Monday 1/20
Drivetrains and Deep Climbs – Connor P.
Since it was MLK day we could get straight to work, and we started like a rocket! We quickly got our machines running all day to get parts ready, along with starting to get our deep climb attached to our drivetrain! We’re moving quickly and are excited to see the work that gets done!
Our business teams were still hard at work as well, our inclusivity team getting ready for FIRST ladies and Women’s panel. Marketing also met today, where we made an infographic about our team and how others can help us. Overall, it was a successful day!
Tuesday 1/21
Talon Robotics is on FIRE 🔥 – Viki P.
Come cold weather or a fire drill, nothing can keep Robotics kids from working on their robot. With school cancelled, Room started up at noon and we quickly got to work on rigging up our electrical components thanks to our super cool team members. Cracking out the field elements, we finished up the climber pneumatics because we’re super cool like that. There was also plenty of everyone’s favorite activity happening: Tapping. It was tiring but had to be done.
Switching over to our business side, we’re heading into our last week of Krispy Kreme sales. In true robotics kid fashion, our fundraising lead, Calvin P. was “kindly” reminding our members to start locking in. Hopefully, robotics wins over procrastination and we get to deliver the delicious donuts all around our community. To further sales, Connor P. and Juan Diego C. put up some fliers around our school. Who wants donuts more than stressed out teenagers? Calvin P. had his fundraising meeting to discuss maxing out these donut sales and some possible new merch! Alongside our upcoming concessions for CMS, we looked into some more fundraising. To end off the night, we had a visit from a National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) speaker to ensure the best mental headspace diving into the new season and semester. It was very informative and everyone left the meeting with some handy dandy coping mechanisms and some snacks to fuel that robotics grind.
Wednesday 1/22 and Friday 1/24
Finals week, but we keep going! – Brooke-Lynn B.
The final days of the semester was extremely busy for both the business and build sides of our team. The marketing team went around the borders of Eden Prairie visiting companies on our annual door to door sponsorship trip. We got many contacts, gave away our business cards, and even received a full tour from a company. We also received our elevator parts from CEM, so once room opened after school, we immediately began elevator assembly. While some of our members worked on elevator construction, others started to wire the robot drivetrain.
Later, some of the build subteams had their first meetings of the season, with the design team sorting out how to further improve the functionality of our robot, and the electrical subteam deciding how to wire our robot. With almost all the electronics on our electrical panel mounted, we had to figure out the best way to route our wires so that they wouldn’t interfere with other parts of the robot (especially the moving parts). We also decided that we would be protecting our wires across the whole robot with plastic split loom, a good way to ensure that wires stay covered, but still are partially accessible. We paid close attention to the process of wiring our robot, ensuring that this year it will be secure and strong enough to take hits from all sides during matches.
Thursday 1/23
What’s your IMPACT? – Medha G.
Though usually Thursdays are a day off, a lot was going on behind the scenes. Work started on an exciting project that takes place every year. Formerly called Chaiman’s, our media subteam started work on this year’s IMPACT video! The IMPACT video is a 3 minute video made to accompany your presentation. If you happen to win the award at the competition, that video will be played for everyone there, to inform them of the impact that you made on your community. Today, the media subteam put together a small group of kids to discuss ideas about the video, getting the creative juices flowing. Every kind of idea was thrown out- like a “The Office” style documentary, all the way to a talking animated crab. Although the meeting was only an hour, we were able to get started on the project, planning out our main points and our shots, Now, we are so excited to get to begin the filming and show our IMPACT to the world!
Saturday 1/25
Climbing the elevator of PROGRESS! – Rishi J.
Fresh off finals week, the Saturday open room was very eventful, and much progress was made. The team continued the elevator assembly and wiring the robot. The elevator was one of the most tightly packed assemblies we have ever made and therefore had some hiccups – as expected. After the tedious filing of tubes on Friday, another problem was brought to our attention as we started assembling the fourteen idler pulleys: we hadn’t manufactured all the parts. Furthermore, one of our 3D-printed nut holders had snapped – we had to make a new one. Due to sizing issues and various other problems, we had to make 5 separate prints! Even on the final print, we realized that the holes we had made were undersized. To fix this, we used a blowtorch to heat up and slightly melt the plastic – only making a few toasted marshmallows in the process. Nonetheless, we assembled most of the elevator and were on track to finish the elevator by Sunday.
Furthermore, the electrical team got all four swerve modules wired and in general a lot more of the wire management was decided upon. Electrical is a crucial part of the robot and it was critical that we got it right – we have lost matches due to faulty wiring in the past, so everyone was focused on making the wire as robust and effective as possible!
Sunday 1/26
Cookies! And also we love Paul – Ally L.
Sunday in the room was a day with many accomplishments. The elevator was completed after days of careful work! Hours of machining time, a week spent waiting for custom parts to arrive, and days of careful design all came together to a polished and complete elevator. This year, Talon’s engineering side has a motto of Space Grade Robot – also known as NASA or Nothing. The goal is to end any preventable failures through precise manufacturing and assembly and thorough testing. As a part of this, the elevator was CAD-ed with all of its fasteners and was reviewed in multiple design reviews by teams of professionals. All of its build was tracked in daily updates and a spreadsheet. On Sunday, we tested the elevator, and all of our effort was worth it. The elevator worked perfectly on the first try! Thank you to all who put so much time into this space-grade elevator.
Another accomplishment the team celebrated on Sunday was that as much electrical as possible was completed. We are proud of this as we also kept our space-grade motto for the electrical. We redid significant portions of the robot’s wiring to make sure it met our high standards. The electrical subteam also researched various solutions to route our wires (keeping them carefully in the correct place to prevent too much force on the delicate electronics) in meetings and implemented them over this weekend, making the robot’s electrical even better. Viki, who is committed to the electrical subteam, said “Paul has been such an enormous help with including all of us on the electrical process. Our wiring is super cool and I expect NASA or Nothing will be so proud.” Paul is the team’s Electrical Lead, leading our new subteam that replaced our old Manufacturing subteam. This subteam has changed names frequently throughout Talon’s history, as it was also previously called Fabrication, and Electrical and Pneumatics. Thank you to Paul, who worked hard even during CAD week to design all of the team’s electrical and carefully plan out the placement of electronic parts in the robot. So many people worked on making the electrical part of the robot as perfect as possible this weekend, and they all did a great job.
On a fun note, our Electrical mentor, Maddie, brought in cookies on Sunday. The team loved them quite a lot! Gabe, who is committed to the Scouting and Strategy subteam, said, “They were very tasty, especially considering they were gluten free. They were very tasty, and big cookies.” Brooke-Lynn, a freshman on the team, said “Very nice. Very cookie,” when asked if they were delicious. Thank you Maddie!
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