Written By: Addison S (purple) and Connor P (Whimsy)
Team Purple
MinneTrials Recap
Have you ever wanted to know what would happen if one were to put a bunch of chaotic, smart, and innovative teenagers in a room and tasked them with competing to complete a custom-made game with a custom robot? Me neither, but we’re here to tell you.
Hello everyone, this is Addison S writing for Team Purple of Talon Robotics. Everyone has been super busy with Minnetrials, measuring machine parts, and making them into prototypes over and over. If you don’t know, Minnetrials is a yearly practice competition based in Minnesota to get rookies used to the feel of real competitions, and gives veterans extra practice and teaching skills. Every year, there is a different game concept and robot requirements with a set date, and rookie members of the Minnesota FRC team compete!
The teams can have some tension, but we all get to mess around and have a good time coming up with wild ideas for robots. I’m on team Purple, opposing team Whimsey, and we’re really starting to get into the thick of it, making and adjusting prototypes and different ideas and concepts of a robot to win this year’s game. Popcorn themed, both teams’ goal is to get the most points by scoring popcorn (tennis balls) and butter (foam cubes) using a robot.
Our main idea right now is to focus on collecting popcorn and possibly have a backup butter collector to bring to the human player. Each butter is worth 6 points, while each popcorn is worth 6. A combination of the two- a combo bucket assembled by the human player- is worth 20-30 points.
Monday – CAD and Halloween Fun!
The team spent a good amount of time throwing each other around outside after we cracked open my geode outside, shoutout to the Minnesota Mineral Club! We also had a blast with our Halloween party, with many creative costumes and many dinosaur onesies! We watched the Nightmare Before Christmas and did some arts and crafts. Which pumpkin design is your favourite?
Wednesday + Friday – More CAD! More Halloween!
The team worked hard on their CAD on Wednesday! There was no room on Friday due to Halloween. Happy Halloween everyone! My personal favourite excuse to cosplay, I spent my night watching a scary movie because I procrastinated my costume for far too long and therefore had no costume to wear :/
Team Whimsy
Monday – FUNdraiser
We didn’t get too much work done as we had meetings and our Chipotle fundraiser, where we had some great food. We also had our October team builder, where we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas and drew pumpkin decorations for our room. In the little time we had to build, we were able to attach our belly pan.
So, since we didn’t have much to do, here’s the best way to clean your krakens
- Set fire to it
- Throw it in an industrial washing machine
- Find the tallest cliff in your area and throw it off at a 45-degree angle
- Loctite sacrifice
- Bake it into a funfetti birthday cake. (only funfetti will work)
- Jumpscare it (dirt is notoriously frightful)
- Baseball bat.
- Set it in the microwave for exactly 1 minute and 42 seconds
- Go to the coordinates Latitude: 45.770646 | Longitude: -23.654188, swim as deep as you can to find the lost city of Atlantis. Traverse the palace grounds to its deepest point to find the tomb of Old King Allant, the founder and valiant hero of Atlantis, and take the jewel of the city from the hilt of his sword, split it apart, and put the kraken in a rock tumbler with the jewel fragments. It will come out as clean as possible. (recommended for the best result)
- Get your father’s favorite toothbrush, cover its bristles with ammonia and bleach, and give it a good scrub. Make sure to get its beak, as it is the dirtiest part of the squid
and if it was not obvious, do not use these methods, they will destroy the kraken
Wednesday – Working!
Today we were working on our CAD so we could make our robot the best we could using all the time we had available to workshop and finalize our design, finishing our intake design and getting the materials in order. We also had our sponsorships meeting, where we sent emails and inclusivity where we talked about getting team fidgets and getting our November team builder together.
Friday – Halloween
We didn’t have open room today, so we could all celebrate Halloween. So we’re having Ferris write this section. Take it away, Ferris!
Hi everyone! It’s me, Ferris! I had a very eventful Halloween, where I got to go out and trick-or-treat with my friends, Billy the box jellyfish, and Oscar the octopus! We got lots of candy and saw some great costumes! I went as the great chustachio, a famous magician from under the sea. I even got my favorite candy, Nerds, they’re my favorite becasue they remind me of my mother’s aquarium gravel, which was the best thing I ever ate as a kid! I had a great night, and I know the rest of our team had a great night, so thank you for reading!
And thank you, Ferris, we all had a great time hearing about your night out!
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