Our Team

Team 1403 made a lot of progress this past week by improving their collaboration across subteams. Additionally, each subteam has been putting in a lot of work to build the robot and prepare for our upcoming competition. Despite the steady progression, there is still a lot of work to get done; our team plans on maintaining this positive and productive energy throughout the rest of the build season. 

Mechanical

The Mechanical Subteam has finished the drive train and has been working on the upright of the robot, which is a subsystem that moves game field balls from the hopper (which collects balls) to the shooter (which shoots the balls). In the next few days, they plan to make adjustments to the shooter and intake before finalizing everything to start assembly in the next week. 

Electrical 

The Electrical Subteam has been working on different sensor board designs. They have also been practicing their electrical skills, including soldering and wire management. Additionally, the subteam collaborated with Design to work on the CAD for two electrical boards and hopes to finalize it soon. Next week, they plan to manufacture the electrical board and mount it onto the robot’s drivetrain. 

Design

The Design Subteam has finalized the CAD for the upright, and have sent out all of the drawings to Mechanical for fabrication. Next week, they plan on CADing the intake and climber, expecting to finish up the drawings for those as well. The animation division of the Design Subteam has been working on setting up a virtual gamefield to practice this year’s game on our virtual reality system.

Programming

The Programming Subteam plans to finish the beta version of their app and implement state machines, abstract methods of thinking about computer processes, for the different subsystems on the robot. They have completed the code to operate the upright, and next week, they plan to adjust their code.

Strategy

The Strategy Subteam has been practicing match scouting and is collaborating with the programming subteam to finalize the scouting app. Their current initiative is to get the app downloaded and train their members in time for the competition. This week, they have finished the points analysis sheet and will start working on a guide that can be easily accessed by other FRC teams; by next week, they plan to complete the points analysis guide.

Audio/Visual

The Audio/Visual Subteam has been getting new footage for the Chairman’s Video this past week, and they plan on getting their first draft critiqued and approved. They have continued to take footage of the team and work with the Business/Communications Subteam to film reels for the Team 1403 Instagram page. 

Business/Communications

The Business/Communications Subteam has been getting mentor approval for the latter half of February social media posts, such as the subteam shoutout series and Meme Monday. They have also posted their first reel on Instagram, which was a recap of our experience in the off season competition, Ramp Riot. The reel has amassed over 5,000 views from the 1403 and FIRST community. Over the next few days, the subteam plans to outline the February Alumni Newsletter.

Outreach

The Outreach Subteam has worked on the Rock Brook initiative, which gives members the opportunity to mentor students with special needs and teach them engineering and programming through LEGO NXT Robots. This will take place at the Rock Brook School in Skillman. The subteam has also been finalizing the Rock Brook activity sheet for the Chairman’s binder. Next week, they plan to continue working on their activity sheets for the other outreach events. 

Safety

The Safety Subteam delivered a presentation about safety protocols to the team during the Saturday meeting. The subteam is working on the battery acid animation in collaboration with Animation, and are currently in the process of creating a storyboard and writing the script.