We finally figured out the huge controllability problems that we’d been suffering from the whole competition–a combination of simple issues, such as a disconnected gear shifter motor. After discovering this, we instantly started scoring and driving responsively, and we could lift ourselves reliably! That allowed us to start winning qualification matches.

This was a really tough issue to fix, since we could never reproduce it in the pits or on the practice field. Thinking it was an elusive software bug, we made incredible optimizations to our code, and the software team is confident that we now have one of the fastest-running robot programs.

Now, our results: during our qualification rounds yesterday, we went 2 wins – 5 losses–primarily because of the gearbox issues. Today, we went 2 wins – 1 loss in qualifications. We were selected by the number 7 alliance, with teams 815 and 1332. Right away, we went up in a very tough quarter-final round against the 2nd and 3rd seed teams, and unfortunately lost 2 matches against them, ending the competition for us.

Despite running into some obstacles, our robot was successful at San Diego after fixing that controllability issue. Our systems generally work, and I was incredibly proud of our team, seeing that robot lift up–the crowd screamed!

–David Liu, Co-President

We have a ton to do before Silicon Valley Regional, starting next Thursday, March 18. We have a good robot, but some parts still require tuning and we can always improve our performance. We also really need to practice driving, and to do that we have to reassemble the practice robot!

If you’d like to help out please put your name down on the following spreadsheet and select the dates that you’d be available. (We won’t ask you to come on every day that you check–we just need to coordinate people’s schedules.)

https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/iceboundflame.com/viewform?formkey=dDBnTTVHYmVoTkFEWmJUWDdJRWF0ZUE6MA

Tasks that need to be done:

• Putting on wheels
• Experiment with roller for better ball control
  • Install the roller on the practice robot.
  • We’re thinking of switching out the roller for a foam noodle
  • Need to calculate the correct speeds for the roller based on the robot’s motion.
• Get room 608 for practice
• Machine parts and assembling a new lift using updated design
• Install the kicker on the practice robot.
• Experimenting with kicker damping to protect from “dry firing”
• Test autonomous mode
• Install proximity sensor to detect the ball, or design a new ball detection sensor.

It’s a lot of work for a week and a half, but if we concentrate our efforts on working efficiently, I really think we can do this. This means that each day at the garage, we should go in with a plan to accomplish one of these tasks, and finish the night at a reasonable hour.

Let’s go win SVR!

This past weekend, February 6th and 7th, several Lynbrook Robotics team members competed in one of the largest high school speech and debate tournaments in the nation. The Stanford Invitational brought together over 1,500 students from all over the country. Vice President Chinmay Jaju took 1st place in Expository speech, beating out nearly 60 other competitors. Chinmay has always done well in this event, placing highly in other competitions, but he finally broke through this weekend after giving sensational speeches about Villains, appropriately mixing excellent presentation skills, astounding visual aids, and beautiful rhetoric.

In Parliamentary debate, modeled after the British Parliamentary system, two LRT members advanced into elimination rounds. This was the largest division of Parliamentary Debate ever in a high school tournament, with over 110 teams entered into the pool. This meant that teams needed to achieve a record of 4-2 or better with a great quality of consisting speaking ability. Parliamentary Debate is unique among debate events because teams only get the topics 20 minutes before the debate begins, and competitors must be well versed in current global affairs. Webmaster Karthik Viswanathan and his partner, Ruicong Yan, advanced to elimination rounds placing in the top 32. Veteran member Aditya Majumdar, and his partner, Indranil Bora, also advanced to double octafinals (top 32 teams) after having been the 9th seed and advancing to late elimination rounds in 2009 as well. These two teams were among 6 Lynbrook teams to advance out of preliminary rounds, setting a tournament record.

Three weeks ago, a few of these members also attend the James Logan Invitational in Union City. This tournament drew over 1000 competitors as well, with competitors flying in from 7 states, and with over 100 entries in each event. In Parliamentary Debate, rookie member Elliot Young advanced to Double Octafinals with his partner, Anjana Rao. This is an excellent achievement as it was Elliot’s first varsity tournament of this size! Aditya Majumdar narrowly missed advancing in Parliamentary Debate by just one rank. He did advance to Quarterfinals in Impromptu Speaking, and won 9th place in National Extemporaneous speaking; both of these events involve severely limited preparation time and necessitate quick thinking.

Please congratulate these students for their successes while handling both programs concurrently!

- Aditya

Officers Present: David Liu, Annie Yang, Toshitaka Tachibana, Yuya Bessho, Steve Hatton, Yusuke Sato, Karthik Viswanathan, Brandon Liu, Karena Cai, Alric Siu

Advisors Present: Mr. G
Officers Absent: Haochuan Ni, Manami Yokoyama, Eric Jan, Chinmay Jaju

Guests: Edward

The meeting was called to order at 7:09 pm.

Hey Everyone,

These are topics we discussed in this meeting:

• Old Business
  • Awards
    • Need revision
    • Add own experiences
    • We have a rough rough roughdraft for the Chairman’s Award essay
    • Maybe need a more focused topic, so the essay doesn’t “wander”
  • Machining
    • Pretty much done machining
    • Finishing it up tonight
  • Yearbook Photo
    • Took the photo last week
    • Had the mascot there (David’s friend wore it)
  • Software Meeting
    • Need to schedule the next meeting
    • 4:30- 6:30 tomorrow
  • Photojournal
    • Get members to comment on the pictures tomorrow
    • Need to finish the captions
    • Alric- print out the photojournal comment sheet
    • Karena- send him the sheet
  • Chairman’s Award DVD
    • Make a video of the pictures from the photojournal
    • Toshi and Karthik- try to write the script
  • Haiti Fundraiser
    • Eric was not here
    • at
  • San Diego
    • Meeting tonight
    • After the officer meeting
  • Winter Newsletter
    • Pretty much done
    • Need to print it
    • Haochuan was going to print but his computer died
  • SchoolLoop
    • Need approval to post things
    • David- talk to Reller about this
  • Website
    • Text changed
    • Made all the other changes
    • Still need to create page though
  • Bumper
    • Figure out the dimensions for the bumper covers
    • Yuya- work on figuring out the dimensions and make a drawing of the robot with bumpers in Inventor
    • Maybe ask the art teachers for materials

• New and Upcoming Business
  • Special Meeting Minute Page for Build Season Log
    • Annie found all the things that need to be posted
    • Annie- post them, talk to Karthik to figure out how
  • Buttons
    • Alric- need to research buttons
    • So far the cheapest price for buttons is 50 cents

• Important Dates:
  • Feb 18^th- Chairman’s (DVD, essay), Website, Woodie Flowers Award
  • Feb 23^rd- Ship Day
  • Mar 3^rd- Regional, Entrepreneurship Award

The meeting was adjourned at 7:41 pm.



Officers Present: David Liu, Annie Yang, Chinmay Jaju, Toshitaka Tachibana, Yuya Bessho, Steve Hatton, Yusuke Sato, Karthik Viswanathan, Manami Yokoyama, Brandon Liu, Eric Jan

Advisors Present: Mr. G
Officers Absent: Haochuan Ni, Alric Siu, Karena Cai

Guests: Normand

The meeting was called to order at 7:11 pm.

Hey Everyone,

These are topics we discussed in this meeting:

• Old Business
  • Awards
    • Get third person to proofread it
    • After Thursday we should have some proofread-able stuff
  • Photojournal
    • Toshi and Annie went yesterday
    • Finished putting in most of the pictures
    • Need to finish in the next two weeks
    • For captions, we need to get input from the members
    • Only have 2 meetings to get that input
    • Plan: have people edit it on their own at the meeting to attract attention, also have a packet with all the pictures so people can write comments there too
  • Chairman’s Award DVD
    • Worked on it yesterday
    • Either have someone talking and have pictures in the background, or have someone talk about the video
    • Will work on that Thursday and Sunday
  • Haiti Fundraiser
    • Talked to office
    • There’s an exception for Haiti
    • Need to make a table for people who want to donate
    • Money based on how much our alliance scores
    • Eric will run this
    • Eric- make the pledge sheets
    • What will the motivation be?
    • Why would people want to try to collect prizes?
    • Maybe have an inter-team competition- all the teams earn money for Haiti, send us totals, then we announce winner and recognize teams who participated
    • But what’s in it for them?
    • Why should they send the money to us?
    • We need something a bit more direct
    • We can be a model for other teams- inspire them to do the same
    • To do that, we need to earn money ourselves
    • How?- have incentives? (might lose money? Or “break even” which makes it pointless)
    • Estimated amount of money we’ll raise: $4000
    • Goal: ?
    • Have a cap- max amount of money the person will give
    • Have the option to just pay also
    • Will recognize the top fundraisers (motivation)
    • We also need to submit a fundraiser form to ASB
    • Iris- fill out those forms
  • Practice Room
    • The email was not effective
    • Maybe ask Ms. Davidson to request a room in person at one of the Wednesday morning teacher meetings
    • Get the teachers to understand our program so they won’t think it’s just extra useless work- email didn’t convey that
  • T-Shirt
    • Ms. Reller refuses to let us use yellow
    • Now our choices are: red (like the Senior shirt), teal (like YAK)
    • Choices for fabric: polyester, cotton
    • Red: 7
    • Blue: 3
    • Winner: Red
    • Polyester: 5
    • Cotton: 3
    • Abstain: 2
    • Winner: polyester
    • Final: Red polyester T-shirts
  • Yearbook Pictures
    • Rescheduled to this Wednesday (tomorrow)
    • After the meeting we’ll all walk over to the Cove together
    • Wear team shirt or black/dark blue
    • Send reminder tonight
    • Abhinav- bring banner
    • Mr. G- bring mascot (someone call him to remind him)
    • Need to find someone to wear the mascot
  • San Diego
    • New week 8PM will have an information meeting
    • Discuss the information packet
    • Paid for our tickets today
    • If someone really really wants to go, they might be able to go
    • Most likely not, but the tickets haven’t been issued yet so there might still be a chance.
  • Winter Newsletter
    • Many grammatical errors
    • Everyone can contribute to this
    • Need proofreaders
    • Everyone- edit newsletter
  • SchoolLoop
    • David- post the link
  • Website
    • Now members are sorted by paid and unpaid and they’re ordered alphabetically
    • Now members can post announcements- using a guest account
    • Need to make sure they know the difference between News and Announcements
    • News- significant accomplishments
    • Announcements- “Meeting Minutes”
    • Have Latest Updates section instead of Active Announcements
    • Use less technical words (ex: archive)
  • Bumper
    • Silk screening (talk to art teacher about it), Screen printing, Spray painting, Painting
    • Two sets of bumpers or a cover
    • Two bumpers seem easier to deal with

• New and Upcoming Business
  • Special Meeting Minute Page for Build Season Log
    • Annie- post Build Season log
  • Electronics Orders
    • Will have to take it out
    • Spent a lot of money already
  • Attendance
    • People are coming late
    • Start the meeting at 7, if people are late, they will miss the beginning of it

• Important Dates:
  • Feb 18^th- Chairman’s (DVD, essay), Website, Woodie Flowers Award
  • Feb 23^rd- Ship Day
  • Mar 3^rd- Regional, Entrepreneurship Award

The meeting was adjourned at 9:10 pm.

Officers Present: David Liu, Annie Yang, Karena Cai, Chinmay Jaju, Toshitaka Tachibana, Yuya Bessho, Steve Hatton, Yusuke Sato, Karthik Viswanathan

Advisors Present: Mr. G
Officers Absent: Haochuan Ni, Manami Yokoyama, Eric Jan, Brandon Liu, Alric Siu

Guests: Abhinav

The meeting was called to order at 7:12 pm.

Hey Everyone,

These are topics we discussed in this meeting:

• Old Business
  • Writing Meeting
    • Friday 3PM at Toshi’s house
    • Mostly done with the rough draft
    • May work on the DVD too
    • And grants
  • Design Meeting
    • No more design meetings
    • Mr. Xie won’t be here anymore- going on a trip
  • Photojournal
    • Two people came
    • Maybe start writing entries on website and sending out email reports about the completed meetings
    • So everyone can know what’s going on
    • No good team pictures
    • Sticking with Kodak- most trusted
  • Chairman’s Award DVD
    • Chinmay’s idea- a Verizon-like map with pins
    • May be talking to much about Botball
    • Need to work on the DVD
    • Can have a slideshow during the speech
    • Need a really good speech though
  • Crate Project
    • Need to fix the roof, add a few screws
    • Get more eyebolts
    • If get other members to help, maybe there could be a double meeting with the kicker
  • Haiti Fundraiser
    • Only restriction is no transfer payments
    • But should take a look at the rules first so we don’t appear “stupid” when we propose the idea
    • Thursday brunch ask Ms. Reller for the rules
  • Practice Room
    • Email Ms. Davidson
    • Put the announcement in staff LHS Connect- email to teachers
    • Chinmay, David, Toshi- Friday Brunch ask about the practice rooms
  • T-Shirt
    • Fernando paid for a T-shirt, his shirt was supposed to be free
    • Need to give him back his money
    • David- talk to office about the T-shirt
  • Yearbook Pictures
    • Wednesday
    • After the meeting we’ll all walk over to the Cove together
    • Wear team shirt or black/dark blue
    • Send reminder tonight
    • Abhinav- bring banner
    • Toshi- bring mascot
  • San Diego
    • 25 people signed up and paid
    • Thursday last day to pay
  • Team Roster
    • Need to update it
    • Separate paid and unpaid
    • Yusuke has list of paid members
  • Website
    • There are things you can only do if you are an admin
    • Karthik- send out instructions
    • Need some of the award buttons (they aren’t on the FIRST website anymore)
    • Asking Edward for them but he hasn’t replied yet
  • Kicker Prototype
    • So far can kick 16 feet
    • Tweaking the mass and adding springs might help
    • Chinmay- work on the kicker
    • Try to get some new members to go too
    • Announce at the lunch meeting

• New and Upcoming Business
  • Special Meeting Minute Page for Build Season Log
    • Need a password per post
    • Change it so that it just needs a password to access the page with the log on it
  • Next Software meeting
    • Tomorrow
    • Announce to tonight through email
  • Bumper
    • Research fabrics and ways to make color stay on it
    • Annie- do that

• Important Dates:
  • Feb 18^th- Chairman’s (DVD, essay), Website, Woodie Flowers Award
  • Feb 23^rd- Ship Day
  • Mar 3^rd- Regional, Entrepreneurship Award

The meeting was adjourned at 8:18 pm.

• movable roller is ideal
  • prevents too much force being applied on the roller when the robot drives over the ball
  • space issue, there may not be enough room
  • maybe have the motor on top of the roller, and the pivot point of the roller will not obstruct a kicker
    • might limit how much the roller can move up and down
• how to reliably roll the ball towards the center of the robot
  • at a shallow angle from the forward plane, the ball doesn’t want to go towards the center

Kicker

• kicker size
  • smaller, compact kicker is better because the force is transfered better
  • a larger kicker would allow you to shoot the ball without having to position it in the middle
    • will need reinforcing structure to prevent the sides from flexing
• again, room conflict with the roller
• torsion spring fixation
  • if attached to either kicker or to frame, then we’ll need a guide to prevent the torsion spring from turning out of place
  • if fixed to both the kicker and the frame, then we will need a torsion spring that is more than 90 degrees
  • different locking system to hold a cocked kicker in place
    • implement a spider locking system, which is a set of teeth on the kicker leg, and the shaft, and the once the teeth pushes the kicker to the cocked position, the teeth on the shaft retracts
    • trigger can either be a ratchet or teeth that locks on the base of the kicker
    • low friction surface on the ratchet

Alternate Winch

• telescopic design based on that of Howler (2008 robot)
  • better thought out, easier to design due to previous experience
• maybe implement a spring loaded stage similar to the working of a magic cane

On Saturday, Abhinav Sinha, Haochuan Ni, and Aditya Majumdar’s dad refitted the crate. Specifically, we created a back access panel that would allow us to open the back of the crate and do work on whatever is in the crate without having to open the main front panel and haul the things out. Special thanks to Aditya’s dad for supervising us and buying us a 24 pack of Sun chips!

- Haochuan

Officers Present: Yusuke Sato, David Liu, Annie Yang, Karena Cai, Alric Siu, Haochuan Ni, Toshitaka Tachibana, Eric Jan, Manami Yokoyama, Yuya Bessho, Karthik Viswanathan, Steve Hatton, Brandon Liu

Advisors Present: Mr. G
Officers Absent: Chinmay Jaju

Guests:

The meeting was called to order at 7:02 pm.

Hey Everyone,

These are topics we discussed in this meeting:

• Old Business
  • Writing Meeting
    • Not on Wednesday anymore
    • Moved to Thursday
  • Software Meeting
    • Too few people?
    • That might discourage new members
  • Photojournal
    • 2 people came (bad time)
    • Friday is the next meeting
    • Got all pictures compiled
    • Still looking for some specific photos
    • Sticking with Kodak
  • Saturday Build
    • Steve, Yuya, Abhinav, Edward, Haochuan, Boris
    • From about 9:00AM-3:00PM
    • Got everything done
  • Jamaicans
    • Gave them a contact and some information about Botball
    • Showed them old robots
    • Seemed pretty interested
    • Alric will send out a more detailed email about this
  • Haiti Fundraiser
    • David will look into that
  • Practice Room
    • Still need to ask Ms. Davidson (she was at a meeting)
  • T-Shirt
    • Need to explain why the new color is important
    • Ask Ms. Reller about that too
    • Explain why we should be an exception
    • Also ask for a face-to-face meeting
  • Winter Newsletter
    • All articles are pretty much done, need revision
    • There was a last minute change
    • So one article is missing
    • Alric- finish it
    • FLL article is now about the Jamaican team
  • Yearbook Pictures
    • Next Wednesday
    • After the meeting we’ll all walk over to the Cove together
    • Wear team shirt or black/dark blue
  • San Diego
    • Chinmay made a sign up list
    • Everyone needs to sign up
    • Start calling on Thursday
    • Cost for adults- $506
    • No room for price changes
    • Change it so there’s a margin
    • 5% increase
    • $462 for students- added the 10% margin
    • Will have an information meeting for parents and students
  • Lynbrook Calendar
    • Have a link that goes to our website
    • It goes to a special page for Lynbrook students and parents
    • Explains what Lynbrook Robotics is about
  • Website
    • Dates are in descending order
    • Need some of the award buttons (they aren’t on the FIRST website anymore)
    • Missing 09 award
    • Added an “Older Entries button”
    • The website is also graded based on content
    • So anyone can help with that
    • The build season log will help with that

• New and Upcoming Business
  • Special Meeting Minute Page for Build Season Log
    • A hidden link or a password protected page
    • Can make it public at the end of build season
  • Prototype Roller
    • David made one with his dad
    • It was hard to make it work
    • David sent out an email with details about this

• Important Dates:
  • Feb 18^th- Chairman’s (DVD, essay), Website, Woodie Flowers Award
  • Feb 23^rd- Ship Day
  • Mar 3^rd- Regional, Entrepreneurship Award

The meeting was adjourned at 8:18 pm.