2019 Offseason

June 9th, 2019

On June 3th, 2019 at exactly 1:10 PM a monumental event occurs - the start of summer. With the start of summer brought not only procrastinating summer readings, late nights spent building websites, the freedom to spend all day playing League of Legends,but most importantly the official start of the off season.

Although we have said the words “off-season project” about many different ideas throughout the FRC season, our goals for this summer where narrowed down to the following:

- Model a telescoping arm

- Continue development of a vision system

- Experiment with brushless Mark 2 motors

- Train Padawans by deveolping code for our beloved off season robot Goodie/Woodie (depends on who you ask)

- Make a website

With only 73 days left and counting, we have since set off to accomplish these goals, determined to not leave any to-do list task unchecked unlike the Vision to-do list this build season. Summer has started, offseason is here, and our only limit is the software captain telling us to go to bed at a reasonable time. But, the watch dog has been fed and it’s time to get this bread.

*Padawan: Title given to the freshman (now sophomores) who were brought up to frc this past year


August 15th, 2019

With the end of summer, it comes time to reflect on what was accomplished these past few months. Overall, this summer was successful. Between monday CAD meetings and sundays Software gatherings we were able to put in a lot of work to ready us for build season this coming January. The goals that where met include the following:

  • Modeling a telescoping arm
    • Where able to complete CAD drawings and modeling on Inventor
  • Training the padawans
    • Everyone was able to successfully write and test code on our beloved off season robot Goodie/Woodie
  • Building and Developing a website
    • I get the feeling that this one sorta speaks for itself

At the end of the day 3 for 5 is not bad. If this where an AP exam, it would still be enough to receive college credit at most schools. However if this was an English quiz testing what you remember from the reading the previous night and also happens to be the first grade in the grade book at the start of the semester... Then it's not so good. The following goals we were unfortunately unable to complete…

  • Experimenting with Mark 2 Brushless motors
    • Where able to test and write code for
    • However were unable to test on an actual chassis
  • Continued development of a vision system
    • Simply due to not having enough time
    • Where able to incorporate some elements of vision onto Goodie/Woodie

TL;DR Overall this summer was productive. We were able to accomplish many things that will help us be better prepared for the upcoming build season. From training the padawans, experimenting with new components, and creating a website that is pretty neat if you ask me, much was done these past few months. Nevertheless, with Kick Off still four months away, there is still plenty of time to continue to work on the goals that were not accomplished this summer.