take a string of pictures of whatever your trying to animate. You move the object, in this case a lego mini-figure, and take a picture. Than you move the object again and take a picture. You would repeat this process again and again until you have enough to make your animation. On the computer you have to compile the pictures in to a movie making software and then you began the editing. In the end it is a little more complex than this but that is a simple overview.

Wow, that sounds like a lot of work. How many pictures did you have to take for the entire animation?

To make this animation I took 3,854 pictures.

Whoa! How long did it take you to make the animation start to finish?

It took about eleven weeks. Three to six hours a night to make the animation.

You did have some help right?

I had four other team members help me with the animation. Trevor Long helped me write the script. Erin Wenig and Phillip Menesick were the voices of Nina and Dr. Justin Case. Also Phillip, along with Ben Agresti, wrote the original music that you hear during the entire video.

And the most important, did you have fun?

At times it felt like I would never finish, but in the end it was one the funnest and most fulfilling projects I have ever worked on!



The entire team would like to thank Ryan (and everyone that helped him) for his hard work in making this animation such a great success. You can watch the video here:

2010 Regionals: Peachtree

Oh wow. It has been quite a while since I updated this blog! As I type the off-season is underway and the team is bringing around the robot to demonstrate at various places. But that is another post. To start off, I'll try and recall the Peachtree Regional...

Going to Peachtree for the second year as the Flying Platypi was much different than the first because of one big factor: teams knew about us. Getting our team's name out there was not an uphill battle and even in the first few minutes I was in the competition building, I saw other teams point us out and make comments about my team. (Hopefully good comments!) But, even better than knowing that our team was recognized was the feeling of walking into the stands to see the field for the first time.

Back in our pit, the team was busy. The pit needed to be assembled and the robot needed to be completed:

The next two days went by in a blur. Talking to teams, scouting, getting the robot through inspection, and dealing with disappointment as our robot ran into problems again, and again. But, despite the problems, my team had a blast helped, in part, by the debut of our mascot. Yesiree, Gary the platypus certainly made an impression.

By the the end of qualifiers, our robot was ranked in the upper thirties and the chances were that we would not be picked for the elimination rounds. Standing in the line, I just about screamed in excitement when team #281 EntTech picked us to be a part of the 8th seed alliance. The group was completed by the wonderfully designed robot from the Gear Devils. In spite of the fact we were knocked out in the quarterfinals, we were proud of our performance. But, the biggest surprise of the tournament came at the end. During the competition, a lot of judges came to talk to our team, and many of them returned to check up on how our robot was doing. (One of the coolest judges was a guy named Morrison who had a scottish(?) accent!) The number of judges talking to us made one wonder...

Later, our team was sitting during the award ceremony when the Judges Award was announced. As the announcer was reading about the team who won, he dropped several hints which made all of us look at each other in shock. He that the team used lego models to help develop the robot concept and the articulated drive system made climbing the bumps as "easy as pi". The team was us! We came home from Peachtree with a shiny, but pointy, Judges Award!

Amazing first regional.

Week Six/Seven - Shipped Robot

Well, the build season is officially over, our robot is on its way to Duluth for Peachtree, and team members are as busy as ever. So much has to be finished before we even run the robot on the field. But before I talk about that there is the robot to discuss. After a little more than six weeks of hard work, my team can be proud in saying that we have a working robot. It drives, climbs over bumps (albeit not very gracefully), and can kick pretty well. The drive train, our gamble of the season, is a thing of beauty. It articulates well and can turn on a dime without much scrub. I was able to see it drive for the first time on the day before ship date and was very impressed.

Here's a video of a driver's test that day:

After boxing it up and shipping it, the team returned to work on Thursday working out the materials that are needed for the tournament and finishing up some fabricated parts. It's been a good build season and can't wait to see other teams at Peachtree!

(Four Days Until Peachtree! I'll see if I can blog on the road. Expect more pictures before then!)

Week Six - A Random Interview

Right now I'm listening to the noise of what is the last day we have our robot with us. People laughing, the beloved pneumatic stapler going off in the background, organized chaos. Since I'll be going out to take a few pictures soon I thought it would be nice to conduct an interview with one of the many (many, many) freshmen on the team this year...

Hello Will!
How is it going?

Hi. Its going pretty good. We finally got the robot to kick. :)

Your sitting across from me right now. Do you know who's computer you're on?

This is true. Yes, I do. Daniel's computer, I believe.

What made you want to join an FRC team?

I thought it was going to be fun, and a good leaning opportunity. And robots are just cool.

So what part do you play on the team?

I am one of the programmers. I am also safety captain.

What have you learned?

I have learned a lot about LabView. And how to safely separate velcro.

Are you excited about Peachtree?

I am, although unfortunately I might not be able to come. :(

Aww too bad. Hopefully things work out!

Watch out! Soon there'll be some new post with the final robot!