Announcements

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Feb 13, 2010 Updated Schedule

Hi All - it's good to see we all shoveled out and are back at school. We needed to get back to school to start building! The 23rd is just a short ten days away -

So here is an update for the build schedule:

Saturday: Feb. 13th - no change - working until noon today.
Sunday: Feb. 14th - 8AM - Noon
Monday: off
Tuesday: off
Wednesday: Feb. 17th - 8AM - 4PM
Thursday: no change
Friday: all day field trip - if needed - we will keep you posted on this.
The rest of the schedule, no changes at this point. We will continue to monitor and determine if any additional changes are necessary. Other news: An IMPORTANT Parent Meeting is planned for Wednesday, February 24th - I am trying to see if the Atrium if available for about 6:30PM. More info to follow - this will be a meeting to discuss the upcoming trips to the NJ Regional and NYC Regional. We will be reviewing costs, forms, etc. We will need volunteers for the NJ Regional - each team is asked to bring 2 volunteer to assist from 8-5 so let me know if you are interested.

Thanks, Joanne Petrigliano

Feb 4, 2010 Board of Ed Presentation in Montclair Times

Congratulations to the team and the mentors on a terrific presentation to the Board of Education this past Monday evening. It was exciting to see how far the team has already gotten with this year's robot, and to see it in action! The team's presentation made today's Montclair Times. Below is a link to the photo and brief accompanying story on the paper's website.

Great job, all!

Feb 2, 2010 Board of Ed meeting

I wanted to thank all the team members, alums, parents and friends who came out to support the Montclair HS Robotics Program at last night's Board of Education meeting. The BOE was very impressed with the presentation. They enjoyed seeing the robots, hearing from the students and learning about the "ins and outs" of US FIRST, FRC and FTC.

Great job all! Ms. Petrigliano

Feb 1, 2010 Reminder

Please Join Us Tonight and Show Your Support for the Team! Robotics Team Presentation to the Board of Education
Monday, February 1st
7:30 PM
MHS Annex Atrium

Jan 28, 2010 Breaking News

Breaking News!!!
Robotics Team Presentation to the Board of Education
Monday, Feb. 1st, 7:30 pm
Annex Atrium, MHS
The Robotics Team has been asked to present to the Board of Education at their upcoming meeting on Monday, February 1st. This is a tremendous opportunity to show the value of the Robotics program to the high school and the district. Please come and show your support for our kids, mentors and the program by attending the meeting!

Do you have your 2010 555 T-Shirt Yet? !!T Shirts for Sale!!All Sizes Available! $15

Email Ms. Petrigliano for your order (jpetrigli...@montclair.k12.nj.us) and send a check with your kid to get one now!! Order Yours in Time for the BOE Meeting to Show Your Support!!

Jan 22, 2010 Montclair Times

Hope you all had a chance to see the team photo in yesterday's Montclair Times. Take a look at page B8 of the team with Mr. Weston and a special visitor.

Jan 20, 2010 Team 555 on the District Website

All, here is a ink to the article on the district website -- Thanks, Ms. Petrigliano! Dan, perhaps you'd like to forward this to the team list so that they can see as well? Link here.

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Updates

Week 6

Almost there o_O

Week 5

This week was by far the most strenuous. We began to feel that ominous feeling that the season was almost over and nothing got done. We basically had what we started with 3 weeks ago! Fortunately though, we solved 75% percent of our problems. We reinforced the KB with 1 inch aluminum steel that we hammered into the frame. We were able to make the hanging arm lighter by using one piece of steel instead of several pieces of aluminum. We repositioned the motors for the drive train and winch so we could optimized space. We also had to create a very sturdy battery box since, when we start climbing up the tower, we don’t want the battery to fall out. When this week was over the last remaining thing was to remount the shooter (which upon testing can now shoot from the second zone) and putting on electronics.

Week 4

This is when things began to go downhill. Now we had to view the true practicality of our robot and all the problems it had. The Kitbot frame was weak, the shooter could only shoot in the first zone, the hanging arm was too heavy (we’d have to remove the jaguars to operate it!), and everything took up too much space to properly fit all the electronics. We were in a huge rut because by the end of this week we basically removed everything except for the drive train.

Week 3

By this week we realized IRL what are robot could and couldn’t do. Due to the amount of clearance the kitbot frame gave us we were able to go over the bumps with ease and also, thanks to our arm design, we could go under as well! However, it would’ve been impossible to create a flipper/hanging arm. At this point we had mounted the shooter, drive train, arm, and electronics. Which was equally fortunate since we showcased our bot off to our School’s Board of Education. Things were beginning to look up since we would almost be done with our robot in 3 weeks!

Week 2

This week is when we made concrete decisions about what exactly we wanted it to do, which was almost impossible due to all the input. However, we decided we wanted to have 4 wheel drive with a pneumatic shooter that can drive over (and hopefully under!) the bump and under the tower. Also we wanted our hanging arm to be able to double as a flipper. By the time this week was over we already had the shooter mounted, drive train on, and our electronics were set up, and the programming was 90% done!

Week 1

As soon as we left NJIT we headed to the Co-Captain Sam Stymest’s house. There we had a 6 hour design meeting where we went over game rules while brainstorming the endless possibilities abou0t design for the robot By the end of the night we had some ballpark ideas about what we wanted to do in terms of the shooter, hanging arm, flipper, and drive train. Once we got back to school kids began building simple prototypes of their ideas while we built the Kitbot. By the end of week 1 we had two shooter prototypes, a completed Kitbot, and all CRio components removed from the previous year’s robot so we could use them for this year.